KU School of Nursing Continuing Education

April 15 • 1023 Orr Major • NOON

Faculty

Dr. Natasha Burgert is a Board-Certified general pediatrician in Kansas City, MO.  Her primary focus is direct patient care in a dynamic suburban private practice.  She shares her pediatric expertise, blended with parenting experience, on kckidsdoc.com.  Dr. Natasha believes that best patient care cannot be achieved without a true partnership with a health care provider.  This partnership includes access, availability, and communication.  In order to optimize her patient care, she began to take an active interest in communicating with patient families in unique ways. This dialog turned to social media venues to keep up with the pace of media information online, and to add to the active online conversations that influence health care decisions.  Her efforts have been recognized by many media outlets; including the New York Times, the Associated Press, CNN.com, and Forbes.com.

Dr. Burgert received her bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Biology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and her medical doctorate from the University of Nebraska College of Medicine.  She completed her Pediatric Residency Training at Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center.

Overview

The health care industry, one of the largest industries in the United States, is among the slowest in adopting new technologies in communications and information technology.  Social media tools, one of the newer technologies, are beginning to make a presence in health care.  Recently in American Medical News, an author noted that patients want to use social media to help them achieve care coordination as well as improve the process by which they move through the system.  In one study of 111 patients, 83% reported using some form of social media and 56% reporting wanting to providers to use social media (Fisher & Clayton, 2012).  In addition, Susannah Fox recently reported that over 1/3 of US adults are looking for diagnostic health care information online (Pew Internet, Health Online 2013).  Such use could make social media a powerful way for physicians and other health care providers to engage patients.  The program director for the National Cancer Institute’s health communication and informatics research branch purports that, “the democratization of information through social media is shaping clinical encounters and the patient-provider relationship.”

While use of social media by health care professionals is expected to increase with the implementation of ACOs, a recent survey found that only 6% of physicians (about 60,000 nationally) used social media to communicate with their patients.  This is, in part, because health care professionals are concerned about a number of issues related to the use of social media in health care delivery, including privacy and liability issues, maintaining appropriate boundaries, professionalism, conflicts of interest, permanence of online communication, information veracity, time involved, and reimbursement.

Despite these issues, many health care professionals have begun to use social media as a part of their commitment to successful practice.  Most barriers inhibiting health care providers to beginning social media can be overcome with an increasing understanding of how to practically use these tools.  In exchange for reaching out online, health care providers can expect to improve to their patient care, improve patient relationships, share positive health care information, respond to health misinformation, and increase new patient visits.

Objectives

• Identify the most common social media tools used in practice.
• Explain how social media improves the care provided to patients in the office setting.
• Discuss the challenges and opportunities of using social media with patients.
• Explore one possible way of utilizing social media in practice.

Speaker and Moderator Disclosure

With regard to this presentation Dr. Natasha Burgert and Dr. Mary Gambino disclosed that they do not have any relevant commercial financial relationships related to the content of this presentation.

Who will benefit

This program will be beneficial for nurses, physicians, and other healthcare professionals who want to incorporate state-of-the-art knowledge into their clinical and organizational practices.

References

• AMA policy: professionalism in the use of social media.  American Medical Association. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/meeting/professionalism-social-media.shtml  Accessed September 20, 2012.
• ANA principles: Principles for Social Networking and the Nurse: Guidance for the Registered Nurse. American Nurses Association.  http://nursingworld.org/FunctionalMenuCategories/AboutANA/Social-Media/Social-Networking-Principles-Toolkit   Accessed September 20, 2012.
• Dolan, P. L. (2012). Patient want to use social media tools to manage health care. American Medical News, April 30, 2012.
• Fisher, J., & Clayton, M. (2012). Who gives a Tweet: Assessing patients’ interest in the use of social media for health care. Worldviews on Evidence-Based Nursing, 9, 100-108.
• Ford, E. W., Huerta, T. R., Schilhavy, R. A. M., & Menachemi, N. (2012).  Effective US health system websites: Establishing benchmarks and standards for effective consumer engagement.  Journal of Healthcare Management, 57(1), 47-64.
• Fox, S. and Duggan, M. (2013). Health Online 2013.  http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Health-online/Summary-of-Findings.aspx  Accessed January 15, 2013.
• Hawn, C. (2009). Take two aspirin and tweet me in the morning: How Twitter, Facebook, and other social media are reshaping health care. Health Affairs, 28, 361-367.
• Pho, K. and Gay, S. (2013). Establishing, Managing, and Protecting Your Online Reputation: A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices. Greenbranch Publishing.

Evaluations

Please complete the brief electronic evaluation after the program. The evaluation can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/SM041513 . We will also send you the link to the evaluation following the program.

Recording

A recording of the presentation (without CE) will be available here after the program.