Social Media for Doctors: Taking Professional person and Patient Appointment to the Next Level

Some of the height family physicians on social media share their best practices for building a following and avoiding common pitfalls.

Bich-May Nguyen, MD, MPH, FAAFP, Emily Lu, Md, Natasha Bhuyan, Medico, Kenny Lin, MD, MPH, FAAFP, and Mike Sevilla, MD, FAAFP

Fam Pract Manag. 2020 Jan-Feb;27(one):xix-24.

Author disclosures: no relevant financial affiliations disclosed.

This content conforms to AAFP CME criteria. Encounter FPM CME Quiz.

Commodity Sections

  • Introduction
  • DEFINING YOUR GOALS
  • GROWING YOUR Audience AND Make
  • Fugitive COMMON CHALLENGES
  • Edifice TRUST ABOVE ALL
  • References

Social media sites such every bit Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram concenter billions of users daily. With the popularity of these sites, it is non surprising that many patients take turned to social media to share their health experiences or to learn more almost their medical conditions. Family unit physicians are in a unique position to provide accurate information about a variety of health topics. Past coming together patients where they are on the internet, family doctors can brainwash the public and support policies to advocate for community health. They can also find an outlet for professional engagement and connection as well as personal creativity.

Yet inbound the earth of social media can be daunting. Professional club recommendations for social media use tend to be either also restrictive, focusing on what non to practice, or too general to provide practical tips. In this article, nosotros explore some best practices and challenges that have emerged as more physicians and patients are using these platforms for health information.

Primal POINTS

  • Social media is a valuable tool that tin be used to educate, collaborate, and abet.

  • Before jumping in or reassessing your use, take some time to define your goals, listen to the conversation, and think nigh how y'all desire to present an authentic online persona.

  • Be professional person in your social media interactions with patients and the public, be judicious well-nigh sharing patient stories, obtain informed consent before sharing data involving patients, be careful with potential conflicts of involvement, and know your employer'due south policies.

DEFINING YOUR GOALS

  • Abstract
  • DEFINING YOUR GOALS
  • GROWING YOUR Audience AND BRAND
  • Fugitive COMMON CHALLENGES
  • Building TRUST In a higher place ALL
  • References

The first step in developing a high-performing social media presence is determining your goals. The more well-defined your objectives, the easier information technology will be to place an audience, decide what to share, and measure effectiveness. The social media aims for family physicians can be as diverse as family physicians themselves. The about basic aim is connecting with current patients, and a previous commodity in FPM discussed how family physicians tin do this.one Additional goals include the following:

  • Providing health educational activity to the public. Didactics tin can focus on general topics such as fitness or wellness, or on a topic in which you take item interest or expertise. How you lot distribute content on these topics can vary from only sharing links to news or research articles (along with your perspective or commentary) to producing original content in the grade of infographics, blog posts, podcasts, or videos. With the latter approach, social media can become a creative outlet and perchance even reduce exhaustion.

  • Promoting your practice. A strong social media presence can aid you recruit patients to your office, retain current patients, and have more control over your online reputation. For example, when patients search for a physician online before scheduling an appointment, seeing a positive social media presence can convalesce isolated negative reviews they may discover.

  • Connecting with other physicians. In many ways, social media has get the new "doctors' lounge." Due to the proliferation of hospitalists and electronic health records, family physicians have fewer opportunities to collaborate informally with subspecialists than in the past. Social media has allowed many physicians to appoint with prominent subspecialists around the world in a virtual doctors' lounge and participate in multidisciplinary conversations in scheduled chats or asynchronous question-and-answer sessions. For example, Dr. Lin has participated in discussions with specialists on Twitter about evidence and all-time practices for chronic pain management, prostate and lung cancer screening, infectious disease prevention, and interventional cardiology. As in real life, specialists do not always concord with each other or their own society'south practice guidelines. Yet, these debates are helpful in agreement the "hot topics" in the field and the implications for chief care patients.

  • Advocating for a cause. Y'all tin utilize social media for advocacy in several different ways: listening to and amplifying the stories of those with particular experiences, informing people of issues they were previously unaware of, organizing supporters for a specific cause, and pushing for more than straight actions. Sometimes, simply sharing a twenty-four hours-to-day feel in health care can have a meaningful impact. For example, a story about the difficulty of obtaining a much-needed prior authorization for a patient can initiate a larger conversation on social media most insurance companies and barriers to effective intendance. Additionally, physicians employ social media to mobilize around community issues, ranging from local concerns like a hospital closing to larger discussions about health equity. This method of advancement also allows physicians to capture timely issues in the news cycle and offer the doc perspective. Finally, family physicians tin influence public policy. While fact and information will legitimize particular issues, patient stories are often what legislators and staffers call up and what compel them to human action. The md can employ the story equally a springboard to writing and publicizing an editorial or letter to the editor, meeting with a legislator, or helping organize a community event.

Regardless of your social media goal, starting with a articulate intention will assistance you build an audience and transform an existing social media presence into a coherent, authentic brand.

GROWING YOUR AUDIENCE AND Make

  • Abstract
  • DEFINING YOUR GOALS
  • GROWING YOUR AUDIENCE AND BRAND
  • Avoiding Common CHALLENGES
  • Edifice TRUST In a higher place ALL
  • References

Once y'all have identified your goals, you must consider your audience. For example, to disseminate accurate medical information, you lot want to reach health professionals and the general public while post-obit and interacting with the summit scientific minds in the field to be aware of current findings. If you are trying to create social or political modify, then your audience is health care leaders, policymakers, political leaders, and patients who inform their work.

The tone and content of your social media presence should align with your objectives and the community you are building to accomplish those objectives. Information technology's a good idea to start past post-obit thought leaders who are already achieving similar goals to run across what they are doing on social media. Who do they follow? What sort of content exercise they share? What tone of phonation do they use (casual, scholarly, etc.)? How often do they post and on what platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.)? What hashtags, podcasts, blogs, or publications are prominent in their field? As you better understand the landscape around your areas of interest, you lot can improve hone your bulletin.

Knowing your audition likewise involves taking the time to listen to the communities that you are trying to join. For a doctor, this means listening to patient advocates equally if not more other physician leaders. Connecting with patients outside the treatment setting and the md-patient relationship enables a wider perspective of the healthcare-industrial complex in which nosotros exist.

Having a clear intention, audience, and bulletin volition ultimately lead to a articulate brand. Past nature of our work and expertise, doc voices can attract attention even with just a tweet or two, only a social media post-obit really grows when a doctor has a clear brand on which followers can depend. Having a clear brand is useful for yous too, equally it helps reduce the "racket" so yous can focus on the conversations that thing to you lot and accomplish your objectives. A high follower count or "going viral" isn't necessarily the sign of an effective brand; if your purpose is advancement or engaging in the latest research, it is often more important to reach the target audience than to reach a high number of people. That said, the more you develop your brand, the more likely that your social media post-obit will grow, which could atomic number 82 to professional opportunities such as paid speaking engagements, writing opportunities, or sponsorships.

Much has been written about what a social media "brand" should entail, but it comes downwards to actuality. In an increasingly technological world, people crave human connection, so the more dimensions of yourself you can share (including professional and personal aspects of your life), the more authentic your brand will be. If you like sharing news stories mixed with occasional photos of your dog, don't be afraid to practise so. If yous accept a passion for Star Wars and medicine, feel free to limited it. Practice what feels most authentic to yous.

As you grow into your make, the content you share will begin to develop certain themes that followers will learn to expect. Once yous go known for something, it becomes part of your make. Your goals and identity may evolve over fourth dimension, just the key is staying truthful to yourself, what you care virtually, and what aligns most closely to your aspirations for beingness on social media.

AVOIDING Mutual CHALLENGES

  • Abstruse
  • DEFINING YOUR GOALS
  • GROWING YOUR Audition AND Brand
  • AVOIDING Common CHALLENGES
  • Building TRUST ABOVE ALL
  • References

If you've used social media for any length of fourth dimension, you've probably witnessed friends, family, or colleagues who take gotten into problem considering they failed to follow basic social norms. To avoid mutual social media challenges as a physician, the following norms can be helpful.

Be professional. Physicians face unique challenges existence on social media, in function because the lines between their professional and personal lives tin become blurred. Existence personable is encouraged; being unprofessional is not. Physicians stand for their profession in the fashion they care for others and in the quality of the information they provide. They should continue to operate under the professional person principle of start doing no damage.

Refrain from offering medical advice to individuals on social media. It is ameliorate to share general educational tips than specific medical communication and, where indicated, it may exist worth explicitly noting this to your followers. It is difficult to obtain detailed and verifiable information from online accounts, so y'all can't always be sure who you're talking to online. Furthermore, given the privacy concerns of sharing any personal health data on social media, doctors should discourage others from exposing themselves to unnecessary privacy risks past sharing intimate information.

Be careful when posting about patients. Everything posted on social media is stored forever and owned by the company that runs the platform. Ever think before posting: Is this something patients or their family unit members could see and recognize equally their own data? Is this your information to share? The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) should exist a starting point to consider before sharing sensitive details about patients online. Additionally, the Health It for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act allows the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to investigate and financially penalize a hospital or practice for HIPAA violations.two Furthermore, the 1996 Communications Decency Deed amended with the Internet Freedom and Family unit Empowerment Act protects internet service providers and interactive computer services from beingness held liable for indecent or defamatory content posted by third-party users.two Physicians should be aware of these laws every bit they navigate using social media.

Most health professionals understand that discussing specific cases even without using a patient's name may reveal enough information for a tertiary party to recognize a patient. To protect patient identity, exploring a medical condition in generalities or using fictionalized accounts is recommended rather than using a specific case. If you demand to use an actual case, specially where a specific prototype or video is involved, provide informed consent and invite the patient, guardian, or power of attorney to sign a media release prior to publication on whatever online platform. One time the data is shared, the patient and the physician lose control over how information technology may be circulated, so information technology is of import to take the fourth dimension, separate from a medical or procedural consent to care, to help the patient sympathize the risks and benefits of such an human action.

As people use social media and follow health professionals online, physicians must not only be careful about posting details that could violate HIPAA but as well brand sure the patient descriptions they apply are not disrespectful. Sensational posts may generate follower engagement, just as members of the medical profession, nosotros hold ourselves to a higher ethical standard and should not exploit a patient encounter. Careless posts can disrupt the trust between a patient and medico.

Be selective when interacting with patients. Questions about whether to "friend" or "follow" your patients or take their connection requests on social media are inevitable, but these issues are non new. Long before the introduction of the cyberspace, doctors who alive in minor towns and communities have been acquaintances and friends with patients in real life and take had to navigate these boundaries. The anonymity and ubiquity of relationships on social media, where individuals have many more "friends" and connections than they could ever truly know, could tempt some physicians to befriend more than people, patients included, than they typically would. Some doctors make a point of never friending or post-obit patients on social media, while others initiate requests and take everyone. Of course, you should follow your institution's policies on social media and professionalism, but we propose existence selective in who to friend or follow on social media, whether they are patients or non. Whether in existent life or digital life, doctors have to decide their own boundaries and comfort level when it comes to engaging with patients outside of the exam room.

Protect confronting misinformation. Physicians on social media accept a professional responsibility to ensure the accuracy of the health-related content they create or share. Health professionals can exist as vulnerable to misinformation as laypersons, particularly when they share information initially posted by someone else. Be wary of sharing an unreferenced statement or statistic that some other user has shared. If you cannot verify it, either don't share it or add a caveat that the information has not been personally verified. It's amend to share content that includes a link to an authoritative source.

Limit screen time. Family physicians have multiple personal and professional commitments, and then it is important when considering your social media goals to likewise consider how much time y'all can dedicate to using these tools. Building an online brand tin require a substantial time commitment, especially in the first-up stage. When Dr. Lin began his blog Common Sense Family Doctor in 2009, his goal was to mail twice per calendar week, which required effectually three to four hours per week, non including boosted time spent reading and commenting on other blogs and social media accounts. He gradually reduced the posting frequency to two to three times per month after nigh iv years, when the web log was well established. Today, information technology receives an average of 20,000 folio views per calendar month.

In this quickly evolving social media earth, Twitter has become a identify where family physicians can develop their online brand without spending a lot of fourth dimension. Dr. Sevilla has attracted close to xxx,000 followers on Twitter by sharing the latest wellness news (spending approximately fifteen minutes daily scanning for hot topics in wellness news and posting them to Twitter), sharing information at conferences (approximately 1 hour daily at the conference posting pearls from lectures and retweeting other attendees' posts), and participating in Twitter chats (approximately one hour weekly in which a moderator poses several questions around a theme, providing a bully opportunity to share your point of view and network).

While social media can be helpful for many purposes, these platforms also are designed to exist addictive. Algorithms larn what users similar and create feeds of information to encourage them to proceed checking the sites. Growing a customs and purpose on social media can be fulfilling, just it can disrupt the physician'due south initial intent of joining the platform or pursuit of other life passions. Like younger users, adults should limit screen time, disconnect as needed, and allow fourth dimension for activities in real life or reflection. Instead of filling upward time with scrolling through social media, make sure you are taking appropriate breaks and exploring curiosity, creativity, and innovation in other ways as well.

Follow institutional policies. Peculiarly for those depression in their institutional bureaucracy, from medical students to entry-level employees, it may feel every bit though yous cannot participate publicly in social media without violating institutional policies. In most cases, that isn't truthful, but before starting, yous should know your employer's social media policies. Some institutions are more conservative than others. Nigh but request that employees remain professional in their social media presence and conspicuously country that the opinions shared are personal and practise not reflect those of the employer.

In about situations, information technology comes back to the goals of using the platform. For those looking to further an advocacy agenda, individual voices and stories are important. Institutions, whether they are public or private entities, may limit individual rights to free speech communication depending on the type of speech involved and an employee's position (e.g., if it contradicts the employer's position). When in doubt, seek guidance from a local mentor to sort out the specifics of the state of affairs. Retrieve that zero nosotros do in public is apolitical. For example, past overlooking sure political content, family physicians may exist implicitly supporting the status quo. You volition have to balance staying truthful to your objectives within the local political-organizational landscape where yous work. Otherwise, y'all may take to find another chore.

Avert conflicts of interest. Economic gain can exist a reason that some physicians get involved in social media. While an increased volume of patients can exist a benign result of social media interest, potential conflicts of interest may also ascend. Sponsored content, also known as influencer or native marketing, is often paid content from a tertiary party, only it can announced to be coming directly from the individual (in this instance, the family physician). For case, a marketing agency could target physicians who generally speak about prenatal vitamins, asking them to publicly support a pharmaceutical company's make. For social media "influencers," sponsored content tin can be an important revenue stream, merely for family physicians, sponsored content poses an ethical disharmonize of involvement.

The Federal Trade Commission now has guidelines on transparency around sponsored content. If social media influencers are getting paid for mentioning a product or even an idea, they must reveal it. Marketing partnerships should not be hidden in a small hyperlink. For physicians, sponsored content should exist disclosed similarly to other conflicts of interest. For virtually physicians, this won't exist an result, only those with 5,000 to 25,000 followers on a platform may be approached to post sponsored content.

It's also of import to exist aware of the upstanding implications of making certain endorsements or statements on social media. Medical ethics encompass respect for autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. These ideals could exist violated if a physician, for case, sponsored a product known to cause harm in certain populations but did not disembalm that fact. In addition, given the ability dynamics of the physician-patient relationship, a medico'southward patients may feel pressured to purchase a product their physician endorses online. While there is limited case law on wellness professionals' online endorsements of questionably effective products, high-profile physicians like Dr. Oz (Mehmet Oz, Dr.) accept been called before Congress for deceptive marketing of supplements.3

Family unit physicians who accept payment for their content should consider if the content is consistent with current standards of care and evidence-based medicine. Ultimately, this is a personal decision, but it could impact a family physician's reputation. Additionally, family physicians should be aware of laws surrounding promotion.

Edifice TRUST Higher up ALL

  • Abstract
  • DEFINING YOUR GOALS
  • GROWING YOUR Audition AND BRAND
  • Avoiding COMMON CHALLENGES
  • Edifice TRUST ABOVE ALL
  • References

Social media is a valuable tool that can exist used to educate, collaborate, and abet. Before jumping in or reassessing your use, information technology'due south a good idea to ascertain your goals, listen to the chat, develop an audition, and retrieve nearly how to present an accurate online persona. Be professional in your interactions with patients and the public, be judicious about sharing patient stories, obtain informed consent earlier sharing information involving patients, understand your employer's social media usage policies, and exist conscientious with potential conflicts of involvement. Equally more physicians and patients use these sites, we have the obligation to present evidence-based information respectfully and transparently in club to build and maintain trust.

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Near THE AUTHORS

Dr. Nguyen is a family medico and faculty member at Memorial Family Medicine Residency in Sugar Land, Texas.

Dr. Lu is a master intendance physician and extensivist at CareMore Wellness Programme in San Jose, Calif.

Dr. Bhuyan is the regional medical director of the West Coast at One Medical and faculty member at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix, Ariz.

Dr. Lin is a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and deputy editor of American Family Md.

Dr. Sevilla is an assistant professor of family and community medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical Academy in Salem, Ohio.

Author disclosures: no relevant financial affiliations disclosed.

References

1. Twiddy D. Social media: strategies for building greater connections with your patients. Fam Pract Manag. 2014;21(iv):7–12.

ii. Lifchez SD, McKee DM, Raven RB 3rd, Shafritz AB, Tueting JL. Guidelines for ethical and professional apply of social media in a mitt surgery practise. J Hand Surg Am. 2012;37(12):2636–2641.

3. Firger JDr. Oz defends weight-loss advice at Senate hearing on nutrition scams. CBS News. June 17, 2014. https://world wide web.cbsnews.com/news/dr-oz-defends-weight-loss-advice-at-senate-hearing-on-diet-scams/. Accessed Oct. thirty, 2019.

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