Mark Trahant is a Kaiser Media Fellow examining the Indian Health Service and its relevance to the national health care reform debate. He is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Comment here.

How does a health care agency listen to patient complaints in the era of social media? Well, the easiest thing to do is to ignore complaints or to explain them away. The best practice: Treat complaints as critical nuggets of information.

Let’s start with a bit of context. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Indian Health Service have an extensive process for tribal consultation. There is a formula for listening to tribal leaders about its operation, priorities and budgets. There’s also an open line for internal IHS reform. The IHS collects data about best practices, ranging from treatments for cardiovascular disease to partnerships with traditional healers. This is a simple, but important, way to share ideas about programs or treatments that work.

So the context is that the Indian Health Service has an extensive practice collecting information – complaints – from tribal and community leaders. In general the Indian Health Service does a better job of listening to its constituents than most health care agencies. But that system was designed for another time.

So back to the question: How does a health agency listen to patient complaints in the era of social media? Each unit, clinic or hospital has a formal process, but most complaints aren’t filed, they are spoken between family members or said in the waiting room? How does a modern health care agency learn from those?

This is where the new world of social media kicks in. Patients are contributing thousands of bits of information on Facebook in a group called, “I just spent 6 hours at IHS just for them to give me Tylenol.”

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Tags: buffalo post, Facebook, Gwen Florio, Health care reform, Indian Health Service, Mark Trahant, Navajo Nation, Twitter

This blog sure seems to be spending a lot of time on Hollywood lately. But thanks to “New Moon,” the sequel to the through-the-roof popular “Twilight” teen vampire movie, that’s where we are.

A quick recap: A recurring theme in the “Twilight” books by Stephenie Meyer focuses on the Quileute Tribe in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. When the movies were made, producers chose Native actors for the part – many of whom are now enjoying the kind of name recognition that makes a career.

Count Gil Birmingham, who is Comanche, in that group, according to this Examiner.com story.

Not only is he a “Twlight”/“New Moon” star (he plays Billy Black), but he’s a total Twitter phenom, too, with more than 70,000 followers.

He tells Examiner.com’s Twitter Entertainment Examiner that “People all over the world are fascinated with the Native American way of life, but they think we dress in traditional regalia and chant all the time, lol. We don’t. .. I believe in the oneness of human beings, and that all are connected.”

Want more? Follow him on Twitter here.

Gwen Florio

Tags: "New Moon", "Twlight", buffalo post, Comanche, Gil Birmingham, Native American news, Quileute Nation, Stephenie Meyer, Twitter