Introduction:
Social media and healthcare are a mighty combination. As many as ninety percent of adult population are using internet and social media to extract and share health related information (B. Tennant et al.,2015).This blog posting is mostly a summary of what I learned from reviewing different articles and organizational recommendations about the subject of social media in healthcare.
The benefits of social media in healthcare:
Many different digital tools are available to healthcare workers (HCW) and healthcare organizations to be present and have a voice online. Those tools are blogs, posts, social networking platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, media-sharing sites like YouTube or Vimeo, wikis, and many others. There are, no doubts, so many benefits of using internet and social media to raise awareness and communicate important information during crisis or pandemic. The best example is the present situation with Covid-19 disease. Most people are following WHO and government sources on updates and guidance. Other benefits are to use it for professional networking and education, patient support, and citizen engagement. Very popular benefit is the organizational promotions. Healthcare institutions, hospitals, professional associations, pharmaceutical companies and many others communicating with the community and patients; enhancing organizational visibility; marketing products and services; establishing a venue for acquiring news about activities, promotions, and fund-raising; providing a channel for patient resources and education; and providing customer service and support (Ventola, 2014). Some other great benefits are to use the social media for research recruitments, patient care and education, as well as public health programs.
The down side of using social media in healthcare:
Social media could also pose a danger to HCW and the population. One of the reasons is poor quality information. Often authors of medical information found on social media sites are unknown or are identified by limited information. In addition, the medical information may be unreferenced, incomplete, or informal. While evidence-based medicine de-emphasizes anecdotal reports, social media tend to emphasize them, relying on individual patient stories for collective medical knowledge (Ventola, 2014). Some other common issues are damage to professional image by posting of unprofessional content, negative comments about employer, colleagues, or patients. Breaches of patient privacy could not only damage the professional image, but also result in liabilities under federal and provincial laws. Violations of the patient-HCW boundaries, although not very common, but risky and problematic.
Guidelines for using social media in professional practice:
Many governmental and professional organizations created recommendations and guidelines regarding usage of social media. In my provincial Order of Nurses, I could not locate information specifically addressing social media, but I found the good resources with Canadian Medical Association, another great one is a Toolkit for Ontario Public Health Units, and Canadian Nurses Protective Society. To sum them all, when posting on social media they recommend to ensure content credibility, address legal and licensing concerns, satisfactory networking practices, respect of patient privacy, personal privacy settings, solid professional ethics, and proper self-identification (J. Davis et al., 2014).
Conclusion:
Certainly, when used wisely there are many benefits of social media usage for healthcare purposes, but when used recklessly and carelessly a lot of damage could be done. It is important to think twice before posting and to follow established guidelines.
References:
B. Tennant; M. Stellefson; V. Dodds; B. Chaney; D. Chaney; S. Paige; J. Alber. (2015). eHealth Literacy and Web 2.0 Health Information Seeking Behaviors Among Baby Boomers and Older Adults. Journal of medical internet research, 17-21.
J. Davis; M. Daliwal; L. Blankley; K. McColl; D. Mai; M. Williams; . (2014, February). Social media toolkit for ontario public health. Retrieved from Public health ontarion: https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/L/2014/ldcp-social-media-toolkit.pdf?la=en
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