INTRODUCTION
Many social media gear are to be had for health care
specialists (HCPs), together with social networking platforms, blogs,
microblogs, wikis, media-sharing web sites, and virtual fact and gaming
environments.1–8 These tools may be used to enhance or decorate expert
networking and training, organizational promoting, patient care, patient
schooling, and public health packages.Three,5–10 However, additionally they present
capability risks to patients and HCPs regarding the distribution of
poor-first-rate facts, damage to professional photograph, breaches of patient
privacy, violation of personal–expert barriers, and licensing or criminal
issues.2–4,eight,10–17 Many health care institutions and expert agencies have
issued recommendations to prevent those dangers.3,4,7,10,17,18
WHAT ARE SOCIAL MEDIA?
The definition of “social media” is large and continuously
evolving. The time period typically refers to Internet-primarily based
equipment that allow people and groups to acquire and communicate; to
proportion records, ideas, private messages, pix, and other content; and, in
some instances, to collaborate with different users in real time.2–6 Social
media are also known as “Web 2.0” or “social networking.” five
Social media web sites provide an expansion of features that
serve exceptional functions for the person user.19 They may additionally
include blogs, social networks, video- and photo-sharing web sites, wikis, or a
myriad of other media, which may be grouped by way of purpose, serving features
including
Participation in social media through most of the people has
increased sharply over the last 9 years.Five,11 In the U.S., the proportion of
adults using social media has improved from eight% to 72% given that
2005.Five,eleven The use of social media is well-known across every age and
professions and is pervasive round the sector.2,eight In 2012, Facebook
customers surpassed one thousand million humans global, a variety of that
represents one-7th of the arena’s population.2,eight In addition, every day a
hundred million energetic Twitter customers send more than sixty five million
tweets, and billion movies are regarded
on YouTube.2 Social media were linked to especially substantial political
activities, which includes the Arab Spring revolution, in addition to to vast
societal developments, consisting of the shortening of people’ interest spans
and the decline of print information media.5
PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA BY HEALTH be concerned
PROFESSIONALS
Social media offer HCPs with tools to share data, to discuss
fitness care coverage and exercise problems, to promote health behaviors, to
engage with the general public, and to educate and have interaction with
patients, caregivers, college students, and colleagues.6,eleven,14,16 HCPs can
use social media to potentially improve fitness outcomes, broaden a expert
community, boom non-public cognizance of information and discoveries, encourage
sufferers, and provide fitness facts to the community
Physicians most often join on-line communities in which they
can read news articles, listen to professionals, studies scientific
developments, consult colleagues regarding affected person problems, and
community.9 There they can share instances and thoughts, talk exercise
management challenges, make referrals, disseminate their research, market their
practices, or interact in health advocacy.14,15 A developing minority of
physicians also uses social media to speak immediately with sufferers to
enhance medical care.
A survey of more than four,000 physicians conducted by the
social media website QuantiaMD observed that more than ninety% of physicians
use some shape of social media for private sports, whereas handiest 65% use
these websites for professional motives.9,14 Nearly a third of physicians have
mentioned participating in social networks.8 However, each personal and expert
use of social media through physicians is growing.
Unlike physicians, pharmacists have been rather slow to
adopt social media.1 Much of the growth inside the professional use of social
media amongst this institution seems to involve pharmacist-specific social
networks.1 Surveys have proven that many pharmacists use Facebook.1 Although
this use is most often for private communications, more than 90 pages on
Facebook are associated with the pharmacy career, together with the Pharmacists
Interest Page, the American Pharmacists Association, and the Cynical
Pharmacist.1 Only 10% of pharmacists use Twitter, and a search for “pharmacist”
on LinkedIn recognized 274,981 profiles.
SOCIAL MEDIA SITES FOR HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS
Social Networking Sites
As social networking has developed, medically centered
expert communities have been set up.14 These networks are frequently personal
and guarded from nonmembers, which includes the lay public and even
participants of different health professions.1 Funding resources for these web
sites range, with economic support often being provided through professional
associations, advertising and marketing or records income, research funding,
and pharmaceutical agencies.
Sermo is a “physician-best” social networking network that
verifies the credentials of latest contributors throughout registration.15
Physicians on behalf of 68 specialties in all 50 states gather in this site to
community, to talk about treatment options, and to query friends for
professional recommendation.15 As of April 2014, Sermo boasted a U.S. Club of
260,000 physicians, maximum of whom use pseudonyms for anonymity. Sermo is
composed basically of a big message board on which physicians create topics for
discussion. It additionally offers a rating gadget by using which medical
doctors rank posts at the web page on the basis of perceived credibility.
Doximity is a more recent “health practitioner-handiest”
social networking network that gives textual content and images which are
compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA),
which permits point-of-care statistics crowdsourcing. More than one hundred,000
physicians and students have been individuals. Doximity makes use of a national
database to create “placeholder” debts with demographic and call records for
all U.S. Physicians. Therefore, although only 12% of U.S. Physicians are
energetic individuals of Doximity, nearly a hundred% may be messaged thru the
network.
The Medical Directors Forum
(www.Medicaldirectorsforum.Skipta.Com) is a social networking site for clinical
administrators that provides a demonstrated, cozy, closed-loop surroundings for
peer-to-peer interplay. The sources on this web site consist of a comprehensive
library, discussion organizations, calendar postings, and indicators. The
website online also provides devoted group pages for scientific directors
working in a extensive variety of sectors, such as: clinic, veterans affairs,
Medicare, organization practice, organisation, behavioral health, controlled
care, correctional facility, and lengthy-time period care.
Other health practitioner networking websites encompass
QuantiaMD (www.Quantiamd.Com), Doctors’ Hangout (www.Doctorshangout.Com), and
Doc2Doc (doc2doc.Bmj.Com). Many of these websites require docs to publish their
credentials to a site gatekeeper, recreating the intimacy of a “physicians’
living room” in an internet surroundings.
The nonprofit Student Doctor Network is a popular social
network site for undergraduate and working towards physicians, dentists, in
addition to veterinarians in the U.S. And Canada.5 It claims more than 40,000
active members and 1.Five million unique month-to-month visitors.Five The
boards on Student Doctor Network consciousness on medical career topics, do not
assist specified consumer profiles or “friending,” and encourage
