Travis’ Note: Today’s Guest Post is from Houston Neal from Software Advice. The original article was posted here. Thanks to Michael Koploy for bringing this post to our attention, and to Software Advice for allowing us to share this content here at Science of Blogging.

“Tremendous.” A surprising word to come up in discussion about healthcare. But this is the word I heard several times in recent conversation on social media and medicine.

“Doctors have a tremendous opportunity to help patients online,” said Dr. Kevin Pho, better known as @kevinmd.

“If you look at [social media in] healthcare, the benefits to everyone are tremendous,” agrees Howard Luks, orthopedic surgeon and Chief of Sports Medicine and Arthroscopy at University Orthopedics, PC.

Putting these together, we might say, “social media has a tremendous opportunity to improve healthcare.”

But doctors have been slow to adopt social media. Why? Why aren’t they using social media to talk with other professionals, connect with patients and share information with the public?

The time commitment, concerns of liability, and naiveté are cited as major causes. But I think these miss the bigger picture. Social media is about more than the relationships between individuals. It’s about the dissemination of information. Information that can improve health care and save lives.

An Extension of the Exam Room
More and more Americans are going online to look for health information. Estimates are as high as 81%. While some argue this makes doctors less relevant, I think otherwise.

Social media allows doctors to extend their influence beyond the exam room. It allows them to share valuable information with patients, the public, and each other.

“Information is the new third party in the exam room,” says Dr. Bryan Vartabedian, attending physician at Texas Children’s Hospital. “We can influence information that our patients are reading. Doctors need to be part of the conversation to have a positive impact.”

Social media allows us to share information at a speed and distance that was once impossible. It presents a new opportunity to prevent, diagnose, and treat diseases. In some cases, even save lives. But we still need more engagement from healthcare professionals. Doctors have an opportunity – and an obligation – to join us in sharing information online.

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