What should have been an innocuous conversation between a CIO and CEO at a health IT conference turned into a bit of a \u00a0Twitterstorm over, well, Twitter.<\/p>\n
Mark Barner (@mark_barner<\/a>), CIO of Acension, spoke publicly at HIMSS16 with Michael Dell, Founder of Dell Computers, and said that he doesn’t care about patient complaints made on Twitter.<\/p>\n Covering the event was Neil Versel (@nversel<\/a>) of MedCityNews who live Tweeted the remark.<\/p>\n “[Barner] doesn\u2019t care about patients going on Twitter to complain about problems with such banalities as hospital food or parking at Ascension facilities,” said Versel in his aftermath article on MedCityNews<\/a>.<\/p>\n InboundMD\u00a0chimed in because we believe that marketing your medical practice on social media<\/a> is important:<\/p>\n .@nversel<\/a> @mark_barner<\/a> will when it starts to hit the bottom line. #patientsfirst<\/a> #HIMSS16<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 InboundMD (@InboundMD) March 1, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It’s possible that Barner is so in tune with his organization’s health analytics that he knows for a fact that Twitter complaints don’t have an affect on business and reputation management<\/a>.<\/p>\n Many HIMSS attendees and followers disagreed as Vesel explained, “Not one of my previous 6,900 tweets has been \u201cliked\u201d or retweeted as much as this one.”<\/p>\n Barner later offered this follow-up response:<\/p>\n All patient complaints matter, but as CIO I focus on tech complaints. Could\u2019ve done a better job of explaining myself. Lesson learned.<\/p>\n \u2014 Mark D Barner (@mark_barner) March 1, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So there you have it, social media is an important platform for patients and providers.<\/p>\n\n