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As people turn to social media sites to seek knowledge about health, healthcare professionals can use social media to positively impact the public by spreading important information. Health information received first hand by someone can be passed along to friends and family by way of direct messaging or reposting/resharing. Facebook Twitter, and Instagram, are the three major social media platforms patients used for health research according to an article titled The Use of Social Media for Health Research Purposes: Scoping Review by Bour C, Ahne A, Schmitz S, Perchoux C.

Fact checking is a new feature built into majority of the social media sites so although the spread of misinformation does exist, the opportunity to impact, educate and connect with patients is greater.

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Social Media Role and Its Impact on Public Health: A Narrative Review

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Social media refers to online social networking sites and is a broad example of Web 2.0, such as Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Instagram, WhatsApp, and blogs. It is a new and ever-changing field. Access to the internet,…

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Based on competency, AI may have a future in healthcare. Studies show AI chatbots provide better quality responses than providers.

In a blind study done in 2022, results show that out of 585 questions asked, evaluators (which consisted of a number of providers from different specialties) preferred AI chatbot responses 78.6% more than the responses from a healthcare provider. It also showed that chatbot responses were more thorough and empathetic.

Click the next video to see how a chatbot would respond to a question. Would you use AI to answer your medical questions?

Ayers, J. W., Poliak, A., Dredze, M., Leas, E. C., Zhu, Z., Kelley, J. B., Faix, D. J., Goodman, A. M., Longhurst, C. A., Hogarth, M., & Smith, D. M. (2023). Comparing physician and artificial intelligence chatbot responses to patient questions posted to a public social media forum. JAMA Internal Medicine, 183(6), 589–596. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.1838

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Would you use AI for medical information?

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Personal use of social media by healthcare workers

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Personal use of social media by healthcare workers

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Personal use of social media by health care workers can come with big consequences. Not only can certain posts negatively impact the health care employee, it can also affect the facility they are employed with. Plenty of medical professionals have got into content creation, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of that content, harmless or not, has costed them their jobs.

Four Atlanta nurses were fired in 2022 for mocking patients on Tik Tok. They were participating in an #IckChallenge where they express the things they do not like about patients. This immediately sparked outrage online and they were fired shortly after.

In a different situation, a Licensed NP named Vanna Padilla started her social media journey by offering skincare advice on the app Tik Tok, which gained her thousands of followers. Once she came up with the idea, to launch a skincare course, she was fired from her job for breach of contract as it was said to be a way of competing with the practice.

Burke, M. (2022, December 10). Nurses at Atlanta hospital under fire over TikTok video mocking maternity patients. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nurses-atlanta-hospital-fire-tiktok-video-mocking-maternity-patients-rcna61114

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They're no longer in labor.

A quartet of Atlanta nurses have been fired for recording a viral TikTok video of them grousing about the irritating habits of the patients they're tasked with helping and their families.

"We already told you to push the call light," one nurse says in the clip. "But every five minutes you have a family member coming to the front desk asking for something else."

A colleague then enters the frame and does a sarcastic impression of a demanding relative.

"Excuse me! Excuse me! Excuse me!" she says. "Can I have some water? Excuse Me! Can I have a blanket?"

Four Emory Healthcare workers appeared in the minute-long clip, which spread widely online before being taken down.

Another nurse who appeared in the video moans about mothers asking about the weight of their newborns while still holding them.

The delivery room derision drew a torrent of outrage and concern from online observers, many of whom said the nurses should not be denouncing those they are meant to be caring for.

"Imagine saying these things with women at the most [vulnerable] moment in our lives," one poster said.

ABC affiliate WSB-TV confirmed the nurses in the video all had their employment terminated.

"This video does not represent our commitment to patient- and family-centered care and falls short of the values and standards we expect every member of our team to hold and demonstrate," Emory University Midtown Hospital said in a statement after the video circulated.

The ex-staffers made the video as part of TikTok's "ick" challenge, where employees complain about the more unpleasant aspects of their professions.

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Atlanta nurses who mocked expectant moms in TikTok video fired from Emory Healthcare hospital

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The nurses were fired for recording a viral TikTok video of them griping about the tendencies of expectant mothers and their families.

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Since 2016, there has been a rise in misinformation on social media. This further increased in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Why? Well, there several factors. Those who spend more time online, tend to believe what they see, and this creates confirmation bias: where people search for and favor information that confirms that current belief. When vaccines for COVID-19 where being explored and trials began, this caused division between whether to “trust” the vaccine or not. Although health misinformation on social media is usually censored or fact-checked by the government, those who do not “trust” the government were more inclined to believe whatever information was presented whether it was accurate or not. Other factors such as a person’s emotional state during exposure or their beliefs about media credibility.

Eye-tracking software that is built in our social media platforms helps the algorithm produce the same information we engage in over and over again.

This article is important for not only healthcare workers but for patients/consumers too. It helps patients/consumers understand how to assess health information online and prepares healthcare workers for any concerns that patients may bring forth in the treatment room.

Kanchan, S., & Gaidhane, A. (2023). Social Media Role and Its Impact on Public Health: a Narrative Review. Cureus, 15(1), e33737. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.33737

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Social media can be beneficial to healthcare when it comes to detecting outbreaks and predicting illnesses. One of the ways this is possible is by Geo tracking. Different methods help researchers facilitate geo tracking, but one common method is known as human language processing, which with the help of AI can pick up on words and phrases. One of the social media applications this method is used on is Twitter. Human language processes can break down tweets and process the information within them, for example, if the word "flu" is tweeted that tweet can be processed along with built in location services, to monitor outbreaks in a given area. See video to learn more.

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A quick overview of how geo tracking and AI are used in within a social media platform to track outbreaks.

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social media geo tracking outbreaks - Google Search

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Once upon a time, people were able to separate their work lives from their personal lives. For people without a social media presence, this could still be possible. Ideally, we expect doctors to behave in a professional manner but with the rise of social media, behaviors can be observed in real time. In an article from a journal titled Journal of Vascular Surgery, investigators described what they considered inappropriate content, which ranged from photos that were uploaded or posts that were perceived as sexist or misogynist. According to another article titled Content analysis of patient complaints mentions that a large amount of patient complaints about healthcare workers are for unprofessional behavior. Medical guidelines have been produced to govern the personal behaviors of medical professionals, residents and students.

Would you care to see your medical professional’s content on social media? Would that change the way you perceive them?

Pronk, S. A., Gorter, S. L., van Luijk, S. J., Barnhoorn, P. C., Binkhorst, B., & van Mook, W. N. K. A. (2021). Perception of social media behaviour among medical students, residents and medical specialists. Perspectives on Medical Education, 10(4), 215–221. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-021-00660-1

Montini, T., Noble, A. A., & Stelfox, H. T. (2008). Content analysis of patient complaints. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 20(6), 412–420. https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzn041

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Although there was plenty information given, I wanted to really emphasize how medical professionals can help or harm themselves and their careers based on behavior online. My community action consisted of compiling articles that discuss this topic in depth, to highlight the importance of online code of conduct in AND out of the workplace for the governing medical boards of PA.