Is there a 'first' or 'best' healthcare social networking site–and does it even matter?

October 19, 2009
By Neil Versel
fiercehealthit.com

I always cast a skeptical eye toward any claim of being the “first,” “only,” “best” or “market leader” without proof to back it up, but I have to say; I’m intrigued by a new site billed as the first “to allow members of the healthcare industry to collaborate and exchange views on either industry-wide issues or in topical niches.”

Yeah, there are lots of professionally focused social networking sites out there, including many for clinicians such as Sermo, Ozmosis and the multidisciplinary TogetherMD; and some, like MedHelp, that connect doctors to patients for general health advice. The latest site, TheMedicalStop.com, seems to do many of the same things, providing places for collaboration, information sharing, blogging, event management and just social networking. Unique? I have no idea.

I’m sure there are several healthcare social networking sites I forgot to mention, and for that matter, lots of people in healthcare use LinkedIn and even Facebook and Twitter for professional networking. Since you all seem to like lists--as evidenced by the great traffic to our slideshow of free BlackBerry apps for healthcare that appeared in FierceMobileHealthcare last week – I’m going to conduct a little networking experiment of my own right now.

What are your favorite healthcare social networking sites? How do you use them? What makes them better than more general sites like LinkedIn or Facebook? Or is Facebook good enough? If I get enough responses, I’ll publish them in the near future.