In a poll, participants in a forthcoming IHA conference on health literacy identified a fascinating list of issues to explore. I neither have all the answers nor can we cover all these issues in a 90 minute session but we can continue this interesting conversation beyond the conference via social media tools! For an overview of some of these issues, participants new to social media can review these resources.

• Orientation to social media tools
  • Social Media University Global [SMUG] http://social-media-university-global.org/ Note the 35 social media theses
  • Commoncraft videos http://www.commoncraft.com/videos#technology
  • Mashable Twitter Guide and FaceBook Guide
  • Physicians to follow on Twitter: http://delicious.com/druguseopt/twitter+physician.twitterlist

• For useful social media toolkits
  • AIDSgov http://aids.gov/using-new-media/ http://blog.aids.gov/new-media-toolkit.html
  • US Department of Health & Human Services Centre for New Media http://www.newmedia.hhs.gov/tools/
  • Centre for Disease Control resources http://www.cdc.gov/SocialMedia/Tools/
• How Americans search online for health information
  • E-Patients: How They Can Help Us Heal Healthcare  e-patient white paper
  • Pew Reports http://www.pewinternet.org/topics/Health.aspx
  • How America searches
  • Chou WS, Hunt YM, Beckjord EB, Moser RP, Hesse BW. Social Media Use in the United States: Implications for Health Communication J Med Internet Res 2009;11(4):e48 URL: http://www.jmir.org/2009/4/e48

• Planning tools
  • Forrester Social Technology Profile Tool http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html
  • Social media strategy map http://blog.aids.gov/new-media-strategy.html http://www.wearemedia.org/Social+Media+Strategy+Map+
  • Smart Chart www.smartchart.org/
  • Social media policies, guidelines and best practices
• Elearning
  • @gsiemen’s emerging technologies for learning @giustini’s course material for a framework for situating the discourse on social media technology as a learning platform
• Legal, regulatory and ethical concerns around social media and health
  • http://delicious.com/druguseopt/privacy
  • Social networking 101 for physicians
  • Practicing medicine in the age of FaceBook
  • Social media for state agencies tutorial http://www.records.ncdcr.gov/socialmedia/index.html
• Examples of social media use in health
  • Academic
    • Top Web 2.0 sites in medicine 2010
    • Medicine and web 2.o
  • Direct patient care [hospital...]
    • 10 hospital social media success stories
    • Best children’s hospital FaceBook pages
    • Hospital social network list
    • How FaceBook fan pages can connect with patients
    • Susan Giurleo, a psychotherapist
  • Public health
    • Texting for health sexual advice
    • CDC social media campaigns
  • Health literacy advocacy
    • http://www.healthliteracyoutloud.com/2010/04/
• Social media for non profits Wearemedia http://www.wearemedia.org/
• #hcsm [healthcare communication and social media] chat archive or better still participate in the weekly chat sessions
• Conference handout: Using social media to reach people with health information

This is of course representative not comprehensive. Please use the comment feature to  share your thoughts and suggest other resources.