Social media & hospitals

This time last year a nurse was suspended at a UK hospital for posting photos on Facebook of patients on the operating table.  The patients were not obviously identifiable, which, amid claims of patients human rights abuse and general outrage – amazingly fell into a grey legal area.

So, 12 months on, is the relationship between social media and hospitals clearer cut, or more confusing than ever?
Before we vilify social media within the healthcare environment as an insidious voyeuristic tool with the potential to humiliate and expose – can we identify more constructive and positive uses for social media within this arena?
First of all we should consider that nothing has the potential to disseminate information quicker than a social site.  Following the Fort Hood shooting in the US, Steven Widman of Scott & White Healthcare – one of the hospitals that treated Fort Hood victims, used Twitter to provide up-to-the-minute news. Through Twitter, Widman provided updates on emergency room access and hospital operation status, re-tweeted news from the Red Cross and communicated with reporters
In terms of marketing, and raising awareness of an institution and its procedures there is a sharp increase in the number of hospitals with facebook sites and their own social networks – giving, one could argue, more choice to patients and enabling quicker recruitment of staff.
As a training tool social media is also being strongly utilised.  Real time lectures on Twitter enable an almost ‘live’ scenario – where tutors are instantly able to answer student’s questions, receive feedback and gauge how quickly the students have grasped, or failed to grasp, a particular concept..
Following on from my post last week regarding the steady increase of people going on-line for health advice and the parallel increase in sites and forums offering both accurate and inaccurate information, surely social sites like Inspire , which provide a forum for patients to share their health problems and questions about treatments with other patients, as well as qualified medical personnel are a significant positive in this argument.
So, in conclusion, it is clear to all of us that hospitals and healthcare providers have a responsibility to implement stringent social media policies, to protect not only patients, but also staff and the organisation as a whole – but in terms of social media’s tempestuous relationship with healthcare – I don’t believe it benefits anyone for that to be the whole story.