How is Healthcare utilizing Social Media?

I am ending my blog for now with Tony. Thinking about how social media has impacted Healthcare, take a step back- how has social media effected your healthcare. How can you use social media to communicate about your health, do you? This article speaks to a man by the name of Tony. He has Locked-In Syndrome; and placed his fight of promoting his wishes to have the “right to die”to be approved via social media. Tony had suffered a stroke while on vacation, while doctors were able to save his life, the event left him completely paralyzed. Tony is only able to communicate thru small head movements and blinking his eyes. He was able with the use of a specially designed computer, to be able to use social media to engage in debates over his healthcare wishes. After his first tweet he quickly gained over 14,000 followers. This is 14,000 followers that will now have knowledge of his condition. That is powerful use of how Healthcare and social media are combining as we move into the future. I wonder how many of those 14,000 followers were medical professionals, celebrities, just the average Joe- but honestly does it matter? We are all on social media together- can we use social media going into the future to enhance our healthcare? I feel like there is a huge potential for us to all come together. Doctors helping doctors. Doctors and nurses helping each other. Medical professionals helping patients. Neighbors helping neighbors, spread across the globe as one human race. 

One aspect I haven’t touched in my blog is regarding the current healthcare debates, but within social media patients can find an avenue to ask for financial help. The help they can obtain financially can most certainly impact their access to costly healthcare treatments. A huge part of healthcare is cost. Cost is a big problem with patients being able to afford their healthcare. Social media is free, so lets the combine all together and we have a new wave of social media called Crowdfunding. There are multiple sites for crowdfunding on social medial including GoFundMe and YouCaring to name a few. This article discusses more on the topic of generating donations from your friends to meet their urgent healthcare needs, and the potential of profits for the companies. Article does go on to discuss some “fatigue” around crowdfunding efforts. The more requests you have the less likely you have to continue donating higher amounts. It is amazing how fast you can get coverage with a healthcare fundraiser when sharing on social media, can you think of other ways that you could ask strangers to help you with your healthcare cost? #gofundme #372t #comm372t

Let’s talk a moment about when celebrities talk health care issues, are they more effective then perhaps public health awareness campaigns? This article explains more. For example this article describes a research studies to look further into the Jolie effect. Angelina Jolie, a famous actress, published an essay in the New York Times on her decision to get a double mastectomy. This explains how when Angelina Jolie shared an article, it lead to an additional 4, 500 genetic test being performed at a cost of over $13.5 million dollars. In Angelina Jolie’s article she provided information on a genetic test that is available to see if you carry a highly susceptible chance for breast or ovarian cancer. This article describes the need for those that got the test as possible overuse of not medically necessary medical cost, and the results of a possible false sense of security for those that did get the test. #jolieeffect #celebrityhealthcare #comm372t #372t

Continuing on from the last post, this article is an interview with a physician that discusses his use of social media with patients. The physician discusses social media a tool for educating patients, communicating with other physicians by sharing and learning of new information. This doctor describes the benefit of also being on social media with the patient by knowing what they are doing, and having an open means of communication. This physician also makes mention of Facebook support groups and what they can do as physician’s to better support the patients’ needs and questions.

Some doctors are embracing more of the potential of social media. As we have discussed in prior post how social media is making a bigger footprint in health care, is social media now part of the doctor’s job description? Should doctors be embracing social media for health advice to share with their patients? What is faster for the doctor- sending a message or blog, or taking time to call the patient and talk with them 1:1? A doctor in this article describes how a patient asked her for medical advice, weaning a child from a pacifier. The doctor in returned, sent her a blog with information. While sending information electronically does not replace a doctor’s visit, it does open the question into topic of sending information as medical advice if it comes from your doctor, and should there be a charge for sending electronic information in various forms of email, tweets, or blogs. Pointed out in this article was the recommendation from the American Medical Association acknowledging benefits of social media, but also with a warning to protect patient privacy and “maintain appropriate boundaries” with patients. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spread information for the public health on social media including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and text messaging that includes automated health tips and also time of live chats. With the CDC use of social media, they are also using for disease surveillance. This article note of a case of finding the source for when a patient first started posting symptom’s to find the source of when get got sick from a whirlpool hot tub.  

As we recently discussed flu shots, how about other preventative care like about obtaining a Colonoscopy. When you see information about preventive care like flu shots and Colonoscopy does it trigger you to call and make an appointment with your healthcare provider? News came out today from the American Cancer Society about new recommendations for the ages of receiving a Colonoscopy. When you people see these news articles on social media, would you be more likely to call you doctor for an appointment or discuss on your next visit? 

Not only can social media be used to track illness, sharing health information- but social media could be used as a tool to ask for help. This man in a medical need, turned to social media to help. This article explains his feelings as he made the initial post to ask for help. What drew me to this article is that he did not want to ask for help, states he was brought up not to ask for help. But he did ask for help on social media and it was shared multiple times. Social media for him was a route to ask for a necessary medical procedure for his health.

What could your doctor be doing on social media while caring for you? I was thinking of adding to our discussion about social media, about the effects of online reviews of doctors. How online reviews of doctors could influence your decision on where you go for healthcare. How about when trending videos like this are shared on social media- does it affect your trust level in general with doctors? This video has came up in my feed more then once between my Facebook and Twitter feeds. These clips of the “Dancing doctor” seem to have went viral, and not just her behavior but the long term consequences of the patients that were under her care. Are these videos on social media of healthcare professionals behaviors influencing the trust level of patients? What are your thoughts of medical professionals posting to YouTube during a procedure?

Information about flu season is often a common topic on social media. Does what you see on your friends post either promoting or refusing the vaccine influence you? How about if you see articles like this trending in social media? This child went from being a normal little girl, to dying from the flu in 9 days. When we read about these stories of having the “deadliest” flu season on record for children, what are your thoughts on children taking the flu shot? This article describes the situation relating to her death, and the reports of the flu season this year. It also provides information on the collection of data reported by the CDC and issues related to the effectiveness of the flu vaccine. 

With patients and healthcare professionals alike having social networking, like Facebook- should we connect as friends? As a nurse I have had current and past patients reach out and send me a friend request, and was a little uneasy about this whole idea. Have you thought of send a “friend” request to your doctor? Do you think your doctor would send you a “friend” request? From reading this article currently it is the patient that is wanting to connect, but not yet the doctor. This article discusses where lines should be drawn between professional relationships and casual friend relationships. Privacy is also a big concern as noted in this article that HIPAA was written well before the popularity of sending electronic messages or emails to your doctor, so now that we are in the age of technology should we be going back and taking a look at our HIPAA guidelines and make a specific rule in regards when it comes to networking on social media? 

Another aspect of social media is network apps, yep your doctor very well may have this app. They say a picture can say a thousand words, and in this article there are stunning photos of real patients from real doctors being shared on an app. Doctors have an app they can use to share anonymous pictures of real life patients, in the goal of  asking for advice and networking with other doctors on the apps for insight. This article describes how patient privacy was addressed and that while anyone can download the app only doctors can share information. The patients must also sign an agreement for the photo to be shared in the app. Would you be okay with the doctor sending on a photo of you to get feedback from other doctors? #372T #comm372T

When we read post and headline news, does it affect our health. Do headlines cause necessary awareness or panic? This headline grabbed my attention of a warning of a global epidemic. The article states that there is a very serious disease spreading in India caused by a bat virus and then has potential to spread thru human-human contact. Thinking about how fast this news can spread across social and news channels just as fast as it could spread person to person by disease. Health officials in the article were able to share information on the disease, and advice of how to avoid the disease, not limited to avoiding eating fallen fruit or fruit with bite marks. 

Tracking social media very well could potentially lead to a diagnosis- should there be a charge for that? Could there be such a charge? Take a moment to go through your search history. Is your search history telling you, or your healthcare professional some insights on your health? Or possible signs and symptoms of disease? #comm372T #372T

We have discussed how social media can track our post as patients or potential patients with signs and symptoms of health conditions. How could physicians take this a step further and help to connect with the patient? This article describes about just how more involvement with doctors using social media more. Have you ever checked out your hospital or doctors office on social media? Do you feel more connected to your healthcare provider if you have access and can “follow” them on social media? #comm372T #372T

Clearly with obtaining of information from social media post, and concerns over privacy a huge debate is starting to form in the Healthcare/ Social media world. How can we use this for good in healthcare and in social media? When I started my nursing career I would have never dreamed how easy it could be to spread information so fast on the internet. I can’t help but to think of how many people have access to internet and social media but do not have access to healthcare as readily. How can we bridge the divide to accurate healthcare information? This article describes how Healthcare is utilizing social media.

Since we now now that our information is being tracked- how does that make you feel about your right to privacy? Do you trust the social media sites to protect your information? In this research study it shows the growth of social media and the mixed feelings of privacy concerns as more content is being shared with and perhaps without our permission.