Social Media in Medicine: Challenges & Opportunities

Esther Ho, MD Hospitalist Program

October 2017

Why are we talking about this?

What advice would you give?

What’s your stance?

What do you do if a resident friends you on Facebook?

What if it were a medical student?

Would you friend a resident on Facebook?

What about posts about your work day?

And posts about patients that do not break HIPAA?

When hospital or medical school leadership think of social media, what frequently comes to mind?

Liability

How do we address digital professionalism?

Physicians should keep their professional and personal personas separate. Physicians should not "friend" or contact patients through personal social media.

Physicians should not use text messaging for medical interactions even with an established patient except with extreme caution and consent by the patient.

E-mail or other electronic communications should only be used by physicians within an established patient-physician relationship and with patient consent.

Situations in which a physician is approached through electronic means for clinical advice in the absence of a patient-physician relationship should be handled with judgment and usually should be addressed with encouragement that the individual schedule an office visit or, in the case of an urgent matter, go to the nearest emergency department.

Establishing a professional profile so that it "appears" first during a search, instead of a physician ranking site, can provide some measure of control that the information read by patients prior to the initial encounter or thereafter is accurate.

Many trainees may inadvertently harm their future careers by not responsibly posting material or actively policing their online content. Educational programs stressing a pro-active approach to digital image (online reputation) are good forums to introduce these potential repercussions.

AAFP Recommend that physicians not accept patient friend requests in their

personal social networks. Facebook, in particular, offers a way to keep this boundary intact by the use of a business page. The key becomes how and where patient questions are answered. In addition to observing HIPAA rules:

Never initiate a medical conversation with a patient over a social media channel. Insist on a visit.

Never diagnose. Instead, educate and engage. Provide answers only to general, nonpatient-specific questions such as dosage recommendations for OTC medications — information that can also be found on the manufacturer’s website.

If a patient uses a social media channel to ask a complicated, sensitive, or patient-specific question, direct the patient to your secure patient portal or an appointment.

If the request is urgent, call the patient with your response. Just because the question originates on a public social networking channel doesn’t mean the answer has to use the same channel.

It’s impossible to separate

personal and professional existence

Identity is evolving Then: Now:

Vanity exercise

Find a partner go to google & search them 1. LinkedIn— Do they have a profile? Photo? Bio? History? 2.Content— Have they written anything? 3.Images— What do they tell you? 4.Videos 5.Dialogue— Twitter bio, content of stream, public Fb

page Is their footprint professional, personal, or both? Any surprises? What did you learn? What don’t you see? What would you want to see to want to hire them?

July/August 2014 | www.aafp.org/fpm | FAMILY PRACTICE MANAGEMENT

What are our UCI medical students being taught?

At UCI SOM

What about teaching re: social media use for our residents?

Potential resource:

References Warren Wiechmann, MD, MBA, Associate Dean of

Clinical Science Education & Educational Technology

https://www.acponline.org/acp-newsroom/new-recommendations-offer-physicians-ethical-guidance-for-preserving-trust-in-patient-physician

http://www.aafp.org/dam/AAFP/documents/about_site/SocialMediaFamPhys.pdf

http://www.aafp.org/fpm/2014/0700/p7.pdf

https://www.aamc.org/members/gir/resources/359676/digitalliteracytoolkitcaselisting.html