Introduction
Social Media for Healthcare industry has never been so important than it has become in current scenario. Customers of Healthcare sector i.e. patients are going online and are in regular touch with each other. This makes imperative for healthcare professionals to connect via social web and show their presence to these conversations. In this industry face to face interaction between the patient and the doctor is considered imperative. Whole interaction is done as a real time physical setting. But in contrast to the traditional ways, new technologies have made it possible for the healthcare professionals to interact with the patients in a virtual world, where “e-doctors” provide solutions at a lower cost. For decades patients were generally the receivers of healthcare and had very little say in the process. But by harnessing the power of social media patients are now empowered to take role in their heath care and wellness. These typical “e-patients” have challenged the norms and wanted to be well versed with the procedure of their treatment. This may annoy many traditional physicians.
In response one can easily observe several healthcare portals coming up in the market. One of which is Healthcare Magic in India. It was started in 2008 to help patients find doctors in India, the UK and the US. The portal also facilitates the online communication between patients and doctors. So how does it earn revenue? Basically this portal is funded by the sponsorships and the advertisements. It also sells different membership plans to the patients for interaction with the doctors.
The reason behind the growing important for social media strategy and linking it to the business strategy is the rising volume of digital healthcare activity. While healthcare providers across Europe and US are adopting social media in a quick fashion but the providers in Asia-Pacific are still cautious about the social media bandwagon. Scope and Scale of new digital landscape could be described by following stats.
1. The time spent by physicians online is twice as they spent on print
2. Physicians are preferring online videos for professional purposed and cite Youtube over pharmaceutical company websites
3. A Recent study by Pew Research Center says that 1 in 3 American Adults have used the web to figure out the medical issue.
Benefits of Social Media
Social Media not only benefits the patients by being an always on support platform but also offers considerable advantages to the healthcare providers
Benefits for healthcare providers
Better collaboration between different physicians: Social media provides a platform for physicians from all over the world to share ideas and experiences with each other. This helps healthcare professionals to build a strong knowledge base and ensure better patient outcomes in real time. Best clinical practices are also adopted that deliver effective results.Better reach to patients: With the social media, it has now become possible to reach the audience within seconds. An example that substantiates this point is that of the medical facilities provided during the time of Tsunami in Japan in 2011. Twitter acted as a life saver as doctors were regularly updating the chronically ill patients about the treatment locations. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) used social media platforms to update the users about the H1N1 flu outbreak.Reduction in Costs: Social Networking Platforms help healthcare providers to reduce the cost by involving in two way communication and by avoiding the costs of paper, telephone calls and different overheads. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Vista healthcare system enables all its doctors to have communication with the plan’s 3million members regarding the care. Use of Vista reduced the healthcare costs by 30%. The reason behind such a reduction was the continuous engagement of the members that helped them in avoiding unnecessary tests and procedures.Launch of new services: Some healthcare providers are taking the route of social media tools such as blogs for the introduction of new services. This method helps in getting the feedback in real time and the users can easily share their views about the new service. The Holy Cross Hospital is doing the same. It is regularly using the social media i.e. different therapeutic blogs to make people aware about the new therapeutic methods.Search for Talent: Several hospitals are now advertising openings in different domain via various social media. One such platform is the Linkedin. In a study conducted by AMN Healthcare, out of 1200 healthcare professionals that were surveyed 20% used social media website for their job search.
Benefits for online patients
Interaction with other patients: Social media is not only used by different physicians but also by patients all over the globe to interact with other patients for making informed choices. Portals such as PatientslikeMe and iMedix are helping patients with similar health problems to connect to each to discuss about the condition and make informed choices regarding the doctors and the treatment.Reduction in costs: Instead of paying huge amounts of money to visit the doctor, patients can now connect with them live via social media.Better Self Monitoring: Social Media Website and portals such as WebMD provide different health tools such as Fit-O-Meter, Personal Diet Evaluator to help patients in monitoring their daily healthcare and exercise requirements.Quick information on healthcare provider: Several health care portals such as ZocDoc and WebMD allow the patients to select doctors as per their specifications and also help in booking appointment. Also one can even rate his/her doctor on portals such as RateMyMD and DoctorScoreCard.
Some Challenges
Although the usage of social media is rising but the concern is that still the presence of social media is not felt among the population segment that utilizes the health services to the most i.e. patients over 65 years of age and those with multiple chronic conditions. Also only 26% of all hospitals in the US participate in the social media.Patient Privacy Violations: US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) limits healthcare providers from revealing the information about their patients without taking the consent from themMany healthcare providers engage third party to promote their services via social media. Thus increasing the probability of violating the laws. In US, Medicare and Medicaid Protection Act of 1987 penalise those healthcare providers who are using third party to generate referrals.Demand-Supply Gap: Though patients are going online but still there is a dearth of online doctors. Not only there is shortage of time for the doctors but some even lack the knowledge of using social media so effectively.Budget Constraints: For maintaining social media operations, a hospital requires a dedicate team. These sites should be strictly regulated and updated consistently. So not every healthcare provider in a society has enough budgets to dedicate for the same.Inaccurate information: If social media is not handled by proper personnel then that can lead to a disaster. Misappropriate information about any disease can out somebody’s life in danger. In a study conducted by American Medical Informatics Association on 1o different diabetes related social networking sites, several of these websites were found to be culprit of spreading wrong information. The study was conducted at the Children’s Hospital Boston Informatics Program.
In a nutshell it would be right to say that healthcare landscape has evolved and entered into the phase of Health 2.0. Patients have assumed the role of active participants and seek control of their own health. The advent of social media has made the treatment more patient-specific. As doctors are now engaging with informed patients so the time spent will be less and will ultimately lead to less cost.
As with any other technology, social media also faces many challenges. But this could be minimised only if the healthcare providers become more responsible and adopt rational strategies. Even several regulatory agencies can pitch in to ensure the transparency and adequacy of the information being shared.
Lastly the potential of social media in healthcare sector is still not explored in a developing country such as India. So if Indian Medical Association can leverage social media for treating such a large population then that will be a great achievement but only proper regulation is there!!!
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