The Do's and Don'ts of Social Media Usage for Physicians ...

In recent years, social media has dramatically changed the way you as a physician can interact with patients. This new media also has changed the way your patients interact with your practice and can dramatically affect your online reputation. Gone are the days that you can simply ignore sites like Facebook and Twitter and what others are saying about you on them. It?s time to embrace, or at least come up with a plan to use, social media in your practice.

When used properly, social media today can build long-term relationships with patients and increase loyalty across the board via two-way communication that includes relevant posts, photos and videos across a myriad of social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

• Over 63% of companies using social media say it has increased marketing effectiveness, among other benefits.
• 78% of consumers say they trust peer recommendations (like those received on social media sites) while only 14% trust traditional advertisements.
• 84% of all marketers agree that building consumer trust will become marketing?s primary objective in the near future

But what are the guidelines you should follow when interacting with patients on social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and YouTube?

The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) developed ethical and professional guidance with the help of The Special Committee on Ethics and Professionalism in 2011 to answer such questions.

And it?s a good thing, too. According to a recent survey in the Journal of the American Medical Association, 92 percent of all medical and osteopathic boards in the U.S. have encountered complaints of online physician misconduct.

The?FSMB guidelines?are meant to protect physicians from unintended consequences and maintain public trust by:

-Protecting the privacy and confidentiality of their patients

-Avoiding requests for online medical advice

-Acting with professionalism

-Being forthcoming about their employment, credentials and conflicts of interest

-Being aware that information they post online may be available to anyone, and could be misconstrued

The same survey also reported that 56 percent of medical boards have either restricted, suspended or revoked at least one physicians? license for online missteps. State medical boards have the authority to discipline physicians for unprofessional behavior on social networking sites including, but not limited to:

-Inappropriate communication with patients online

-Use of the Internet for unprofessional behavior

-Online misrepresentation of credentials

-Online violations of patient confidentiality

-Failure to reveal conflicts of interest online

-Online derogatory remarks regarding a patient

-Online depiction of intoxication

-Discriminatory language or practices online

Source: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/the-dos-and-donts-of-social-media-usage-for-physicians-0248909

ciaa the monkees strikeforce davy jones love actually miesha tate vs ronda rousey idiocracy