Medical Community and Big Data Getting More Social
While many people think of social media as just a means to connect to old friends, it’s actually much more.
Social media helps patients connect with others that may be suffering with the same disease, it allows doctors to relate to one another and it can help new and innovative ideas get funded.
Support Just a Tweet or Share Away
An example of just how powerful social media is was the earthquake in Haiti in 2010.
Most people heard about the damages and after-affects through social media, not through traditional media outlets like the news. Millions of people joined together to raise money and support to those who were affected by the earthquake. Facebook alone raised more than $100,000 to help the survivors.
This is just one incredible example of how social media is positively affecting the medical community and the world as a whole.
Social media affects people in smaller ways for the better, as well.
Assisting Medical Patients
Patients are now able to upload a photo of their injury and receive diagnosis from a real doctor. People can even “text a doctor” to get an immediate answer to a medical question.
Fun fact: Ninety percent of young patients ages 18-24 believe health information they receive through social media, according to Search Engine Watch.
Changes in the Healthcare Industry
Social media and technology are also changing the health care industry in many ways.
The article “How big data is transforming health care” discusses the more advanced ways that the health care industry is changing.
There are medical data streams (think the Netflix for medical instrumentation), quality of care analytics, telemedicine (which is similar to the texting mentioned above), medical imaging advancements and more. The author states that health care is one of the fastest growing sources of big data.
Social Media Positively Affecting Community
Social media in terms of the medical community is all about connecting and interacting with other patients, doctors, students, aides or anyone in the medical industry.
The internet is becoming more and more a place to interact and meet people and less of a place to just dump information. It’s about developing relationships with others, meeting new people and supporting good causes.
The top platforms on social media include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Whether you choose to get involved in all of them or one of them, you will be able to get connected with doctors, patients or other leading players in the medical industry.
From another point of view, hospitals and health care clinics are using social media, as well.
They are using it to brand themselves, provide valuable information to patients, get reviews and referrals, and provide information to those interested in different diseases and more.
Hospitals are even encouraging their staff to get involved with social media.
If social media is this big now (currently 1.73 billion people), one can only imagine how big it’s going to get.
It seems as though every industry is jumping on the bandwagon, including medical and health care.
Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
[image error]
