Since the emergence of social media in 2004, its significance in healthcare is quite evident. It has continuously seen a growing percentage of patients and health practitioners who use it for health-related reasons (Smailhodziz et al., 2016) . The available mobile and computer applications form an integral part of life today. With internet, people can research symptoms, medications and their effect and nearby doctors. More healthcare information such as experiences with certain illnesses, doctor’s reviews and opinions on different treatments. It also provides a platform to ask for advice and information without having to see a physician face to face. Broadly, it enable patients to acquire medical advices, emotional support and counselling at their comfort. For providers, social media has enable them to gather clientele through advertisement and marketing, broadened their knowledge through access of tons of health related information on the internet and enabled them to carry out virtual sensitizations, trainings etc. it is imperative to that despite the available challenges that come with it, social media has significantly transformed healthcare practices from its traditional form.
Impact of Social Media on Patient-Provider Relationships
Social media affects the patient-provider relationship in that it facilitates communication beyond the traditional face-to-face setting. It allows for a mode of communication with less anxiety and tension, facilitates a consistent monitoring and also provides access to providers (Smailhodziz et al., 2016). Also, patients use the social media to find and rate providers as well as post reviews based on their interactions. Because patients and providers both use social media for different reasons, there is likely to be a discrepancy in their reasoning. In most instances, patients gather information regarding their symptoms on the social media and, they usually already expect a certain outcome from the physician.in such a case, a patient is likely is to fill unsatisfied in the event different results are obtained (Smailhodziz et al., 2016).
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In provider-patient relationship, there are factors that influence the physician’s willingness to use social media for interaction with the patients. The factors such as benefits, risks and cost are dependent on the type of information in exchange such as treatment plan, diagnostic results etc. Since confidentiality and privacy of a patient detail is regarded with high esteem, providers may risk damaging their practices and reputations on event of confidentiality breach. These evaluations limit utilization of social media by providers as the process depends on its risks and benefits (Dantu et al., 2014).
Additionally, there is a thin line between professionalism and personal space once the doctor and patient start being friends in the social media platforms. The two are privy to each other’s personal information that is likely to be misappropriated. For instance, if a patient sees a doctor with a glass of beer or smoking, it gives an impression that the doctor is alcoholic and cannot in any capacity convince the patient otherwise. This has an impact of violating professionalism.
Impact of Social Media on Patient Engagement
The question of how to increase clientele while making sure you maintain the existing one by the physicians is best answered by having a patient engagement strategy and tool. With inevitable use of social media, patient engagement has dramatically improved. The benefits of social media can be largely felt because it has simplified activities such as educating the caregivers, educating patients and monitoring them at their comfort. It has improved the consumer intake process, increased attendance, care completion, referrals and long term networks. All this is because, patients no longer have to make trips to the hospitals which at times is very discouraging.
Moreover, use of social media has helped improve outcomes and drive desired actions because it enables the provider to engage the patients continuously over time. This is done by forwarding messages and information and content that is relevant to their situation. However, this requires that the provider is mindful of their audience so that they identify what resonates with them to keep them in the clients’ lifecycle. Even a greater benefit is that a patient can freely reach the provider away from the confines of the office without fear of prejudice (Mccarroll et al., 2013). It has offered emotional confidence. However, due to busy schedules and high dependence on social media, patients who fail to attend physical appointments are likely to create a series of issues for themselves, their providers and the health care system. Failing to show up can affect the quality of care, productivity and the treatment/ therapy outcomes (Anderson & Speed, 2010).
Implications of Providers Obtaining Medical Information from Social Media Sites
While social media sites provide tons of information regarding certain illnesses and also clients, it is paramount to distinguish the useful one from the general verbatim (Griffiths et al., 2015). It is important to note that social media especially through detailed researches about illnesses provide insights to providers as well as broaden their knowledge. However, the information attained is likely to be of harm if general conclusions are made over a patient who bears similar symptoms minus appropriate tests (Yoo & Bock, 2014). Such information is likely to lead to misdiagnosis and improper treatment schedules. Also, providers who obtain medical information regarding a patient from the social site are subject to a grievous mistake because health conditions change and it is only right to have as current information as possible. The implication of social media use by providers is the likely generalization of scenarios and conditions based on internet information other than actual tests.
Possible Use of Social Media in Hospital Outreach to Populations
Despite the challenges associated with social media, there are manifold of ways the hospitals can use to reach populations, especially for sensitization purposes. Owing to the vast global connections, hospitals can use social media as communication platform to engage larger communities, drive targeted awareness, improve provider-patient awareness, promote patient motivation and ultimately improve health systems among communities (Smith & Denali, 2014). In addition, hospitals can also use social media to contribute in researches on health issues that affect certain populations. This is possible through various online medical related registries. In this manner, practitioners are able to meet needs of marginalized populations that are not within their reach (George et al., 2013).
The other possible use of social media by hospitals outreach is to compare and improve quality of their services to reach a more specific population. This involves spending time to evaluate competitors or practitioners handling specific cases so as to get oversight of the services and their general client satisfaction (University of Scranton, n.d.). By looking at different practices, the providers are able to mimic them and thus improve their won. To get feedback and thus improve on quality, social media engagement will enable them get various feedbacks, referrals and a general consensus on a new practice in the industry. Using these feedbacks, the providers are able to evaluate possibilities of reaching an additional clientele in the industry (University of Scranton, n.d.).
Role of Government in the Use of Social Media in Healthcare
One of the greatest concerns of social media use in healthcare is the obligation to keep strict confidentiality and privacy on patient’s health information. This concern ought to be taken into keen considerations with by the government through written statutes. As such, government’s main role should is to develop strategies that govern professionalism on the social media platform (Evariant, 2015). Such strategies would centre on ensuring that content bearing a patient’s information is not exposed and that ethical requirements are seriously adhered to. Also, the government should make sure that organizations that share healthcare information on social platforms have developed simple measures to remain secure while ultimately safeguarding health care institutions against security breaches (Rusell, 2017).
Conclusion
Use of social media in recent years has skyrocketed because of the because of the widespread of mobile applications and an increasing desire of providers and patients to connect with each other. The implication is that there has been enormous interactions of physicians and patients engagement outside office, availability of tons of information regarding certain illnesses, improved patient engagement amidst many challenges such as breach of confidentiality of the patient’s information, misdiagnosis among others (Ventola, 2014). While social media provides many opportunities for hospitals to reach populations, there is need for governments to set procedures and guidelines to effectively manage these channels to prevent the dangers it attracts.
References
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