Impact of Social Networking Sites on Healthcare

Abstract

Social media has moved beyond being a tool for individuals especially the young generation to share their private lives (pictures, messages) to fostering serious discussions on technology and business. Increasingly driven by regulatory pressures, the need to ―get it right the first time‖ and minimize costs remain a concern in the healthcare industry. Customer feedback to improve business has thus become very important. User generated content in the form of peer reviews on service/products often paves the way for business to understand any unique requirements as well as the pain points of the existing services they provide. Thus, social media is making interactions between end users and service providers possible by providing relatively simple, easy to access and unbiased platforms for sharing feedback.