When Is Social Media Too Much?

It’s highly unlikely that you’ll find a single doctor right now who isn’t on any social media website. Just like everyone else in the world, doctors have been dragged into the world of Facebook and Twitter. As a doctor, it’s important to know how and when to use these. If you have a hard time doing this, then you should use social media in a private manner that doesn’t relate to you as a doctor, to avoid any misunderstandings. Social media is a great way to reach a large number of people and can be beneficial for both doctors and patients.

Sadly, just like with everything else, too much social media use can be bad. Excess social media can result in physician burnout and may even result in a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality. These are serious issues that physicians should be aware of. At the same time, social media shouldn’t be feared and avoided. It has many uses, such as marketing, increasing awareness, and answering patient questions. The important thing is moderation. Learn how to use it enough to achieve the things you want, but not too much that it becomes harmful. This may take some time to achieve, but will eventually be worth it.

The number one thing doctors should be concerned about besides doing no harm is being careful to not reveal any sensitive, confidential patient information by accident. I suppose that falls under doing no harm, as breaching doctor-patient confidentiality could result in consequences for the patient. The internet is the ultimate method of spreading news. A tweet could be retweeted thousands of times in under an hour, leading to propagation of news. The same thing applies to Facebook posts. In fact, many people today get their news from apps like these rather than from a newspaper or news website. If a doctor posts a status that reveals something about a patient that others might identify, then this could lead to harming the patient. This could subject the doctor to a lawsuit for breaching HIPAA.

This usually happens accidentally. No doctor would intentionally leak patient info like that and give others the opportunity to identify his or her patient. A doctor might post a status about a funny situation that happened at work and accidentally include something characteristic of the patient. Another way this might happen is by posting a picture of an interesting case and forgetting to blur out the patient’s face or any other characteristic marks, like tattoos on their body. The doctor unintentionally revealed information about the patient and people might therefore be able to recognize the person.

Another way social media can be harmful is if it increases patient waiting times. It’s possible that a doctor might get caught up with social media between patients and prolong the interval between one patient and another. This is definitely poor conduct on the doctor's part. Patients will complain about long waiting times; if the reason for this is that you lost time while checking social media, then you really have nothing to say to your patient. All you can do is apologize and promise that it won’t happen again. In the long run you might start losing patients because of this.

Physician burnout is on the rise and social media might be a serious factor here. A lot of doctors have online pages and profiles in order to communicate with patients and answer their questions. First of all, it’s important to note that doctors aren’t paid for this. Second of all, if they receive lots of messages and questions and insist on replying to all of them, this could affect their mentality and job performance. Eventually they might face burnout and depression. This will cause a decline in job performance which might result in serious mistakes. There are numerous problems that social media can cause and it’s important to know how to avoid them. Luckily it’s not all bad for the internet, as it does have plenty of uses that are beneficial for the doctor and his or her community as well as practice.

The internet can be a great place to market your practice and attract more clients. You can do this through ads on Google or using features on FindaTopDoc. Of course, Facebook and Twitter can also allow you to boost your practice for free. You could start a page in order to post medical updates relevant to your community and maybe even interact with patients and members of the community. This will show people that you care about their health and keeping them updated. You also answer their questions for free, which shows them that you’re not greedy and actually care about them. The important thing is to not let it get out of hand.

Obviously, many of use social media to vent and express our frustration with certain things that happen in our daily lives. Why should it be any different for doctors? Well, obviously they need to worry about patient confidentiality, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t avoid social media completely. Imagine having nowhere to share how you feel or show off your accomplishments that you worked so hard for. As people, doctors have every right to use social media. It can also help prevent burnout. But doesn’t it also cause burnout? Well, yes it does. It all depends on how much something is used.

You could use social media to tell people about a brilliant new technique or treatment you came up with, but be careful to not reveal anything about patients that might allow someone to identify them. Sure, you can express your fascination at seeing a rare condition for the first time, having never thought you’d ever see something like this, but be careful about how much you reveal. It’s also important to take care not to say anything that can harm your career. For example, if something went wrong at your hospital or private practice, you might not want to share it with the world. What if your supervisors see what you posted? They probably won’t be too happy with you sharing any work secrets.

When answering questions on your page or profile, know how much to say and how much time to spend doing this. Don’t spend so much time on your page that you neglect the patients in your office or at the hospital. It’s okay to not be able to answer all questions. You’re only human and can only handle so much. At the same time, be careful of how much you say in your answers. If the question is posted by one of your patients, then your answer shouldn’t include anything about their condition or last visit. If they want to reveal something about themselves then that’s up to them, but you can’t do it. If you can’t answer without revealing private information about them, then you might reply telling them you’ll answer them privately or during their next visit. That way you show them you aren’t neglecting them but at the same time not breaching doctor-patient confidentiality.

There’s always a fine line. There’s a fine line between love and hate. There’s a fine line between benefitting from social media and being harmed by it. Use it to vent, celebrate, and express your emotions. Use it to market your practice and spread awareness. Communicate with patients and answer those who need your help. But at the same time, take care to not hurt anyone or even yourself. By breaching HIPAA and patient confidentiality, you’re harming patients whom you care about and at the same time leaving yourself open for penalties. Learn how to use it to your benefit and when to stop because it might cause harm.