How Social Media Transforms Medical Communications: Benefits and challenges

The role of social media has evolved beyond simply a platform for sharing pictures or communicating with friends and family. It has revolutionized communication channels across industries, especially in healthcare. Over recent years, social media has transformed how medical information is exchanged among patients, providers, and pharmaceutical companies. In this article, we shall view some of the positive impacts that social media have on the healthcare sector while relating some challenges and negative effects it creates.

Benefits of Social Media to Patients

1. Increased Accessibility to Health Information: Social media has undoubtedly boosted the access to medical information. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are a few social networking sites that are commonly used for sharing healthcare tips, advancements in medical research, and even individual cases/experiences. Through this, patients will be well informed about their condition and/or treatment options, allowing better self-management and decision-making.¹
2. Support Networks: Social media can be a lifeline for patients with chronic diseases or rare disorders! Social media has also become a potential intervention platform for discussing issues around mental health — a subject of recent interest. ² Online communities provide both emotional support and advice about everyday problems while engendering a sense of belonging, which is of great benefit to the patients. A systematic review undertaken by the Journal of Medical Internet Research estimated that 80% of cancer patients use social media to connect with their peers. This can greatly enhance their coping mechanisms and well-being.¹
3. Real-Time Updates: Social media have been instrumental in relaying real-time updates and guidelines on the COVID-19 pandemic. This ensured timely communication of the preventive measures, vaccination sites, and changes in health policies that are extremely vital to their public health.³

Benefits of Social Media to Healthcare Providers

1. Professional Networking and Education: Social networking sites like LinkedIn and Twitter have been used for professional networking, research dissemination, and professional education. It facilitates quick knowledge dissemination and helps sharing the best practices to improve patient care.^{1, 4} A survey result conducted among US surgeons, revealed that 70% of the respondents perceived benefiting from social media in their professional development.⁵
2. Patient Education and Involvement: Social media has also become a platform for physicians and health associations to engage their patients in preventive care, treatment options, and healthy lifestyles. Healthcare professionals can provide evidence-based information to the general public for breaking myths and rumors that can lead to poor health or healthcare outcomes. With increased access to social media today, people from lower socioeconomic strata and those with cultural barriers have a better chance of improving their health literacy. Furthermore, the information retrieved from these sites can be used to research various disease processes, including those related to cardiovascular diseases.⁶
3. Telemedicine and Virtual Consultations: Integrating social networking sites with telemedicine can further extend healthcare, particularly in the most unreachable areas. A few of these sites, including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, allow virtual consultations, making health more accessible and available to patients from regions with less access to healthcare facilities.^{1, 4}

Benefits of Social Media to Pharmaceutical Companies

1. Market Research and Drug Development: Pharmaceutical companies resort to social media to gather data on patients and carry out market research. From knowledge of patient experiences and requirements, these firms develop more efficacious drugs and personalized treatment plans.^{1, 4} Wessel and Pogrebnyakov described the creation of a data pipeline on anticoagulants using health information extracted from Twitter posts. They also researched the applicable regulatory landscape for social media and real-world data. The researchers observed that social media would be of help in the regulation of decision-making by a pharmaceutical company through the generation of hypotheses about the condition of a patient, his experience, and beliefs.⁷
2. Marketing and Awareness Campaigns: Social media can easily be utilized by pharmaceutical firms to increase awareness among the masses regarding the availability of a certain type of drug or treatment. With targeted advertising on Instagram and Facebook, they can consider reaching specific demographics with information that is majorly critical for them.^{1, 4}

Challenges of Using Social Media in Healthcare

1. Misinformation: This is one of the major negative sides of social media in health. It includes the fast spread of misinformation on various kinds of treatments, vaccines, and diseases. For example, false vaccination information via social media networks caused vaccine hesitation, which acted as a barrier to public health engagement.³
2. Privacy Issues: By posting personal health information on social media, patients may have to involuntarily compromise their privacy. Malicious players will inappropriately access sensitive information to serve their purposes, resulting in a possible breach of confidentiality and violation of trust.¹
3. Professional Relationship: Healthcare professionals should know the limits of social networking sites to maintain professional relationships. These must be carefully maintained regarding interactions and/or dissemination of patient information to avoid unethical and legal consequences.¹
4. Information Quality: The quality of health information available on social media is very inconsistent. Patients can experience advice that is not evidence-based or simply runs in contradiction to professional medical advice, hence causing potential harm to health decisions.¹

Conclusion

Social media has undoubtedly revolutionized medical communication and bestowed enormous benefits on patients, healthcare providers, and pharmaceutical companies. Yet, it comes with challenges that require careful redressal, so that the associated risks do not overshadow the benefits. For this industry, it would best be leveraged by propagating digital literacy, furthering privacy protections, and fostering responsible use to improve health outcomes and advance medical science.

References:

1. Smailhodzic E, Hooijsma W, Boonstra A, et al. Social media use in healthcare: A systematic review of effects on patients and on their relationship with healthcare professionals. BMC Health Services Research 2016; 16: 442.
2. Jeyaraman M, Ramasubramanian S, Kumar S, et al. Multifaceted role of social media in healthcare: Opportunities, challenges, and the need for quality control. Cureus 2023; 15: e39111.
3. Ruggeri K, Vanderslott S, Yamada Y, et al. Behavioural interventions to reduce vaccine hesitancy driven by misinformation on social media. BMJ 2024; 384: e076542.
4. Social Media Fact Sheet, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/ (2024, accessed July 13 2024).
5. Wagner JP, Cochran AL, Jones C, et al. Professional use of social media among surgeons: Results of a multi-institutional study. Journal of Surgical Education 2018; 75: 804-810.
6. Chirumamilla S and Gulati M. Patient education and engagement through social media. Curr Cardiol Rev 2021; 17: 137-143.
7. Wessel D and Pogrebnyakov N. Using Social Media as a Source of Real-World Data for Pharmaceutical Drug Development and Regulatory Decision Making. Drug Safety 2024; 47: 495-511.

Authors:

Raghuraj Puthige, PhD., eMDP
Function Head, Medical Communications – Enago Life Sciences
Connect with Raghuraj on LinkedIn

Dhanya Mukundan, MDS (Oral Medicine and Radiology)
Expert Scientific Writer, Enago Life Sciences
Connect with Dhanya on LinkedIn