Future Applications of Social Media in Pharmacy
Type of Submission
Poster
Keywords
Pharmacy, pharmacists, social media
Campus Venue
Dixon Ministry Center, Alumni Hall
Location
Cedarville, OH
Start Date
4-10-2013 1:00 PM
End Date
4-10-2013 5:00 PM
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Apr 10th, 1:00 PM
Apr 10th, 5:00 PM
Future Applications of Social Media in Pharmacy
Cedarville, OH
Comments
Abstract:
Social media has a major influence on society today; the popular site Facebook© has over 1 billion users, therefore healthcare professionals must begin to look at the potential use of social media as a tool. A survey was conducted of Cedarville's first professional pharmacy class and found that 94 percent of students have personal Facebook accounts and 84 percent have Twitter accounts. Eighty-four percent of students said they believe that social media could be used in a professional manner. Fifty-nine percent of the students believe social media can be used as a marketing tool for pharmacists, and the same percentage say social media can be used for inter-professional communication. Students also maintain that social media could be used as a tool for pharmacists if tile pharmacists keep their personal accounts separate from the accounts they use to communicate with patients. On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being tile highest, the average student says the risk of using social media in pharmacy is a 7 .84. Eighty-eight percent of students say that they would not give medical advice to a patient via social media. In the original survey, 67 percent of students answered that if a pharmacist sees a patient post/tweet about drug misuse/abuse, they are obligated to take action against the patient or confront them, however, after the presentation, only 47 percent answered the same way. In order for social media to be used by pharmacists, they must be educated about the risks and liabilities; students changed their responses to certain questions (particularly regarding liability) after becoming more informed. With proper education, social media can be used in the future by pharmacists for patient education, professional networking, and marketing.