Social media linking Las Vegas doctors, patients

And just who is this incredibly upbeat, health-conscious buddy, with a propensity to post quotable quotes, and recipes for things such as low-carb pumpkin muffins?

Her doctor.

Actually, it is her doctor’s office, the Surgical Weight Control Center of Las Vegas, which has had a Facebook page for about three years as a way to keep patients connected to the practice. It seems to be working. Surgical Weight Control Center of Las Vegas now has about 300 "likes" on its page, including folks such as Watson, a 28-year-old office manager at a local law firm, who checks her updates on a regular basis via cellphone.

For Watson, who underwent gastric band surgery in 2008 to lose weight, the Facebook page is also a way to stay linked to a medical staff that knows her and, perhaps even more importantly, fellow patients who have undergone the same kinds of surgeries and now have the common goal of maintaining a healthy weight.

"It’s nice to see and hear from people I feel care and know my name. We all have something in common and have all gone through this … unless you have, it’s really hard to understand," she says.

It used to be that having a website was as high-tech as it got for physicians interested in reaching out to their patients or the public at large. If the site had things such as electronic medical forms, informational videos and online appointments, you had something fairly sophisticated.

But oh, that was so 30 seconds ago.

People now expect some form of two-way communication through social media in nearly every sector of society, and physicians are trying to address that desire by chipping away at the traditional doctor-patient relationship.

This in no way means that personal texts from your family physician about where she ate dinner the night before will start popping up on your cellphone. But there are steps physicians are willing to take to join the ubiquitous social media movement. One of the most obvious can be found in the growing number of practices with Facebook pages.

Locally, these include practices specializing in sports medicine, pediatrics, women’s cancers, pulmonology, cardiology, not to mention individual hospitals and urgent care centers.

It makes good marketing sense because even doctors are trying to run a business. This is a way to get the word out and keep patients, who are among the best sources for referrals, engaged in the practice.

It also leverages what Facebook does so well, which is to create a community, albeit through cyberspace, for those with common interests and concerns.

The bulk of the information on these pages consists of links to medical websites and articles of interest based on practices’ specialties. Many of the postings are aimed at showing the more personal side of practices, from items about their involvement with different charities, to photos of the office staff on crazy-Christmas-sweater day.

And, of course, the pages give patients the chance to reveal more about themselves and to share information and comments with those who may have the same concerns, or even successes.

Surgical Weight Control Center of Las Vegas, which works with Q ad | pr on its social media, includes photos of patients who have competed in marathons on its Facebook page and posts videos of patient success stories. It also uses YouTube and has a blog with information on health-related issues.

"We kind of looked at things like our Facebook page and our YouTube videos and our blogs as another platform that could keep (patients) connected to our office when they weren’t medically at our office, when they’re at home on their computers, or even after office hours," says Dr. Darren Soong, a partner at the practice.

Good Night Pediatrics, a business that operates several nighttime urgent-care clinics for children in Arizona and that opened one in Henderson about a year ago, uses a Henderson marketing firm, MassMedia Corporate Communications, to help maintain its outreach on Facebook and Twitter. Good Night Pediatrics’ primary audience consists of moms with young children who have used the clinics or heard about them, which means lots of links to articles by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and updates on issues such as toy recalls and flu seasons, Chief Financial Officer Larry Blumenthal says.

One mom who regularly follows the business on social media is Carrie Hyde, a 36-year-old from Surprise, Ariz., who had taken her 17-month-old daughter to one of the all-night clinics in her area. She publishes a localized parent newsletter for a Web-based business called Macaroni Kid and often will pass along information she finds on Good Night Pediatrics’ social media network.

"I try to be aware of what’s going on out there but life gets in the way.

"(Social media) definitely gives people information in a more digestible way," she says. "Sometimes I go out searching for information and it’s too much. It’s a great way to get tidbits."

Hyde, a mom who does lots of reading on children’s health care issues, noted that social media is a much faster way to get information,and offers a behind-the-scenes look at a practice’s approach.

Blumenthal says his urgent-care business also enlists its pediatricians to write articles and answer some of the questions posted on its Facebook page, being careful to steer clear of diagnosing or specific medical advice.

"There’s a lot more alternatives out there," Blumenthal says. "So I think you’re going to find physicians need to step outside the exam room and engage their patients in a much less formal environment, and social media is a way to do that."

Even if this is true, most physicians are still wading into social media fairly carefully.

In a study done last summer called "Doctors, Patients and Social Media" by an online learning collaborative for physicians called QuantiaMD, the majority of the 4,033 clinicians who participated expressed interest in the potential for online physician-patient interaction, mainly as a way to share educational materials with patients.

The study, conducted in conjunction with Care Continuum Alliance, noted that other areas of interest are the ability to monitor patients’ health and behavior online and the ability to give care advice to many patients simultaneously.

While there is interest in social media, only 15 percent of those polled use Facebook on some kind of professional basis, while 61 percent have it for personal use.

The study noted that 48 percent say they had used email at some point to communicate with patients, 12 percent had used texts, while online discussions were at about 2 percent. Forty-eight percent say they had never used any means of electronic physician-patient communication, and the study revealed doctors’ concerns about liability issues, patient privacy and the lack of compensation for time spent using social media.

"So I guess it’s kind of a bifurcation. You see those doctors that are really engaged, really eager, really moving ahead with it, and you see those doctors who are saying, ‘No, I’m not going to have much to do with that,’ " says Mary Modahl, QuantiaMD’s chief communications officer.

For Las Vegas psychiatrist Shaily Jain, who specializes in treating mood disorders including anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder, exchanging emails with her patients has been a benefit to her practice for a number of reasons. It is a more efficient way to field patients’ questions between visits, something she would otherwise do over the phone. It also gives them a way to communicate with her in a more private manner.

"It gives them a sense of being more connected with me," she says. "For the people I see, it’s very comforting."

There are caveats. Email communication is easier to misinterpret than face-to-face conversation is, she says. She also warns that patients should view it as a tool for communication not "a modality of treatment," and that it should not be used for medical emergencies or time-sensitive information.

About 90 percent of Jain’s clients reach out by email, and she gets between 10 to 15 emails a day. She does not diagnose over the phone. And, when someone is in crisis, she sees them in person, she says.

"None of my patients are forced to email me," she says. "It will never substitute for a phone call. To me, it’s another tool."

In the ever-changing world of cyberspace, it’s nearly impossible to predict where social media is headed, Modahl says. Facebook, for example, has grown to more than 800 million users and today’s generation of texting teens views emails as something as passe as dial-up phones.

When asked where social media and physician-to-patient communication will be 10 years from now, Modahl points to the growing importance of mobile technology. But what seems the most certain, she says, is that patients will be looking for a more nuanced understanding of their physicians, and physicians will be looking for ways to ensure this two-way communication has more safeguards in place.

"Establishing who you are in your practice, and what you stand for, and what you believe, and what your approach is, is going to be very important from a marketing perspective," Modahl says. "And probably physicians are going to need and want to have private channels that are electronic with which to communicate with their patients."

Just exactly how is all of this going to come together?

Check your email. Or Twitter account. Or Facebook page.