Walk the talk

Doctors may be cagey about reaching out to patients on Facebook or Twitter — but there are plenty of pay-offs for getting social media-savvy.

Social networking has found its niche when it comes to professional collaboration, but should you draw the line at interacting with patients?

If you listen to most of the commentary on these interactive platforms, you’d think so. The potential pitfalls most often cited include the blurring of professional boundaries and patient privacy issues.

It makes sense to keep your private life and professional life separate online. That may mean having two Facebook or Twitter identities: one private and one professional.

A professional social media identity can help doctors and practices to establish trust and transparency, and provide them with opportunities to improve their service and gain loyalty.

Some practices have started using Facebook to help with appointment scheduling, for instance, while others use it as a forum for patient feedback.

But there’s another reason why it pays to dabble: public expectations about how they connect in the health care space are changing.

For starters, they are chatting with each other about their health-related experiences — and their doctors — on online community sites, according to Ms Jenni Beattie, a Sydney-based digital communications consultant who specialises in the health care industry.

She says patients will also increasingly come to expect the same two-way communication that social media enables in other parts of their lives.

If it sounds time consuming, it need not be. Social media works best when used in a targeted and deliberate manner, according to Ms Beattie.

“It’s important for practices interested in integrating social media into the marketing mix to have a strategy and ensure that measurement is included”, she says.

Here’s an overview of some of the options:

Facebook

In the business world, Facebook is emerging as a new customer service platform. For practices, this can translate to a cheap and effective delivery mechanism for health information.

Mr Hugh Stephens, a social media consultant with Dialogue Consulting and a medical student, says Facebook is a useful channel for practices because it is popular across many people and age groups.

“From a business perspective, you need to go where your audience is.”

For most practices, social media strategies won’t be geared at gathering more patients, Mr Stephens says. The emphasis will be on providing a better service to the community, say by posting targeted health-related messages.

“This is particularly relevant in rural and remote communities”, he says.

The Panaceum Group medical practice in Geraldton uses Facebook in this way, says one of its GPs, Dr Edwin Kruys.

“Our practice has a Facebook page with about 1500 friends and we use it for health education purposes and to exchange information like opening hours and phone numbers”, he says.

“This is very much appreciated by our patients. As it is a public forum it is obviously not suitable for consultations and for the exchange of personal information.”

Dr Kruys says patients can post on its Facebook page, and this interaction has already paid off for the practice.

“We receive mostly positive feedback and occasionally negative feedback, and that’s fair enough”, he says. “One unhappy patient commented on their wall about waiting times, and we were able to explain why our doctors sometimes run late — which received a positive response.”

Social media opens up a dialogue, Dr Kruys says, so complaints can be addressed and often remedied immediately, and others can see action being taken.

Patient communities

Online communities encourage people with specific interests and issues to get together to find support, share advice and recommendations.

Ms Beattie says physicians who take the time to get to know these communities and other information resources will be in a better position to recommend them to patients.

Examples of patient communities include mental health sites, ReachOut Forums (http://forums.reachout.com) and BlueBoard (http://blueboard.anu.edu.au), and forums for people with chronic disease, including the diabetes site. RealityCheck (www.realitycheck.org.au/RCforum).

“It’s important that the physician not only is abreast of the most reputable sites on medical conditions but discusses web searching with patients to recommend the more reputable sites”, Ms Beattie says.

According to Mr Stephens, these sorts of sites — especially those with a big influence such as the so-called “mummy blogs” such as www.mamamia.com.au — also present an opportunity for doctors to engage and add their voice and expertise to the conversation.

“Ultimately the way to get your message out there is to find those who are interested in what you’re saying, so if you specialise in women’s health, reach out to those who might be blogging about their experiences”, he says.

Blogs

A growing number of doctors are blogging and tweeting messages pitched at fellow professionals, while some are targeting a broader patient audience.

Perth GP Dr Joe Kosterich kicked off his www.drjoe.net.au website primarily as a vehicle through which to promote his healthy lifestyle books, but now he finds that blogging provides an even wider audience.

“What I found after many years in medicine is that I was saying the same things about diet, exercise and sleep over and over, to one person at a time. Via my blog I can talk to thousands simultaneously.”

Dr Kosterich’s experience shows the power of social media. He has 38 000 followers on Twitter and 5000 friends on Facebook, where he offers general healthy living tips, rather than health advice.

He says he aims to engage people who are interested in improving their health and to provide them with practical information to help them do that.

Dr Kosterich says he’s figuring out what works. “You can put something up and it sinks like stone, while other things go off and this gives you guidance”, he says. “Doctors who want to go down a public speaking route or write a book can put themselves out there and see what response they get at no cost — except for the time invested — so there’s not a lot to lose.”