Social Media in Healthcare; lj7

I chose that topic of social media in healthcare, because during the pandemic the healthcare industry was greatly affected by not being able to meet personally with healthcare providers. Even with me being a patient at the Veteran’s Administration through James Haley I was greatly affected because I was not able to get the specialized care that is required for my diagnosis. For someone who suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder the one on one that is required to treat someone was not able to be given fully during the pandemic. Most of my doctor’s appointments were done through zoom or a telehealth program where you could meet remotely with your doctor. There were many different issues because someone like myself who already didn’t trust the privacy and security of the internet, there were times that I did not feel completely comfortable to discuss things with the medical professional. Another issue with social media I feel in the healthcare field is that so many different opinions were placed out there about COVID and other treatment options that the public had no idea what to believe and what not to believe because everyone who worked in the medical field was confusing medical information with conspiracy theories and this kept people from getting the proper treatment that was needed.

Part of the problem with doing some of the telehealth and healthcare through social media is there is not always a way to secure the complete privacy of the patient. There are times when I would be on a video appointment with a caregiver and someone would walk in and out of the room, either at my home or the doctor office where the caregiver was located. This would even make me very nervous because there is no way to guarantee that, that individual was someone that was involved with my healthcare and would not be kept to the same guidelines as normal. Just as in the reading it is stated that there are times during the pandemic that doctors, and medical professionals would post and publicize other ways of treatment for the virus that raised questions with everyone. With all the TED talks, podcasts, and posts on social media I even have a friend who now that was positive with COVID now believes that she never had it and was lied to because there are medical professionals out there stating that it is not real. I think that the use of social media has reshaped the way healthcare has changed, but it could also have caused problems further down the road.