RESOURCE: 5 Social Media Trends Within Healthcare in 2014 | Zach Cutler
Every year, social media increasingly integrates with almost every aspect of daily life. According to the Pew Research Center, 73 percent of adults online use some form of social media. So it’s not surprising that social media is beginning to work its way into the healthcare arena.
A report by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics found physicians spend twice as much time consulting online resources than traditional print sources. And doctors certainly aren’t alone in consulting online sources when it comes to health information. In the U.K., reports place Facebook as the fourth most popular source of health information. In the U.S., between 70 and 75 percent of people look to the internet for healthcare information.
Social media channels are huge portals for sharing information with patients. It seems unlikely the social media trend will die down anytime soon, and healthcare professionals need to become fluent in the ways in which social media can impact and improve their professions and the lives of their patients.
Here are just five of this year’s social media trends impacting the healthcare field:
- Crisis Readiness
- Teaching Patients
- Live Tweeting Procedures
- Improving Prevention
- Empowering Patients
Read more: 5 Social Media Trends Within Healthcare in 2014 | Zach Cutler.
Written by Brian S McGowan, PhD
Dr. McGowan has served in leadership positions in numerous medical educational organizations and commercial supporters and is a Fellow of the Alliance (FACEhp). He founded the Outcomes Standardization Project, launched and hosted the Alliance Podcast, and most recently launched and hosts the JCEHP Emerging Best Practices in CPD podcast. In 2012 he Co-Founded ArcheMedX, Inc, a healthcare informatics and e-learning company to apply his research in practice.
