Do's and Dont's for Physicians on Facebook

So finally Social Media has hit the spot with doctors. Its the first form of technology which Doctors have adopted worldwide on their own( without pressure, incentives or kickbacks.)

Recent statistics show that while 87% of the physicians surveyed reported using Social media for personal purposes, a significant 67% also claimed to be using it for Professional use. Social Media has ushered healthcare into an exciting world of free expression and multi faceted communication

There have also been some unfortunate cases coming to light, where doctors have been penalized for overdoing it on Social Media. Also 45 % of the organizations surveyed claimed to have no policy for Social Media. In this article we'll look at some do's and don'ts for Physicians so that they can use Facebook safely and not let it cause legal problems for themselves in the future.

1. Don't talk about your Patients - Talk about yourself, your cases, your peers ... But don't talk about your patients. Their privacy is protected by law ...

2. When you talk about yourself, your cases and your peers, make sure you are not identifying your patients

3. Dont practice medicine from inside Social Networks. Avoid the common traps of responding to seemingly harmless medical questions. The ones which go like "How many days before ..." or "What do you think ...."

4. Try to avoid getting drawn into negative discussions on a public forum. On facebook you can hold a private discussion with a colleague on "How you feel your hospital needs to improve ?" in the privacy of personal messages and chats ... Avoid this on your wall..

5. Try to create a facebook page for yourself or your practice. With this in place, you can avoid having to accept friend requests from patients, redirecting them instead to like your page.

6. Dont post objectionable content. Physician or not, inebriated pictures and vulgar comments are not cool. Even if they seem to be for a particular phase in life.

7. When something objectionable is posted, accept it , apologize for it and remove it.

8. Set your Privacy Settings on various networks appropriately to safeguard your information and content. This helps you protect yourself when Rule No 1 is crossed.

DO have fun, be transparent and DO voice your views. DO  provide tips on where to gain trustworthy information online and offline , DO make connections but make sure you follow the above 8 points.

Further Readings:

A Wonderful Article with Do's and Don'ts for Nurses using Social Media

Facebook for Medical Practices and Doctors 

AMA Policy: Professionalism in the Use of Social Media

Facebook Page on Digital Healthcare 

Slideshare Love & Some Social Media for Doctors

I woke up this morning to the familiar buzz of the phone alarm, and as always, on dismissing it went to check what emails awaited me at the start of the day. I saw a plethora of emails with Slideshare in the subject message. One of my presentations “Facebook for Doctors and Medical Practices” was featured today on Slideshare. :)

An educative presentation which is also available on Wirelysis, it focuses on explaining “the Why and the How” of using Facebook Pages by Medical Practioneers.  I am happy to see that Slideshare’s editors have liked it and they have found the material beneficial for others. Lately there has been a surge in the number of Articles and Presentations being written and shared on topics related to “Using Social Media in Health Care”. Hence I am happy that my 3 month old midnight piece got featured.  

Social media is for everyone. It’s about all people, networking on things they like, whether they are videos, conversations or information.  Doctors are also a subset of this highly engaged group of people.  Tons of them participate in social media; personally, professionally or both.  And as always they have a lot to say

Using Social Media in Health Care has several advantages. It’s a cost effective way to use something you do for fun to help out your patients, by spreading information, providing support as well as in a providing a quick piece of advice.  It’s also a great way to get feedback.  

But take this next bit with a pinch of salt. If you do plan to bring in a professional aspect to your Social Media life, understand that you are now in the public domain. While you will gain publicity, you are now also exposed to being more abused. Don’t be oblivious to the fact that we have a Wall Feed where we will enjoy reading what you post.  With great power, come great responsibilities.  Be responsible and don’t do things which you wouldn’t do in public at a party.

A number of doctors had emailed me today asking me about Twitter and how they can leverage it for themselves. My reply: "Get on it, converse and engage: We'll talk more in a week, hopefully on Twitter".  Well, besides the simple gyan on “the Why and How”, I have something cool coming up.  I have been researching practically and building algorithms and processes related to Twitter as well as other aspects of Social Media, on how they can be leveraged effectively by the Health Care industry. The main onus being on how Social Media can be used to:

• Help provide accurate information faster
• Help patients interpret information more effectively
• How physicians and hospitals can leverage these algorithms to improve patient care, patient safety and patient comfort
• How physicians and hospitals can bring in more patients as a reward for being concerned about them

A lot of my work has pointed towards “unique forms” of collaboration and creation of information ecosystems.  I feel I will take a few weeks to share my work in the public domain as some of the results have not been vetted and processes finalized due to constraints on my time and pocket. Within a few weeks I should be putting out an effective guide on Twitter use for both Physicians as well as Hospitals. In the meantime, I will recommend this simple yet beautiful post by one of my favorite blog authors Scott Hanselman titled  Subtle but Very Important Twitter Tips and Techniques You Should Know (cause no one will tell you)

Useful Links:

The Facebook Pages presentation on Slideshare
 

Plus91's Website 

Websites For Doctors  : This is where you must contact to get Social Media profiles made and managed for your self or practice

Follow me on Twitter: @nrip

Follow Plus91 on Twitter: @plus91
 
Note: 

A number of doctors in India and a few from the United States have contributed by either sharing the statistics from their Social Media Data and Profiles with me, while some have done so by actually getting on it and trying out what I’ve been asking them to do. 

Any doctor who wishes to help out may simply contact me via emai or Contact me via Plus91  :)

Facebook for Medical Practices and Doctors

Facebook has seen unprecedented growth in the last 4 years. From a small community site, specific to colleges, it has overtaken Google to become the favored haunt of the webophile. One of the reasons for this has been the number of applications that are built on Facebook, but a bigger reason is that because "Everyone is On Facebook". Lets face it, if you want to know what someone did last Sunday, or last month, Facebook is a bigger help than any friend that you have.  Coming to the point, the last year has seen a serious growth in the number of doctors creating Facebook profiles.

Now I've spent a considerable amount of time helping doctors embrace technology for different reasons. Some want technology to help manage their clinic, some to help manage patients also, some simply want to use it to connect to friends and family far away while some other want to use it to see if it can help them learn more. Facebook is a brilliant technology for just keeping in touch, and to make regular announcements. Not too regular mind you.

The presentation below delves into the Why's and How To's of setting up a Facebook Page for a Medical Practice. It also provides some examples and contains a video showcasing samples of very effective techniques.

Facebook Pages For Doctors and Medical Practices

View more presentations from nrip.

Note:
As with all professions, Medical Professionals have started slowly empowering themselves using the benefits of technology. Over the years, I have analysed how each medium would benefit a doctor given his specific needs, and of course had to reason on factors such as the learning curve, investments on time  and mindsets.   Social Media is one such medium. This article is part of a series of 4 where I delve into how Doctors can use different Social Media avenues for different purposes.

You may wish to check out Websites for Doctors to start off with creating a digital Identity for yourself. By my calculation, its the largest provider of Medical Websites in Asia