The Effects Of Social Media On The Treatment Of Diabetes

According to Steven Waldern, director of the American Academy of Family Physicians Center for Health IT, social media has taken a toll on the healthcare industry. Patients are now interacting with patients that are going through a social media site, Patients like me. This site is used to improve the patient’s outcome, connect patients with one another, and enable research. This website has secure portals to ensure that patient information is kept personal or with only healthcare providers. (Hartford, 2012)

Communication has been permanently changed by social media. A wide conceptual definition of social media, as cited in Ressler & Glazer (2010), is “The online and mobile accessible services that enable individuals to connect, collaborate, and share with others in real time.” Social media has an obvious influence on informal communication style and represents both possibility and liability for healthcare institutions. As cited in Bernhardt, Alber, & Gold (2014), “Social media provide healthcare professionals with tools to share information, to debate health care policy and practice issues, to promote health behaviors, to engage with the public, and to educate and interact with patients, caregivers, students, and colleagues.” It also presents challenges, including risks to information accuracy, organizational reputation, and individual privacy. Social media can be a very helpful in communicating among nurses and other healthcare providers while creating professional connections, and sharing experiences, but guidelines for appropriate use by healthcare providers are essential. Whether or not certain healthcare organization decides to use social media as a communications tool - social media policy still need to be implemented. Policies help establish an organization 's rules and expectations around social media.

We Can But Dare We: A Look into the Use of Social Media in Healthcare

Social media in hospitals can affect the patient as well as the nurse and the nursing student. Westrick states: “Nurses must find a balance between taking advantage of the benefits social media use

Social media has taken over the way that we interact with one another. It is leading the way in which we communicate with family, friends, coworkers and strangers. It is also the way we keep up with our favorite celebrities and gossip. Social media and the use of smartphones are becoming more prevalent in business and the healthcare field as well. According to Pew Research Center, “62% of smartphone owners have used their phone in the past year to look up information about a health condition” (April, 2015). Technology, just like all things come with flaws

Ressier, with the University of Massachusetts- Boston College of Nursing and Health Sciences states that, “as we educate a new generation of nurses, use of social media will be an integral component in their ability to practice competently, effectively, and collaboratively with team members, patients, and families.” Times are changing and social media is the fastest growing forum out there. Nurses will need to be able to navigate these apps when the time is right.

The use of social media is widespread and ever increasing, at the beginning of the 3rd quarter of 2016 there is 1.79 billion active Facebook users and 2.34 billion social media users across all platforms (Statista, 2016). This trend can also be seen in healthcare professionals and will increase as younger practioners join the workforce. A survey in 2011 by the Medical Protection society found that 36% of doctors used Facebook on a daily basis and that 100% of medical students have Facebook accounts with Ofcom reporting that 80 % of adults in the UK has some sort of social medial account.

Unvalidated sources of health information (abbreviated as USHI for the purpose of this paper) like social network sites (SNS), blogs, forums and the likes proliferate the internet. Patients, relatives of patients, or friends of patients utilize these platforms for a plethora of reasons ranging from guidance on major and minor health decisions to the desire for support from other users. Support, as used here, could be emotional, social or financial and is usually gained by patients through the sharing of their personal medical issues, asking questions or sharing of their experiences with other users [12]. The use of the Internet and USHI for guidance on health decisions is increasing [1, 13]. Existing literature identifies patient's trust in

Another challenge is that traditional health-care systems currently in operation in the county and other communities in Texas, are designed to provide symptom-driven responses to acute illnesses, and are often poorly configured to meet the needs of the chronically ill. Further, successful management of chronic diseases including diabetes is challenging due to lack of information technology in outpatient settings; multiple sources of nonintegrated information; limited access to and use of diabetes specialists including education services, and time constraints.

In the case of the reviewed study, care was delivered fruitfully to a group of sick individuals that were poorly controlled, and the main medium used included live phone calls. According to the review paper, new forms of interventions that are based on technology emphasize on the utilization of the internet, telephone, pagers, cell phones, email and web-based programs to monitor and measure the condition status of diabetes patients, report on various habits and symptoms and encourage changes in a number of aspects of the management of the disease. In the case of the reviewed study, the central aspect was improved glycemic control and better adherence to medication (Fisher & Dickinson, 2011).

The ages of the participants ranged from 18-65. The eligibility criteria required participants to have accessibility to a mobile phone device. Moreover, only patients with oral medications as their therapeutic regimen were considered for the study. Eighty individuals met all the criteria and decided to participate, but 3 of them were lost before the posttest was conducted. The lasting 77 participants were randomly assigned to two separate groups: short message service (SMS) group (n=38) and telephone group (n=39). A small education session was held for the members of the SMS group, in order to assess their capacities to send and read messages. Simultaneously, the members of the telephone group were coordinating the schedules and dates for the follow-up calls for the next three months of intervention. In average, each patient in the SMS group received 72 messages in a period of 3 months, while the members of the telephone group received approximately 16 calls, each consisting of 20 minutes. Diabetes educators provided the same topics of conversation (diet, exercise, medication adherence, risks for complication, and maintenance of blood sugar levels) during the interactions with all 77 participants. Glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) tests were taken from all participants at baseline, then 3 months later for the posttest, in order to measure the

Taylor, Kuwana, Wilfond (2014) discuss the ethical considerations in healthcare for social media. They bring forward issues such as collecting data for healthcare, and also recontacting patients through social media. Is it ethically acceptable to gather information on a patient through their social media (i.e. Facebook) accounts? (Taylor et al. 2014). Furthermore if a patient cannot be contacted via their phone or email, is it then suitable for professionals to contact them through social media (Taylor et al.

Due to advances in technology, such as Internet and social media, patients will also be able to gain access to their health information and support from their friends, which will therefore weaken the relationship between doctors and patients. Benard Lo, MD and Lindsay Parham, B.A are authors of the article “The Impact of Web 2.0 on the Doctor-Patient Relationship” that talks about how, in the future, patients will be able to input their personal health information with the aid of digital technology before their visit with their physicians. Benard Lo, MD is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Program in Medical Ethics at the University of California, San Fransisco (UCSF) and Lindsay Parham, B.A is a research assistant in the program

Managing health conditions involves more than just getting patients to take a pill. Chronic health conditions affect a patient’s entire life and require lifestyle changes to be managed effectively. Digital therapeutics are helping doctors and patients harness the power of technology to address all types of healthcare concerns. These new technologies provide education to patients and collect real-time data to monitor progress towards goals. For example, Omada Health recently introduced a highly effective online program that targets pre-diabetic patients. The program coaches patients to lose weight and become more active using proven behavioral interventions. Other companies have introduced similar products that aim to

“Social media have invaded health care from at least three fronts: innovative startups, patient communities and medical centers” (John Sharp 2010). The Social Media arena helps the health care system for their planning strategy and their marketing. However, their use is very controversial. There is a discussion about the use of social media in the healthcare settings due to its vulnerability. Even though social media is important for the healthcare development, the security issues will remain big concerns for the healthcare system.