Social media usage among health care providers

Abstract

Objective

The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of social media among healthcare workers in an attempt to identify how it affects the quality of patient care.

Results

An anonymous survey of 35 questions was conducted in South Texas, on 366 healthcare workers. Of the 97% of people who reported owning electronic devices, 87.9% indicated that they used social media. These healthcare workers indicated that they spent approximately 1 h on social media every day. The healthcare workers below the age of 40 were more involved in social media compared to those above 40 ( p < 0.05). The use of social media among physicians and nurses was noted to be identical (88% for each group), and both groups encouraged their patients to research their clinical conditions on social media ( p < 0.05). A higher number of physicians reported awareness of a social media policy in their hospital compared to nurses ( p < 0.05). However, a large proportion of healthcare workers (40%) were unaware of their workplace policy, which could potentially cause a privacy breach of confidential medical information. Further studies are required to evaluate specific effects of these findings on the quality of patient care.