You've hit a milestone! 500 of you now have joined the Arrhythmia Alliance HU community

[HealthUnlocked]

Congratulations for building a true Arrhythmia health movement in HealthUnlocked!

Whenever you write a post, ask a question or reply to someone, you are touching the lives of other people with Arrhythmia by spreading the benefit of shared, personal health experiences. And beyond that you have built a resource that will benefit people for years to come.

It's been wonderful to see the community thrive. Keep up the great, supportive network you started!

Feel free to comment below and let us know what you think about the achievement.

[cyrilbarnes]

There may be 500 members, but the community is hardly a success! 20 posts in the last 3months, 5 of which are unanswered, 5 with one reply (this one is one of them!), 7 with 2 replies and 3 with 5 replies. Admin should have someone watching the posts and answering the more technical questions that we as patients don’t know the answers to. Patients in trouble are being left high and dry because there is no expertise available within the community. If questions are repeatedly left unanswered is there any point in having the forum open at all?

Cyril.

p.s. the same goes for the SCA community – even higher percentage of unanswered questions there!

[Berlinerin in reply to cyrilbarnes]

Hi!

I agree with Cyril.

But I also do know how difficult it can be to manage a community like this. Tried to start a German forum several years ago, and it didn't work out well, because I didn't have the time to manage spam, promote the forum, answer questions etc. - this can be a full-time job, if you want to do it well!

Also, I think lots of people today rather sign up for a Facebook group that addresses their issues than checking into a forum like this regularly. Lots of people are on Facebook anyways, some are signed in there the whole day, so for them it's more convenient to join a group there. Might be worth a try to set up a FB group, something "AA patients group", and see if that works better than Health Unlocked.

At the moment, there's to my knowledge only one online forum that runs really well, and that's pacemakerclub.com. I cannot find any equivalent to this in Germany or the UK. But, of course, it has taken many years for pacemakerclub.com to get where it is now. I have seen it evolving since 2004, and members of that forum weren't always as numerous and active as they are now. So, maybe this group here just needs a little more time and patience

Keep up the great work, Arrhythmia Alliance!

[ArrhythmiaAlliance]

Thank you for your suggestions. We are currently looking at all the options to help patients access information and is interesting to learn more about your thoughts for a closed Facebook group. Sometimes it is very difficult to answer questions confidently online - you can reach our helpline on 01789 867 501 during weekdays to talk to a member of our trained Patient Services team. Thank you.