We need to design networked systems that allow clinical care to be based on the knowledge and experience of many physician groups and not just the individual or even our single department. This is a complete mind-shift and requires a new infrastructure or environment for this to occur.

I’m sure the folks at Sermo would raise their collective hand right now and say, “That’s me!” Of course, Sermo is a third party with their financial motivations (on top of their obvious noble motivations to set up a network like this). It will be interesting to see if over time institutions develop their own internal social networks for sharing experiences and knowledge.

Medical departments need to begin to think of themselves as a team and the knowledge and experience of the group as far greater and more valuable than the knowledge and experience of any one individual. And we need to realize that the body of medical knowledge emerging from the distributed interaction of several physician groups is even more valuable. We need to design networked systems that allow clinical care to be based on the knowledge and experience of many physician groups and not just the individual or even our single department. This is a complete mind-shift and requires a new infrastructure or environment for this to occur. Technologies like blogs, wikis, social networking and social media are very important supporting elements of this environment, but they are only a small part of the entire new process. In the end, it will require our medical schools and teaching hospitals to train new physicians to think and work in this new environment. Sermo’s social networking environment and Paul Levy’s blog are great starts Рwe are moving in a good direction.