I attended a webinar today entitled “Can Social Media Save Lives?”. This webinar was organized by the HealthWorks Collective. While a good portion of the agenda rehashed commonly used statistics about the use of social media in healthcare and the fact that there is still a lot of confusion about social media as a tool within a healthcare organization, I was particularly interested in the discussion led by Dr. Mark Ryan (@RichmondDoc), who works for the Department of Family Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center.
He started by pointing out that, prior to popular conception, “epatient” does not stand for “electronic patient”. Rather, “equipped, enabled, empowered, engaged” are the correct adjectives to describe this growing group of patients. These epatients use the internet and social media to educate themselves and others to enhance their health. Dr. Ryan also pointed out that these epatients are enhancing healthcare for providers as well. These patients are becoming involved in care. They are asking questions of providers, and they are collaborating in treatment. This is very much in line with the concepts spelled out in other efforts, such as patient-centered medical home (PCMH), accountable care (ACO), and participatory healthcare.
While an earlier speaker, who had spent time doing social media for Johnson & Johnson, advised listeners to create social media policies that reflect all laws and regulations and to train staff accordingly, Dr. Ryan rightly pointed out that there are no standards of use or official “best practices” for social media in healthcare. Even the guidelines published by the AMA are not very useful. The role of healthcare in social media is still developing, which causes much concern by the medical community. He also cautioned social media users on the importance of privacy (for both the patient and the provider). He stated that providers cannot practice medicine in a social media setting and advised that these social media platforms should be integrated with patient portals.
Here is a list of potential healthcare benefits from social media that Dr. Ryan highlighted:
- Changes the model for healthcare delivery (new platforms; patient portals)
- Allows doctors to answer general questions and be a resource to the community for general topics
- Helps patients find necessary resources
- Provides a platform for healthcare advocacy
- Becomes an importantsource for public health information that can be broadcast to a large mass quickly
- Creates disease specific reminders can be set up for disease management (e.g., text messages directly from doctors can improve adherence and patient satisfaction for diabetes patients)
- Connects social media into personal communication via a patient portal that will maximize social media’s potential
