Today as I lay squirming (just a little) on the table of my acupuncturist thinking about what we talked about before my treatment I let my mind wander a little to the topic of ‘how I’d use Twitter if I was an Acupuncturist’ (I had to take my mind off the needles sticking out of my legs somehow!).
Actually my acupuncturist Anthony Olsen IS using Twitter (but more connected to his Joomla Template membership site) but what I was thinking about as I lay on his table today was more about how an acupuncturist (or really any person with clients) could potentially use Twitter.
Here’s what came to mind.
Every time I go to see Anthony the session starts with some Question and Answer time. It usually covers a few topics like:
- Have you had any headaches (I go for migraine treatment)?
- How has your diet been?
- Have you been exercising?
- Have you been drinking enough water?
- How have you slept?
- Are you stressed?
- Can I see your tongue? (who knew that the color of your tongue could say so much!)
The answers to these questions help lead to diagnosis and treatment. The only problem is…. that I often can’t remember how I was over the last 3-4 weeks since I last saw him. I did try to keep a food diary for a while to record my eating – but…. well I kept misplacing it.
Actually today when I told Anthony that I’d not had any headaches for a few weeks since we last had an appointment he said ‘but I saw you had one on Twitter two weeks ago’….
This is where Twitter could come into it as a useful tool in seeing patients.
If I were an acupuncturist treating me (or you…. or anyone else with a technological bone in their body and access to the web via a phone) I’d set me up a private Twitter account. It would be password protected and only able to be seen by the two of us. I’d then ask them to tweet their day including:
When they slept, what they ate and drank, when they had symptoms relevant to their health issues, when they exercised, when they felt stressed, how they were feeling etc. If they had a camera on their phone they could even take pictures of their tongue for that matter!
That way at the end of the week they’d have some great data on the week (or month) that had just been and be in a much better position to diagnose and treat problems. I think that this would be a great way of observing patterns and potential causes of issues.
Of course this would only work if the person was reasonably tech savvy and had access to Twitter during the day and was committed to the task – but if they did it could be quite illuminating. I think it’d be particularly useful in short bursts, perhaps particularly at the start of seeing a new patient/client and trying to establish what their lifestyle was like.
Add to this the ability for the Acupuncturist to give feedback and observations between appointments (‘Darren you’ve eaten 7 big macs and slept for no longer than 97 minutes per day for the last 4 days) and there is potential there for ‘treatment’ and consulting between physical appointments.
Of course this could be adapted to many professions (almost any with a professional client interaction – particularly those when the client is diarizing or monitoring some aspect of their activity) including:
- Personal Trainers – monitoring diet and exercise
- Dietitians – monitoring meals
- Doctors – monitoring symptoms, medication, diet etc
- Accountants – monitoring expenditure (actually I should set my wife up with this….)
- Interior Designers – take a picture and Twitpic it every time you see a color, picture, style you like
What do you think? What professions could use Twitter in this type of way? Where have you already seen it used in these ways?
@josephgelb
Probably people who need clients and work in society more.
@cbedon
For some of the professon, I agree that this will work for, but some do require that face to face interaction. Some people are even iffy on posting things on their life on the web, due to “security” issues.
@seoseb
Real estate agents could use Twitter to update their clients of the latest houses for sale. Car salesmen could update the latest cars for sale on twitter.
The use for twitter is endless.
One important thing you mentioned above Darren is setting up a private Twitter account if you are sharing personal info. You don’t want to let the whole world know about your medical symptoms. lol.
@wowie
I can’t believe you were able to think like this, during a session. The only thing I am able to do during an acupuncture session, is feel my qi move around.
I think its a great idea, for people with clients. I had thought about setting up something similar with my guitar students….kind of like having a bit of extra access to me. It will have to be on hold for now.
I am going to pass this post along to my acupuncturist. He is very shy about social media though. He cringes at the word “facebook”.
@alex_ion
That’s a great article for those that are thinking of using Twitter as a way of doing business.
As for where I would see it used for … maybe schools?
@NateDesmond
What a great idea! It is amazing what you can do with a little thought.
Thanks,
Nate
@mattschulte
This article is actually a great argument contra the “twitter is full of meaningless posts about minutea”
All those “meaningless” tweets are actually points of data from which meaning ‘could’ be extracted…
Nice idea – the only thing is, if the acupuncturist, doctor, etc was doing this for every client or patient, wouldn’t it effectively triple their workload?
The biggest problem I see facing people who sell their skills for time is not how to get more business, but how to build the business without eating into sleep and family time. Take a chiropractor I know – everyone loves him and you have to book way in advance to get a slot. He tried to hire other chiropractors to help him, but to make a profit on it and not charge more, inevitably these had to be less experienced people. So of course no-one wanted the new guy, only the person they knew and trusted. So that didn’t work out and he ended up opening his practice at weekends to fit in all his customers – all without a shred of marketing. Had a heart attack in the end.
So how could Twitter help alleviate that problem?
@dj_marz
Perhaps an acupuncturist could give a short individual hashtag to his/her clients to use when they twitter on their private account, so that the practitioner could sort data sent by each person. Unsure if hashtags are searchable for private accounts, I would think you could search them if you were following them.
I’m studying to be an acupuncturist now, so this blog was appealing to me.
@nepal
As for me from the day I’d used twitter, I’ve definitely come a long long way. Today, I use twitter to get to know the latest events and news about anything. But anything means the subject of my interest. I also use it to spread my message around too.
@pogopuschel
If I were an acupuncturist I would set up a local twitter search about certain health symptoms and try to find new clients that way. How cool would it be to be contacted by an acupuncturist that’s 10min away from on Twitter saying that he can fix your problem?
I would also consider offering coupons/discounts on twitter. Maybe I would set up and acupuncture-on-the-go truck and tweet my current location, haha. Wow, I should learn acupuncture and start working on that =)
Back to your post: I don’t quite see the difference between tweeting one’s day and keeping a log/journal that you can bring to the next session. Of course, if you’re using twitter anyway, tweeting will be much more convenient
@jcolier
THAT is a great idea, and a keen observation on your part! I am going to pass this on to my father, who is both a Doctor and an acupuncturist. I could use this technique as a machine designer, where my end customer could tweet me to tell me how the machine is running, process monitoring, etc. I wonder if I could set the machine controls up as a web server and automatically send tweets out with manufacturing data…
@hectorhenry17
I understand this only show how useful and easy to use its twitter for all sort of factories and companies. The real fact its that if they know to use it apropiert ly that make the diferents between all of the rest.
Than you for the pots.
@MRHYPERPCS
We have managed to use it effectively with regard to design build of various types of computer systems and or networking equipment. Contacts made through Twitter can effectively contact us via Twitter or a link on our bio page, make an introduction and communicate via dm or through our site. We can establish their needs, budget and make suggestions concerning brands and provide a final product all based on dialogue that can be seamless from within Twitter.
How do you keep up with all of this?! I’m showing buyers homes, taking pictures of new homes I have listed for sale, organizing professionals and the hundreds of hours of other duties it takes to get to the closing table including getting homes ready to market and also blogging I don’t have time for sleep and exercise. I haven’t even had time to Twitter yet!
I am an acupuncturist and a lot of what I see is people who spend too much time on computers. I am trying to decide if I want to encourage this type of behavior or get people to go out and exercise instead. Get fresh air and feel the elements. I am still open to checking it out…..
@JefferyBayliss
Nah…I think email and IM would be more appropriate. Twitter has it’s place, and other forms of online communication have theirs. No offense, but being new to Twitter, I think too many of you have this kind of strange “Twitter Fascination” that sees everything as having Twitter potential.
If your Doctor, Acupuncturist, Account wants daily information from you like that, why would you want to use Twitter over email, IM, or your phone (text or voice)?
Other than for experimentation, It doesn’t really make sense to do that for health related issues or for sensitive financial issues IMO.