Twitter gives play-by-play account of patient in OR

Posted: Sept. 6, 2009
Tweets on the cutting edge
Twitter gives play-by-play account of patient in OR

BY MICHAEL J. CRUMB
ASSOCIATED PRESS

From anesthesia to the recovery room, 70-year-old Monna Cleary's children followed her surgery -- 140 characters or less at a time.

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Twitter is opening doors to the sterile confines of operating rooms, paving the way for families -- and anyone else for that matter -- to follow a patient's progress as they go under the knife.

St. Luke's Hospital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where Cleary had her surgery, isn't the only one to use the social networking Web site to relay news of surgeries. At Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, officials have tweeted about several surgeries since January. And in Dallas, at Children's Medical Center, news of a father-son kidney donation was put on Twitter in May.

Dian Luffman, a spokeswoman with Change:healthcare, a business that helps clients save money on procedures, said hospitals using Twitter during surgery is a sign that it's entering the mainstream, especially among the 20- and 30-year-old crowd.

"I think hospitals are trying to build relationships," she said.

Most of the Cleary family chose to track the developments from a laptop computer in the hospital's waiting room. But one daughter-in-law kept tabs from work.

"It's real-time information instead of sitting and not knowing in the waiting room," said Cleary's son Joe, hours after his mother's surgery last week.

"It made the time go by," said Joe Cleary, who was joined by a brother, two sisters and a sister-in-law at the hospital. "We all feel it was a positive experience."

His mother, who underwent a hysterectomy and uterine prolapse surgery, had given her OK for hospital spokeswoman Sarah Corizzo to post a play-by-play of the operation on Twitter, a site that lets users send out snippets of information up to 140 characters long using cell phones or computers.

Corizzo sent more than 300 tweets over more than three hours from a computer just outside the operating room's sterile field. Nearly 700 people followed them. Eight tweeted questions to Corizzo about the procedure.

The primary goal of the Twitter posts was education, Corizzo said, but it had the added benefit of keeping the family informed during surgery. It also helps raise the profile of the hospital.

The idea to follow the surgery on Twitter at St. Luke's evolved after a similar surgery was Webcast several months ago.

"A lot of people would like to go into the operating room and see what happens but don't want all the visuals and stuff," said Laura Rainey, another hospital spokeswoman. "This is a more gentle way to help inform patients and consumers."

While Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit has tweeted during several surgeries, neither the Cedar Rapids hospital nor the one in Dallas have immediate plans to do it again. Officials at both hospitals said they would be open to the possibility.

In Cleary's case, her surgeon, Dr. Jerry Rozeboom, said he asked her to participate because she is "a patient who I thought was open to helping other people learn about new technology and maybe helping other women in her situation."

Before the surgery, Rozeboom said no restrictions would be placed on what could be included, but he made it clear that if it became a distraction or a complication arose, the tweeting would stop.

In her tweets, Corizzo detailed the robotic equipment used for the surgery and included photos that showed Rozeboom at the control panel of the equipment and an internal image showing stitches being put in place.

She also tweeted about the causes and symptoms of the condition that led to Cleary's surgery.

Once the procedure was done, Corizzo sent a final tweet to Cleary's family.

"She's doing great. She'll see you soon."

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