Social Media: A new landscape for healthcare

People are turning to various web-based platforms to seek and share health information and for health-related activities. Research shows that individuals are changing their health behaviours based on the information they find and the social interactions they have online. Social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and virtual worlds like Second Life allow users to generate their own content. Individuals are using these sites to seek and share health content; to engage in social interactions with other patients, care givers and healthcare professionals; to use tools to self-manage and quantify their illnesses; to seek health advice from both healthcare professionals and other patients; and to pursue their own health research such as patient-led clinical trials.

Regardless of the potential benefits or consequences of these activities, patient engagement with these tools is accelerating. Our goal is to create meaningful and accurate experiences for patients and healthcare providers on these platforms that improve health literacy and result in informed and appropriate health decisions. We also want to understand what drives patients and providers to these platforms and apply similar design principles to improve real world health activities and interactions. We are currently in the process of understanding how these groups use social media tools and how the utility of these tools impacts health literacy, health behaviours, and patient and system outcomes.

To date, we have performed an extensive survey of health-related activities occurring in the virtual world, Second Life. This survey, published in 2009, is the largest of its kind and is being used in academic institutions as required course reading. We have also designed research methodologies for conducting health research on virtual world platforms, which we will be submitting for publication in March 2010.

For more information please contact Leslie Beard, Manager & Designer, CICC (x5472, leslie.beard@uhn.on.ca)

Publication

Beard L, Wilson K, Morra D, Keelan J. A Survey of Health-Related Activities on Second Life. J Med Internet Res 2009;11(2):e17
Available online at http://www.jmir.org/2009/2/e17/

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