We Can, but Dare We? Research Paper Example

Introduction

Modern revolution and adoption of communication devices has created a new perspective in use of technology to aid provision of healthcare. Since 2010, the use of technology in the healthcare has seen many changes, (Fonville, Choe, Oldham & Kientz, 2010). Many pharmaceutical companies have taken part in many healthcare startups that target mainly empowerment of patient communities to use mobile devices and social media in healthcare and since then the scope on the use of these communication channels in healthcare has broaden its scope.

The Use of Social Media and Smartphones in Healthcare Provision

The use of platforms for example PatientsLikeMe and 23andMe has led to creation of many academic journals that shows that social media and mobile devices, especially Smartphone have legitimate contributions on improving the healthcare provision to patients. PatientsLikeMe published medical journal on Epilepsy and Behaviour titled “Perceived Benefits of Sharing Health Data Between People With Epilepsy on an Online Platform” while 23andMe published its study on Journal of Medical and Internet Research titled “Efficient Replication of Over 180 Genetic Associations With Self-Reported Medical Data,” while pointed to the use of Smartphone and social media in patient healthcare. Healthcare systems and hospitals have gone a further step from merely conducting initial studies in integrating mobile devices and social media in provision of healthcare eliciting its advantages. Popular social media platforms include MySpace, facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, personal blogs, and specialized blogs like WebMD.

Social media platforms and Smartphones provide a medium of communication between healthcare providers and patients, quickly and inexpensively through promotion of new marketing services, announce of achievement in patient care and promotion of new wellness services and programs, (Mukhopadhyay & Postolache, 2013). The rapid growth of citizens joining social media such as twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and Whatsapp provides a mechanism in which healthcare information can be disseminated easily and in real-time through connection of the groups and individuals. Various channels can be used in social media to disseminate healthcare information in addition to providing development of life-saving applications in these platforms.

In preventive healthcare, the use of social media provides a way in which doctors can remotely monitor patients on online platforms. In such cases, the patients are encouraged to update constantly their profiles to allow easy monitoring of their development and progress. In Netherlands, for instance, St. Radboud Academic Medical Center developed an online platform that deals with chronic diseases such as cancer providing a way in which such patients can articulate their health problems that include issues at work, financial constraints and any other issue they may wish to share with their healthcare providers. MyBreastCancerTeam is another popular online platform for women in the use, who can share information regarding breast cancer. In 2012 alone, over 200,000 women accessed the platform enabling them to interact with other women facing breast cancer.

Studies done on use of social media in accessing of healthcare reveals that it leads to reduced loneliness, increase in social capita and reduction in psychological distress, (Chungu, 2013). Social media increases level of association between people thus leading to reduced stress through sharing of stories and medical health problems with doctors as well as seeking for consultations before making subsequent appointments. Therefore, the use of social media platforms has greatly improved provision of geriatric care.

Smartphone provides a mechanism of owning a hand held computer device added to its advantage of relatively cheaper cost of ownership compared to personal computers like laptops and desktops and tablets. It is user friendly and enables access to information anywhere anytime. In the eyes of the healthcare providers, Smartphones provide an alternative to a number of IT formats that were initially costly to use, cumbersome and could interrupt the healthcare workflow. By the end of 2010, over 5800 applications were available in apple appstore for use by the healthcare consumers including patients and clinicians.

Smartphones are a source of medical reference; it provides a means in which doctors can receive alerts and awareness. By networking Smartphone with social media like twitter and facebook, doctors are able to receive alerts and breakthroughs from FDA. This mechanism provides an effective way of communicating clinical guidelines in a cheap and relatively faster way besides issuing information on recalled medical products. One such useful platform is available with the iphones in the name of

Healthcare provision is information sensitive and most clinicians provide care at point of care. Therefore, online provision of information is important and one such celebrated source of online information that can be accessed through Smartphone is Epocrates. In addition, a number of diagnostic tools are available through Smartphone’s applications. Differential diagnosis developed by Zeiger is available on under affiliation of Google Health and provides in diagnosis of communicable diseases. This application can be accessed via Smartphone providing a mechanism through which patients can learn how to manage diseases such as coughs and colds thereby improving healthcare provision under communicable diseases.

The use of Smartphones help in prevention of phone tags where laboratory results can be delivered as soon as they are completed. Through lab app, a physician can email a patient the results if any abnormality is detected and this has reduced delays in diseases diagnosis thus improving healthcare provision. The health solutions on Smartphones provide easy way of communicating information through tracking of patient signs and taking of videos and images and transmitting them to enable immediate response from doctors before such acts are recorded and stored. Obstetrics has also drawn great success in its fast response to disorders regarding labor and deliveries, thus increasing their efficiency of response,  (Bardhan & Thouin, 2013).

Lastly, Smartphone provides mechanism in which patients can easily access their healthcare records. Smartphone applications that provide such mechanisms include Care Tools iChart, Life Record, Allscripts, eClinical and NextGen. Patients are no longer required to be present physically in order to access their medical records as this can be done anywhere anytime.

Challenges with the Use of Social Media in Provision of Healthcare Services

However, the use of social media and Smartphones come with its challenges. One special disadvantage is security and protection of privacy. The use of online platforms opens personal information of the users to the world. Noting that the increased use of technology has led to increased cybercrime and this means hackers can hack user accounts and access information regarding health condition of patients, (Denison & Montevoy, 2011). Every patient has a right to privacy and online platforms open a floodgate into which this right can be breached. Facebook, twitter and other online chat sites are the most exposed.

Finally, not everybody is techno savvy and this means use of Smartphone can be a problem for the populations with less literacy levels and this provides an impediment in dissemination of information to such individuals. In addition, such people are low income earners and may not be able to afford Smartphones that support all the online healthcare applications. In addition, patients with chronic diseases may not be able to use such technology thus limiting its use in provision of services to such patients in case of emergency.  All these go against the ethical perspective of provision of medical care without disclosure of patient information and provision of medical care regardless of the economic capability of the citizens.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the use of social media and Smartphone greatly enhances provision of healthcare. The increased use of Smartphone means the role out is greatly enhanced and the overall healthcare provision and general health of the population can be achieved. However, the use of Smartphone apps and social media creates a way in which the privacy of its users can be infringed.

Recommendations

• Security measure like use of spam detectors and antivirus to detect and clear malware need to enhanced in order to improve the personal information of its users
• Smartphone applications should undergo innovations in order to cover all categories of people including those who suffer from chronic illnesses such as cancer and may not be able to use such applications
• There is need to provide education to the less literate individuals on availability and how to use online healthcare applications.

References

Bardhan, I., & Thouin, M. (2013). Health information technology and its impact on the quality and cost of healthcare delivery. Decision Support Systems, 55(2), 438–449.

Chungu, I. (2013). The Impact of Social Media on the Presence of ICNet International, Inc. in the Global Healthcare Industry.

Denison, C., & Montevoy, E. (2011). Transforming healthcare with health information technology(1st ed.). New York: Nova Science Publishers.

Fonville, A., Choe, E., Oldham, S., & Kientz, J. (2010). Exploring the use of technology in healthcare spaces and its impact on empathic communication, 497–501.

Mukhopadhyay, S., & Postolache, O. (2013). Pervasive and mobile sensing and computing for healthcare (1st ed.). Berlin: Springer.