Dr. Google, at your service?

The caveat is that social media tends to stress on anecdotal information rather than evidence-based reports, which could be dangerous when used as a primary source of information.

It may not seem like social media and healthcare go hand in hand. Social media is all about sharing information whereas the health sector is mostly about privacy and confidentiality. But in much the same way they use online reviews to choose a restaurant, more and more people are turning to social media before they make a decision about healthcare. Indeed, the age of social media and Internet information has affected the area of medicine and healthcare as much as it has affected all domains of life.

I was part of the top leadership for two leading healthcare organizations in this country for many years, and senior manager in one of the top university medical centers overseas. But even I admit to having done this…

You wake up feeling a slight tickle in your throat. You try and shake it off and drink lots of water. After a few hours it’s still there. Instead of calling your mom or making a doctor appointment, you head to the Internet. Today, anyone with a computer and a connection can get online and get a variety of results, ranging from simple sore throat to the more serious, like bronchitis and asthma.

But just because we can doesn’t mean we should. In a world where almost everyone is online and can easily find and provide medical relief, is it really a good idea to consider social media and Dr. Google a reliable source of healthcare?

So, how has social media changed the healthcare industry? In the US, a recent survey of 1,060 adults by Pricewaterhouse Coopers on healthcare and social media showed that 52 percent of consumers have used social media to access health-related consumer reviews.

The survey also showed that more than 80 percent claimed to appreciate receiving assistance from healthcare providers via social media with referrals and appointment scheduling. Forty-five percent of those surveyed said social media could affect their decisions to seek a second opinion.

The extensive presence of both healthcare professionals and patients in social media at a personal level, suggests that social media has truly become part of the landscape of healthcare today. However, the essential features of the healthcare field such as privacy, confidentiality and need for face-to-face interactions make the integration of social media and medicine somewhat tricky, especially under the umbrella of patient protection laws.

But beyond the real and imagined pitfalls of social media in healthcare, there are also convincing arguments about how social media can help “improve patient-physician interactions, enhance patient motivation, drive awareness, provide information, raise timely issues, facilitate exchange of ideas, frame and reframe health-related questions, engage a larger community, and ultimately produce improved outcomes across health systems.”

The caveat is that social media tends to stress on anecdotal information rather than evidence-based reports, which could be dangerous when used as a primary source of information. The interplay of ethics, confidentiality, privacy and most importantly, information quality within social media must be understood completely, particularly by patients seeking actual medical care.

Most remarkable, however, is that social media has the benefit of being able to reach more people worldwide than most other media.

An example of this in action was the Zika outbreak in Brazil in 2016. Most recent and right here at home, the resurgence of polio after two decades has kept all social media platforms abuzz nationwide, and all the way to the global healthcare organizations such as the World Health Organization and End Polio Now advocacy groups such as Rotary International and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — all geared to campaign even more aggressively for global awareness and greater funding towards eradicating polio forever.

At the end of the day, it should never be a choice between a long wait in the doctor’s clinic, or the immediate answer from Dr. Google. Think about this. A person with a severe headache for several months can range from a simple headache to migraines to an allergic reaction to a life-threatening brain tumor. How would Dr. Google — or a computer program — differentiate between these diagnoses without physically touching and talking to the patient?

With over 30 years of experience in patient care, healthcare marketing, business development and hospital operations, Marilen Tronqued-Lagniton is a Certified Lead Auditor for ISO 9001:2015. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from St. Theresa’s College in QC, Philippines; completed the MBA for Healthcare Administrators at the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA; Completed the Patient Safety Officer Course, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) & Harvard School of Public Health (T.H. Chan) in Cambridge, MA; Completed the Advanced Leadership Program for C-Suite Leaders, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University (Evanston, IL). Email: mtlagniton@gmail.com.