Check out our hospital safety ‘tweets’ on Twitter

I finally stepped fully into 2009 and have begun sending updates via the Twitter social networking site. You can see for yourself at http://twitter.com/hospitalsafety.

For those unfamiliar with Twitter, at its core is the ability for users to post short, 140-character updates — known as “tweets” — about what they’re doing. You can keep track of other people’s tweets you’re interested in (i.e., folks you’re “following”) and also see who’s reading your tweets (i.e., who your “followers” are). You need to be registered with Twitter to follow someone’s tweets.

While in some ways Twitter comes across as “too much information,” it is a useful tool to bring news to you, rather than you having to search it out every day.

For example, this week I’ve tweeted about the risk of exposed sprinkler pipes and how hospital engineers can help their CEOs identify inefficiencies. Also, I’m sticking with the topic at hand, hospital safety and environment of care — you won’t see posts from me about the food I ate at lunch or what scenes I most enjoy from Glengarry Glen Ross.