Should Doctors and Patients Be Facebook Friends?

Social media has become the go-to communication tool, but is Facebook and Twitter an appropriate way for doctors to interact with patients? There are concerns about protecting patient's privacy and maintaining appropriate boundaries between professional and social relationships. Kansas family physician, Dr. Brull, claims her small-town practice inevitably gives her social contact with many patients, and she is comfortable with this. She finds it's a convenient way for patients to contact her. "It fits the way I like to practice," she says. Like other doctors, Dr. Brull will not provide answers to health questions via social media for privacy reasons. But some medical communities are much stricter when it comes to social networking. The Rhode Island Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline in 2011 reprimanded an emergency-room physician who posted about her clinical experiences on Facebook. Although personal information was not posted, readers identified one of the patients because of the nature of the injury. "There's no business for protected patient information on Facebook, period, the end," said James McDonald, chief administrative officer for the Rhode Island board. "Social media isn't meant to be the exam room." Medical curricula are beginning to teach social-media standards and regulations. A survey of state medical board officials published last month in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that the biggest concerns were physicians posting misleading information about clinical outcomes, misrepresented credentials, the use of patient images without consent, and communicating with patients inappropriately.

The Wall Street Journal, 2/5/2013