Carissa Hilliard, a 2012 graduate of the School of Communications and Elon's Honors program, presented her thesis research in a summit on the power of social media in healthcare at the Mayo Clinic.
The summit, held October 14-19 in Rochester, Minn., was the fourth sponsored by the Mayo Clinic’s Center for Social Media. The Center promotes the use of social media to extend the impact of the healthcare community to patients and providers.
Hilliard’s presentation, based on honors thesis findings, “Telemedicine and Oncology: A Study in the Effectiveness of Cancer Support through Social Media,” illustrated how Facebook was being leveraged by the nation’s top cancer treatment centers to provide education and extend support to patients around the world in communities where health care from our nation’s leading medical professionals is not as accessible. Hilliard found that interactions on Facebook often provided the same support cancer patients could find when visiting the clinic face-to-face, allowing patients to ask questions and receive answers and providing peer support one would find in the “waiting room” of a doctor’s office.
Hilliard ’12 now works as a public relations specialist with the North Carolina Hospital Association and recently launched the association’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube presence. You can follow her work at www.ncha.org.