Could a Facebook-for-healthcare-professionals take off?

The idea would be to allow healthcare professionals to network, communicate and share files such as presentations, and spreadsheets among each-other.

It seems to me this idea, suggested by Nicholas Carr for all industries, is a pretty good one. Social networks are far less awkward to use than email for sharing documents. Think of how easy it is to post pictures to a profile and let those who are interested in viewing them do so at their own convenience. So why not use a Facebook-like system in healthcare?

Bruce Friedman does not think it would take-off:

The reason that there will never be a Medical Facebook, in my opinion, is that most healthcare professionals don’t have the time or inclination to learn yet another application or create personal pages that detail what they are up to in their professional lives.

I’m afraid Bruce Friedman is missing the point of social networking. While kids no doubt spend too much time prettying up their pages and writing poetry in blog entries, the real value of social networking is that it enhances and simplifies the process of communicating and sharing files with a group using the internet. It’s like email2.0 if a cliche helps.

A healthcare-Facebook would be designed with minimal gadgetry so that it would be straightforward to use. I can imagine making such an application a lot simpler than your typical desktop email client. The user could put her contacts together into groups with which she could share files and have ongoing discussions. Each user’s profile need not consist of much more than what is on a business card, with optionally a single picture to help jog one’s memory of who the contact is (we are visual creatures after all).

I do not believe such a system would have to be hard to use or unnecessarily time-consuming. In fact I think the efficiency gained by all would make it an attractive way for healthcare professionals to communicate and indeed it could take off.