There is a health space issue that I once jokingly channeled Journey’s Separate Ways to define: while conversations about health are happening, they tend to stay constrained within specific verticals. That is to say, patients talk with other patients, and health professionals are more likely to turn to their peers than the public. The challenge is that this is probably the opposite interaction of what is occurring in the real world, where physicians and patients are intertwined in addressing health conditions.
This debate is crucial to the future of our role as online communicators. As much as we study, learn and research our clients and their medical issues, we will never be in a position to replace physicians who have studied these things for years.
What does the landscape look like in terms of patient-physician interaction? To help explain it, here are a few points from the debate.
The Paradox
A doctor’s office may only be open during regular business hours, but search engines never sleep. When someone with a health condition tweets or interacts with other patients, there is no bounds on who or what they discuss. Yet, when the lights go off and the doctor is off the clock, there are myriad reasons –such as privacy concerns and legal implications – for them to not answer that e-mail, friend request or direct message. Herein lies the paradox: a search engine is an emotionless algorithm; a physician has years of academic and professional experience.
Ignoring Is Easy
Susan Giurleo, PhD, wrote an awesome piece on KevinMD last week about the many different mistakes that can be made in social media health care. While all of her points are worth reading, I think the primary issue is the idea of avoidance: physicians and other health care professionals may rather skip the “confusion and distraction” of social media as opposed to learning about the tools – and the other positives that come with it.
Valid Hesitations
Even if it is part avoidance, there are certainly doomsday scenarios that create valid concerns for doctors looking to jump into the online channel. In one case, patients may only be sharing a small portion of information online, and part of the doctor’s visit isn’t just a patient’s documented history, but they can ask additional questions and run tests to get the whole picture. A doctor doesn’t want to give diagnoses based on partial information; it puts them at risk for missing something and, then, potential legal action. Of course, there’s also one more question: reimbursement. Doctors have bills to pay, like everyone else, why should they give away medical knowledge online if there’s no business?
Forget the Return
Seattle area health facility Swedish is in the midst of hosting a conference to recognize 100 years of serving Washington state. Lucky for us, some of the smartest physician voices online were not only there, but tweeting some of their thoughts. There was at least one thing shared that Wendy Sue Swanson and Bryan Vartabedian (SeattleMamaDoc and Doctor_V, respectively) agreed on: “This is not about ROI. This is an obligation to inform and share knowledge.”
Who Fixes It?
Just as with so much of the online health space, the question often comes back to how it changes. Just as no one wants to be the Pharma company made example of for trying something new in social media, those who are willing to jump in and try and embrace these channels are faced with the risk of being weary trailblazers. Until then, I’ll try to sum it up with a quote from former President Dwight Eisenhower: “No one ever hit a home run by bunting.”
Image credit: tabithahawk
