Turning Twitter into a market research tool

In recent times, securities traders have started doing a very interesting thing: An outfit named StreamBase Systems--which makes software that processes securities transactions--has introduced a system plug-in that processes tweets in real-time.

The system, which analyzes market data using trading algorithms, can now take news and gossip from tweets and, where relevant, use that content to shape its conclusions. In short, Twitter streams have gone from a remote gossip source to an integral part of the trading firms' decisions.

So, why aren't providers doing the same thing? After all, while hospitals aren't as prone to making up-to-the moment decisions, they certainly need to find out what the buzz is in their market, scope out demand for services, explore what impact their competition is having and scope out complaints, at minimum.

While there's no guarantee consumers will be talking about your institution, you'll certainly learn something about what patients, employers, vendors, health plans and other key stakeholder groups are thinking. That kind of information is especially valuable while we're in the midst of cataclysmic changes to the healthcare system.

While I'm a health IT observer, not a systems architect, it seems to me that existing healthcare systems could be made to take on the task. Maybe you'd want to integrate tweets into existing patient satisfaction reports, or create abstracts by keywords, or feed a filtered tweet stream to key managers. If you use your imagination I'm betting you could think of dozens of other options.

If you're already doing this, I'd love to hear how it's working out for you. Otherwise, why not share your opinions on whether this approach would work for your institution? After all, Twitter is pretty much an unstoppable force by this point--so let's scope it out together. - Anne