Social Media In The Hospital Research Paper

Social Media in the Hospital

Social Media is any Internet based application that help consumers share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives (Richter, Wilks, & Muhlestein, 2014). Social media is starting to become something that is a part of our everyday lives. More and more people are using social media as a way to connect with not only others, but the world. Right now about 78% of people use the Internet, with 52% using it for medical reasons. 77% of hospitals use it as a way to connect with patients to rate experiences, contact for care, and for health care and insurance. Social media is known to some as a positive influence, and to others has negative connotation. In hospitals though, it has both negative and positive effects

If the hospital is using more and more social media, the older generation will be left out from the benefits of it. Instead of looking at all of the positive effects that the hospital has based on what they have posted and what others have posted, the older generation will use word of mouth for where they should go, or use where friends and family have gone, to decide. The hospital is then also missing out on getting

There are so many positive reasons for using, such as making it much easier to contact patients, and attract more patients based on reviews of others and things the hospital can post, but there are also some difficulties for the hospital in using this. The hospital has to make sure all employees are obeying the rules of HIPPA, otherwise they can get in very big trouble. The hospital also has to make sure all of the negative comments are erased, or dealt with elsewhere, and they have to make sure they understand most of the social media users are only in a certain age range leaving out a large group of people. If the hospital can weigh out each of these decisions, they should be able to decide if the use of social media will be right for them or