The Business of Social Media in Healthcare

Social media is about sharing information with a group of like-minded individuals with similar interests. It is rapidly becoming the major media of tomorrow.

We engage each other with social media – the telephone, texting, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs – so there’s no surprise that it is used in healthcare as well.

Healthcare lags in social media when compared to other sectors– perhaps because it is a more conservative discipline and has a privacy issue. Patients are already using social media, and social media in healthcare can make a difference with patients.

Patients use social media to communicate with family and friends regarding health issues and – to a lesser degree – with their healthcare providers. They join information exchanges about their diseases. They develop virtual support groups to learn how others handle, for example, planning for a kidney transplant. Patients also use social media to rate their doctors and hospitals. The old adage that a happy customer will tell someone, but an unhappy one will tell ten others, is magnified dramatically with social media.

Increasingly patients expect their physicians, nurse practitioners and other providers to communicate digitally. This can save a visit to the office or prevent a trip to the ER. Many patients have created blogs for telling others about coping with cancer such as Riding the Cancer Coaster: Survival Guide for Teens.

Social media can help to level the information playing field. A video can help prepare all the patients scheduled for a knee replacement next week, augmented by direct communication for any patient-specific details.

The time saved by the provider is substantial; the knowledge gained by the patient is greater; and the information is there to be reviewed as often as needed. The end product is a more satisfied patient who, because he or she is more knowledgeable, will be a “better” patient – better able to understand the diagnosis and follow the treatment plan.

Social media has become a new and rapidly growing tool for organizational providers (e.g., hospitals, pharmaceutical firms). In addition to their web sites, hospitals now almost routinely have a Twitter and Facebook page.  Specialty Centers can do the same with messages going out to all patients or anyone interested.

A cancer center might have information about their staff expertise but also information from the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute and how a patient can connect with others through a site such as CaringBridge.

Most physicians aren’t aboard the social media bandwagon. This is partly due to the privacy issue, but mostly due to the lack of knowledge and interest in engaging. Some physicians use blogs or Facebook to communicate. A primary care physician might post regularly about diet or exercise, why vitamin D is important in northern latitudes, or how to slow the process of aging.

Few doctors use Twitter to communicate with patients and few consider producing videos for YouTube. But this is changing. Newly graduated doctors, pharmacists, nurses, physical therapists, dentists and others are long accustomed to social media and are not daunted by applying it to communicating with patients. Kevin Pho, MD, a primary care physician (PCP), has long had a very popular blog called KevinMD. He suggests that physicians need to embrace social media because that is where patients get information today. Physicians need to be there or lose their influence.

My recent in-depth interviews with many PCPs have found few uses for email, because there is no reimbursement for the time spent. Others are OK with email to receive requests for prescription refills or a simple question that does not need to be answered urgently.

A few have Facebook pages for placing general information but none invite their patients to be their friends on their personal Facebook page. None that I interviewed are now using Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube.

A big question for social media is whether it will be used and be able to help redesign the currently dysfunctional healthcare delivery system. It will be critical whether knowledgeable individuals including physicians, nurses and other providers, will become engaged in social media. Otherwise, the field will be left to well-meaning but uninformed individuals who do not appreciate the way medical care needs to be provided for best outcomes.

Social media has grown by leaps and bounds and will certainly continue to do so. No doubt there will be new platforms that will challenge the current ones. And no doubt more and more providers and patients will interact together and with each other via social media.

So how can you as a leader of a small or medium sized organization, use social media in healthcare to augment your business?  If your business is in healthcare, there should be consults to healthcare organizations; you need to engage with social media – or be left behind.

Look at what others are doing in your field; see how patients, hospitals, and providers are using social media. Check out sources on the internet, KevinMD or books like Crush It by Gary Vanerchuk.  Pick any one venue such as a blog and become familiar with its workings. Use it until it feels right for you. Most importantly, get started.

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