Social Media for Healthcare PractitionersAnamaria Tivadar

Social Marketing and Communications Specialist, CATIE

Topics Covered

Overview:

Defining social media and examining the global reach

The importance of social media to HCPs and the benefits to using these tools

Challenges faced by HCPs when engaging in social media and ways to overcome them

Privacy/confidentiality regulations for HCPs

Overview of the main social media tools

In-depth look at Twitter

Real-life applications of social media and technology

The evolution of information and media

In the last 25 years or so, the way we store, share and exchange information has drastically changed:

1980: Traditional Media 2012: Web 2.0

Encyclopedia Wikipedia

Resume or journal Blogs

Address Book Facebook, LinkedIn

Tape or CD MySpace, Itunes

Mail Email, meetup.com

Videotapes, DVDs, movie store

YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix

Hard-copies written on typewriters, passed around from person to person

Twitter, Slideshare, Google Docs, Scribd – online collaboration on a global level among hundreds to thousands of people * Fraser, Rob. Nurses’ social media advantage

Social Media Reach

• 800 million ~ Facebook users worldwide. Half sign on every day.

• 3.5 billion posts / contents are shared each week on Facebook

• 25 million Canadians have a Facebook account• 200 million Twitter accounts worldwide• 1.6 billion search queries every day on Twitter • 182 million public blogs worldwide • 50-75% of medical students in Canada are on

social media• 261 + Canadian hospitals have either a

Facebook page, Twitter account, blog or YouTube channel

• 240 HIV and hep C organizations are on Twitter in Canada

What is Social Media?

• Social networking + new media

• Instantaneous, casual, global and public

• A set of online tools that never stop evolving

• Social media is all about building relationships

“Social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to collaborate, create and share” – Colleen Young

“ While the Internet has made information available to the masses, social media have facilitated connections between individuals who consume this information, globally.” – Naheed Dosani, MD

New medium that allows us to have ‘real-time’ conversations with individuals, organizations, and communities around the globe

What can Social Media do for Healthcare Practitioners?

Social Media is a tool that can advance your work.

How?

Have your voices be heard to shape the future of health care

Assume leadership role by sharing timely and accurate health information, instantaneously

Foster more prevention-focused HIV and/or hep C health dialogue and promote positive disease-management experience

Share information as you do at conferences, but on an on-going basis, in an informal way

Connect with peers across Canada and the world Highlight relevant information for patients who search

online

Social Media = Knowledge Exchange

Doctors

Patients

Nurses

Researchers

AIDS Service Orgs

Patients

Doctors

Social Media flattens out the hierarchies and make everyone more accessible

How can health care practitioners use social media?

Health care professionals can use social media in 3 main areas:

1. Treat and engage patients

2. Provide timely and credible education

3. Share medical information and knowledge

Patients want to become more engaged in their own care and use social media tools to do this.

68% of adults search the internet for health

information;

75% of patients who found health information online

said it affected their decisions about their treatment;

69% of patients decided to seek a healthcare

professional based on what they found on the internet;

57% of patients changed the way they manage their

chronic disease;*Based on a study conducted by the Journal

of Medical Internet Research

Benefits – Engage Patients

Benefits – Educate Patients

Dr. Yonni Freedhoff - Family physician, Assistant Prof. at the University of Ottawa, and founder of Ottawa's Bariatric Medical Institute

Daily health tips from the experts at St. Michael’s Hospital

Benefits – Share Knowledge

Traditional medical journals and medical associations use social media to share news and content:

• New England Journal of Medicine

• The Lancet

• Journal of American Medical Association

• The Canadian Medical Association Journal

• Canadian Family Physician Journal

• Ontario Medical Association

Challenges to using Social Media

1. Time constraints - social media needs to be viewed as a better method to access knowledge and share information online

2. No control over who can find you online

3. Safeguarding professional and organizational credibility

4. Patient confidentiality and privacy

Freedom of speech vs. privacy

Health care professionals’ strict privacy regulations are aimed at protecting

patient’s rights and confidentiality through firm and explicit standards, and through

provincial and federal laws.

vs.

Social media encourages open interactions and immediate sharing of personal

information. Everything that is posted online is also public info.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Canadian Medical Association’ response to social media:

“When communicating through social media, physicians must remember they remain governed by the same ethical and professional standards that have always applied and are paramount. “

Information required to remain confidential: • Identifiable health information (diagnosis and symptoms)• Patient personal information (name, ethnicity, age, etc.),

which in a small or rural community could expose the patient’s identity

• Communication with patient should be done face-to-face or through a secure electronic communication platform

• Physicians should use the most stringent security and privacy settings available on social media platforms

Ways to manage risk

1. Create separate professional social media accounts2. Connect only with fellow colleagues, HIV organizations

and other medical professionals online3. Encourage your organization to define guidelines and

policies regarding the use of social media (www.socialmediagovernance.com)

4. Do not post any information related to a particular patient

5. Do not post any pictures from your workplace 6. Speak in general terms about your work experiences7. If unsure, take the discussion ‘offline’ – email, phone or

in person8. Pause and count to 3 before you post!

Social Media Tools

Content Creation

Content Sharing

Networking

Social Media Tools: Content Creation

Blog Content: • Regular entries (journal entries) on a topic• Relevant information, resources, and images • Interactive- readers can provide feedback and

comments to the author • Personal or collaborative effort • Chronological order or indexed by subject

YouTube

Privacy and Security

• Content: • Video blog in the form of a ‘YouTube Channel’• Users can upload videos for public viewing,

watch and comment on videos uploaded by others

• Blogs and YouTube channels are usually public Disclaimers can be used to provide context to opinions expressed

HIV and health-related blogs

Access information through the many HIV-related health blogs available via ASO and frontline organizations

Social Media Tools: Content Sharing

Scribd • Scribd is the world’s largest social reading and publishing company

• You can publish any document on this site for free

• Easy to share and discover informative and original written content online or on mobile devices

Slideshare

Privacy and Security

• Slideshare is the world's largest community for sharing presentations.

• Supports documents, PDFs, videos and webinars

• Upload and view presentations online

• Profiles on either platform are public, but can be created under any alias name. Content and activity can be promoted through social networking channels.

Content Sharing: Slideshare

Download this presentation from Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/CATIEInfo

Social Media Tools: Networking

Facebook

Privacy and Security

• 750 million members• Social networking site where users have a

profile • Share personal and/or professional

information, photos and commentary• Users create lists of other users, or

‘friends’, with whom they connect and interact

• Interaction: liking, commenting, sharing posts

• Privacy: Page = public Group = members only Personal account = based on privacy

settings

• Conservative approach is best assumed: if it’s on a social media site, assume it’s not private nor confidential.

Facebook – Fan Page

Connect with other organizations or associations via their Facebook Fan Pages. CATIE is connected with over 530 Facebook users, of which 100 are fellow HIV and hep C organizations.

Social Media Tools: Networking

LinkedIn

Privacy and security

• 150 million members • A professional network site designed

specifically for the business community• Professionals create a profile for networking,

making business contacts or hiring employees

• Content is in CV-style format • Interaction: join groups and discussions;

search job openings, follow companies, institutions and organizations

• Online profile can be adjusted to strict privacy settings to determine visibility

Twitter

Privacy and Security

• 500 million users• A social network site where users connect

and interact with each other through the use of very short messages (‘tweets’)

• Content includes opinions, updates on recent activities, and may be personal and/or professional in nature

• Content often includes a web link referring audiences to a specific web page

• Permission is usually not required to ‘follow’ another account, unless account is ‘protected’• Public account = complete online

visibility • Protected account = followers need

permission to see your tweets, but can still publicly retweet an update.

Social Media Tools: Networking

Twitter: Basic Principles

There are two basic principles to Twitter to keep in mind:

1. Chances are if you find something interesting or useful to know, others will find it interesting too.

2. You can follow anyone and everyone can share and see each other’s posts

Why would Healthcare providers use Twitter?

If you’re going to engage on only one social media platform, it must be Twitter!

“Twitter is a global phenomena, giving us total, global access to knowledge”

• Communicate with other nurses, physicians, researchers, dieticians, or organizations around the world

• Share information and conversations within a community, instantaneously

• Twitter allows healthcare professionals to have permanent, unfiltered, unedited access to otherwise never-published information, such as on the job experiences, opinions on articles or research papers, patients’ feedback to treatment or adherence.

Dos:

• 140 characters limit

• Use abbreviations in tweets in order to save

characters

• Shorten URLs using websites like tinyurl.com or

ow.ly

• Include #hashtags in your tweets

• Give credit by retweeting (RT) or mentioning (MT)

others.

• Include a ‘call to action’ and insert a weblink. • Be inspirational - motivate and influence followers

by using some of your favorite quotes. • Add value to your audience today - health tips,

treatment tips, health facts, etc. • Be human – people trust other people.

Twitter Dos

Twitter Dictionary

• Tweet = an individual post on Twitter

• Follow = a way to subscribe to receive an individual’s or an organization’s Twitter updates.

• MT (Mentions) - a tweet that contains @username anywhere in the body of the tweet

• RT (Retweet) - sharing another user’s tweet with followers, usually by using the phrase “RT@username”

• DM (Direct Message) - a private Twitter message sent via Twitter accounts who follow each other

• #Hashtag = a way to categorize tweets around a particular topic. Manifested as a subject or topic preceded by the # symbol.

CATIE’s Communication Toolkit

For more information on effective tweeting or popular hashtags, you can download these guides from CATIE’s website in the Media & Communications section:

http://www.catie.ca/en/about-catie/media-and-communications/toolkit

# HCSMCA - Health Care Social Media Canada

#hcsmca is a vibrant community of people interested in exploring social innovations in health care. Participants share and learn, and together are making health care more open and connected.

Who participates in #hcsmca chats?

• Anyone delivering and receiving health care• Patients, caregivers, advocates• Healthcare professionals• Non-for-profit health organizations• Educators• Health content providers• Health institutions• Government• Health Policy Makers  When? Every Wednesday at 1pm ET (2pm AT, noon CT, 11am MT, 10am PT)

Increases effectiveness during appointments

• Saves time and connects MDs with key people – patients, researchers, funders, colleagues

• SM is becoming a new means of communicating online and communication is key to effective MD/patient relationship

Increase patients’ knowledge

• Benefit is in knowing where patient populations are looking for info online, and what questions to address in office or during patient appointments

• SM is an opportunity for MDs to address inaccuracy of information online

Increase MDs’ knowledge

• Respond to misleading, confusing, scaremongering news headlines

• It’s about collaborating and sharing ideas with HCPs and patients

Why should a busy MD care about social media or even use social media?

#HSCMCA Chat – July 4th, 2012

Applications – Association Facebook Page

The Canadian Federation of Medical Students

The national representative body for medical students

659 members on Facebook

Discussions regarding geographical representation of doctors in Canada, announcements for conferences, deadlines, etc.

Applications – CATIE’s Mobile App

YourDocTalk is an app developed by CATIE to guide PHAs in a discussion with their doctor about HIV treatment.

PHAs answer a series of questions to create a list of points to discuss with his/her doctor.

Together they will work to ensure the patient’s treatment plan is right for him/her.

YourDocTalk

Available November 1st www.catie.ca

Applications – Social micro sites for patients

Healthism

A US project designed to help people maintain their own health.

Includes an online website where patients can zone in on their specific health needs.

Ask an MD questions online, or use several web-based tools and apps, to assess different factors in their health.

Resources

1. Social Media guidelines and policies. The Mayo Clinic http://socialmedia.mayoclinic.org/about-3/

2. Privacy of personal health information. Canadian Medical Association. http://www.cma.ca/advocacy/social-media-canadian-physicians

3. Healthcare hashtags. The Healthcare Hashtag Project. http://www.symplur.com/healthcare-hashtags/

4. How to write an effective tweet. CATIE www.catie.ca/en/aboutcatie/communicationstoolkit

5. How to use hashtags. CATIE. www.catie.ca/en/aboutcatie/communicationstoolkit

Questions?

Thank You!

ativadar@catie.ca

Follow CATIE on Twitter:

@CATIEInfo