For those who aren’t familiar with the #HITsm hashtag on Twitter, it’s an extraordinary community of people that are passionate about healthcare IT. At the center of the #HITsm community is the weekly #HITsm Twitter chat which has happened every Friday for the past 6 years at Noon ET (9 AM PT). During the week, the #HITsm chat is still extremely active as those in the community share ideas, concepts, and have discussions about healthcare IT.
I did a quick report on Symplur for the #HITsm hashtag and it’s had over 4000 participants sharing 21,577 tweets and generating 154,799,908 impressions in just the last 3 months. Needless to say, it’s a vibrant and passionate community that’s focused on the challenges, problems, and opportunities in healthcare IT. It’s also been an extraordinary way to connect with other people passionate about the impact of technology on healthcare.
Over the past 6 years, Corepoint Health on their Health Standards blog (Use to be known as the HL7 Standards) has been the host of the #HITsm chat and community. However, starting this month, Healthcare Scene has taken over responsibility as host for the #HITsm chat. It’s an extraordinary opportunity and a challenging responsibility to continue the legacy of such an important community.
What many people that are newer to the #HITsm community probably don’t realize is that the #HITsm chat was the genius of Erica Johansen (Better known as @thegr8chalupa). While working at Corepoint Health, she had the great idea to create this healthcare IT community on Twitter. About 6 months later, Chad Johnson (@ochotex) took over the reigns and ran the #HITsm chat with help from a number of other people.
It’s too bad that so many new #HITsm members weren’t familiar with Erica and the great work she did cultivating the initial community. She brought a special energy to the community which is typified by the hashtag on her Twitter profile #alwaysbesparkly. I knew when we took over the #HITsm chat that I had to find a way to bring a little bit of Erica’s sparkle back to the community.
With that in mind, this week Erica will be hosting our weekly #HITsm chat on the topic of reputation management. Plus, she’ll be working with us to coordinate and facilitate hosts and topics as part of our team of #HITsm curators.
Healthcare Scene was also lucky enough to spend some time with Erica when she was attending a conference in Las Vegas. We capitalized on this opportunity by doing a video with Erica about the origins of #HITsm and where she’d like to see the #HITsm community go in the future. If you’ve enjoyed the #HITsm community or are new to #HITsm, you’ll enjoy this video interview with Erica:
Thank you Erica for creating this wonderful community and sharing the #HITsm story. We look forward to working with you to grow the #HITsm community going forward!
If you want to learn more, join the #HITsm Twitter chat every Friday.
