Until recently my relationship with social media has been like that of a super hero first discovering their powers. Things just seemed to happen if I hit enough buttons on my phone or asked Siri enough questions but I didn’t seem to have any idea of how to control what I was doing. Having spent most of my life out of doors I prefer to do everything away from the indoors or tied to an electronic device. But as every super hero soon learns “with great power comes great responsibility” and it would be irresponsible to not try to use social media for the greater good. Especially when it comes to improving the health of others.
The power that social media can offer patients and their family members is through advocacy and transparency. This is the power I’m hoping to learn how to harness and control. The hospital system currently works as an entry system, we wait for patients to present themselves to us and then react. What if we could use social media to anticipate their needs and provide comfort before they even enter the building? What if patients and families knew what we excel at and what we are currently working on improving so they can help us help them? These are a few questions I am trying to answer through my work in quality improvement and as a patient advocate.
I took my first step towards using social media on a professional level by creating invitations for an oncology focus group. The purpose of the focus group is to allow patients and families to comment on what the hospital does well and where improvements are needed. Even though it was only an invitation it was not easy to post. Hitting “post” on my first professional invitation caused 30 minutes of reflection and three separate opinions on wording and presentation. I pride myself on being a professional who is honest, thoughtful, hardworking, and who genuinely cares about improving healthcare experiences for others. Social media carries risks to these professional values. A wrong interpretation or misprint can not only effect myself, but my organization as well, and it’s permanent. Being a risk manager and privacy officer does nothing to alleviate these fears. Will this post expose the hospital in a negative way? Will I offend or violate a patient or their loved one by posting this? Am I making the right choice in the way I use social media or only believe I am because it’s so easy to hit send?
Yet I have no idea how else to reach and capture a broad range of perspectives without the use of social media. Have you tried phoning someone lately? Sending invitations in the mail? For my last focus group, I handed out fliers, business cards and offered free coffee to try to draw people in to a focus group being held at a later date. Total attendance for that focus group: 1 (me). To create change I have to be willing to change and so I return to the power of social media. This is how the majority of people communicate and I want to meet people where they are at. The Centers for disease control and prevention knew this that and in 2011 they launched their Zombie Preparedness campaign to encourage disaster preparedness. The idea came from monitoring social media after a disaster that occurred in Japan[1] . A few minutes after tweeting about the blog post the blog crashed due to added traffic on the site and the campaign is still in use today. The power of social media was used to relay key health information to a larger audience which is how I hope to harness it as a professional. I want to improve a person’s health in ways that are meaningful to them. I’d like to stay on the lighter side of serious while remaining a professional you trust with your health.
[1] CBC (2018). Monsters and Medicine. [podcast] White Coat Black Art. Available at: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat [Accessed 25 May 2018].