(NBC News) Front line healthcare workers are turning from textbooks to Facebook to learn the latest from colleagues across the globe as they work to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus.
Dr. Jessica McIntyre from Pediatric Hospitals in New Hampshire and her medical school colleagues created the popular Facebook group “COVID-19 Physicians and A.P.P.,” advanced practice providers, to try and help.
“We thought the group would have only a few hundred members, but within 48 hours it had 40,000 members,” Dr. McIntyre says.
It now has nearly 150,000 followers, all tuning in to read, watch and learn the latest tips and techniques from others treating COVID-19 patients.
Approved followers can see videos of nurses teaching others how to safely roll over a patient, or how to use a ventilator.
Dr. Bob Bollinger of Johns Hopkins says medicine is changing.
“I think it can be a very important tool, but it has to be leveraged in a way that it supports the other parts of medicine,” he notes.
