Communicating With Your Doctor On Facebook May Be The Future Of Healthcare

A national survey of 2,252 pharmacy customers conducted by Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health highlights the gap between what patients want from their health care providers in terms of communication and engagement, and what they're actually getting.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents -- who were generally educated, healthy and regular users of Facebook -- said that they were very interested in using Facebook and e-mail to communicate with their physicians and to manage their health. More than half of respondents also said that they wanted to use their physicians' websites to access health information. More than a third said that they already communicated with their doctors via e-mail, and 18 percent said they connected with their doctors on Facebook, a surprising finding considering that many health care providers have rules barring this mode of interaction with patients due to privacy concerns and ethical guidelines for physicians. Joy Lee, a post-doctoral fellow at the university, emphasized that of course, it's critical to safeguard patient information. But "Health care organizations need to figure out how to take advantage of resources like Facebook," she added. "Many patients are interested in [these services] but few are actually using them -- possibly because patients don’t know they’re available," Lee said. "Doctors and health care organizations should take steps to publicize and educate patients of these opportunities. Either way, it starts with a conversation between patients and doctors on how they prefer to communicate online."