
How does social media affect the healthcare system?
In fact, social media may have effects on both patients, and on the wider healthcare system [6]. In particular, it allows patients to receive support [1], and to complement offline information [2], which may lead to enhancing the empowerment of patients [6].
Should patients bring social media to the consultation?
When patients bring in the information from social media to the consultation, this could lead to unnecessary processes of sorting relevant information from irrelevant information and can be experienced as challenging the healthcare professional’s expertise [1, 13].
Does social media use by patients affect patient-caregiver communication?
Social media use by patients for health related reasons can lead to more equal communication between the patient and healthcare professional. This effect refers to patients feeling more confident in their relationship with the healthcare professional. In total, five articles referred to this effect.
What are the types of social media use by patients?
From these articles six categories of patients’ use of social media were identified, namely: emotional, information, esteem, network support, social comparison and emotional expression.

Can you add a patient on social media?
The Code of Conduct states that nurses are accountable for maintaining professional boundaries with patients and that nurses should not share personal patient information on social media.
Can doctors friend patients on social media?
Health professionals are broadly prohibited from communication over social media if any information shared could be used to identify a patient.
Is it illegal to look up patients on social media?
Researching a patient online, then, is not a breach of PHI. HIPAA was enacted to legally protect patient privacy by limiting use and disclosure of PHI, thus legislating providers to keep confidentiality. However, public online searches are not prohibited by HIPAA regulations.
Is it illegal to add patients on Facebook?
Sending friend requests on Facebook does not violate HIPAA requirements, unless you include a message with your request that directly addresses the patient's personal health information. This issue is more of a professional and personal conundrum.
Is it OK for doctors and patients to be friends?
In theory, the doctor-patient relationship is courteous and clinical, rooted in a duty of care. In practice, the line between professional and personal isn't always clear-cut. Sometimes doctors and patients meet in the exam room and strike up long-lasting friendships. Other times, doctors take on friends as patients.
Can doctors and patients be friends?
They are not necessarily bad; sharing a common bond can improve mutual understanding and empathy. Friendship may in fact be something that patients need from physicians and can be a positive professional attribute.
Is it against HIPAA to look up a patient on social media?
HIPAA and Social Media The HIPAA Privacy Rule prohibits the disclosure of ePHI on social media networks without the express consent of patients. This includes any text about specific patients as well as images or videos that could result in a patient being identified.
Is Googling a patient a HIPAA violation?
Googling your patients does not violate HIPAA. You are acting as an observer of information rather than posting a patient's information online yourself. Regardless of the fact that doing some online research into your patients' pasts isn't technically illegal, it still should not be taken lightly.
What is considered a HIPAA violation social media?
Common examples of social media HIPAA compliance violations include: Posting verbal "gossip" about a patient to unauthorized individuals, even if the name is not disclosed. Sharing of photographs, or any form of PHI without written consent from a patient.
Is it a HIPAA violation to add a patient on Facebook?
Even when the conversation is initiated by the patient, it is not HIPAA compliant to engage in medical discussions via social media. Social media platforms do not have the proper safeguards in accordance with HIPAA standards to protect PHI.
Is it OK for doctors and patients to be friends on Facebook or other social media?
Patients should consider that doctors are bound by guidance from the General Medical Council which states that you should not mix social and professional relationships and that: "Social media can blur the boundaries between a doctor's personal and professional life and may change the nature of the relationship between ...
Is it a HIPAA violation to be friends with a patient?
HIPAA also allows health care providers to give prescription drugs, medical supplies, x-rays, and other health care items to a family member, friend, or other person you send to pick them up.
Should you friend your doctor on Facebook?
It's unprofessional, says Ron Steingard, MD, psychiatrist and senior pediatric psychopharmacologist at the Child Mind Institute. “I would never friend a patient on Facebook. I think the biggest question is one of privacy and safety.
Is it weird to friend request your doctor?
Should I Friend My Doctor or Nurse? For most people, a friend request is simply a gesture of wanting to know more about a member of their care team outside of the exam room. Some may also view it as an opportunity to keep their doctor or nurse posted on any health issues they might be having between visits.
Can doctors be attracted to their patients?
Research has shown that somewhere between 1% and 12% of physicians report sexual contact with patients. However, more interesting is that up to 80% of doctors report a sexual attraction to their patients.
Should doctors hug their patients?
Hugging should never be mandatory, Vejar says, but providers should recognize how much a hug might mean to patients. “It lets them know that their presence is welcome, that they are valued, that we care about them, and that they are being heard,” she says.
DEFINING YOUR GOALS
The first step in developing a high-performing social media presence is determining your goals. The more well-defined your objectives, the easier it will be to identify an audience, decide what to share, and measure effectiveness. The social media aims for family physicians can be as diverse as family physicians themselves.
GROWING YOUR AUDIENCE AND BRAND
Once you have identified your goals, you must consider your audience. For example, to disseminate accurate medical information, you want to reach health professionals and the general public while following and interacting with the top scientific minds in the field to be aware of current findings.
AVOIDING COMMON CHALLENGES
If you’ve used social media for any length of time, you’ve probably witnessed friends, family, or colleagues who have gotten into trouble because they failed to follow basic social norms. To avoid common social media challenges as a physician, the following norms can be helpful.
BUILDING TRUST ABOVE ALL
Social media is a valuable tool that can be used to educate, collaborate, and advocate. Before jumping in or reassessing your use, it’s a good idea to define your goals, listen to the conversation, develop an audience, and think about how to present an authentic online persona.
How does social media affect patients?
The types of use were found to lead to seven identified types of effects on patients, namely improved self-management and control, enhanced psychological well-being, and enhanced subjective well-being, diminished subjective well-being, addiction to social media, loss of privacy, and being targeted for promotion. Social media use by patients was found to affect the healthcare professional and patient relationship , by leading to more equal communication between the patient and healthcare professional, increased switching of doctors, harmonious relationships, and suboptimal interaction between the patient and healthcare professional.
What is social media in healthcare?
Social media use in healthcare: A systematic review of effects on patients and on their relationship with healthcare professionals
What is social media?
They describe social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content”. The internet-based applications refer to the different categories of social media, which are blogs, content communities, social networking sites, collaborative projects, virtual game worlds and virtual social worlds. These types of social media are accessible to users to utilize for, among other things, health related reasons.
Is there a systematic literature review of empirical studies on the effects of social media use by patients?
Therefore, this paper provides a systematic literature review of empirical studies on the effects of social media use by patients for health related reasons on patients and on their relationships with healthcare professionals. To our knowledge no other systematic research on this topic has been performed to date. Such review also provides the opportunity to extract general findings from the studies. Subsequently, healthcare professionals can learn from these findings about the effects of social media use by patients and share this knowledge with other patients and use it to their own advantage. We aim to answer the following question:
