In the last few weeks and especially after I was featured in the New York Times and Crain’s New York Business about how I use social media to communicate with patients, I’ve received a lot of inquiries from an intrigued group of colleagues and journalists about the issues surrounding the use of Twitter to communicate with patients. My thoughts on this topic are as follows:
- Twitter is a great tool for physicians to disseminate information and their expertise on relevant and timely medical topics
- Twitter is not a secure platform where patients’ protected health information (PHI) can be discussed freely. This seems obvious but based on some of the questions I’ve been asked lately it appears that some people think they may soon be able to interact with doctors on Twitter for their medical issues. This is not a realistic, or even legal, expectation. Doctor-patient interactions should ideally be confined to highly secure online platforms and the doctor’s office.
I use social media, as embedded into my practice’s secure EMR/PHR platform, for 2 main reasons:
- Chronic disease management. I’m actively pursuing the use of secure email, video conferencing, and instant messaging to ensure continuity of care between office visits and help my patients better manage their chronic diseases. Getting patients engaged in the process of care can make them become active and empowered participants in their own care.
- Care coordination. I’m exploring the uses of social media for care coordination. In this context, the patient is placed at the center with their care team around them. All members of the care team, being on the same platform, have access to the same information with seamless (and structured) streams of patient-to-provider and provider-to-provider health information exchange.
