Disclosure

One thing that I'm still learning about in terms of social media in health care is disclosure.

When running a Facebook account for a for-profit business, you're usually dealing with things and not people - coupons, deals, promotions and the like. With health care, you must always keep in mind the patient's right to privacy, and HIPAA enforces that.

Recently, we were updating our community as to the progress of a patient who's father had been blogging about their status almost hourly. Local news channels were following the patient's situation also, and when it came to posting an update on our Facebook, one would think it okay to repeat (reworded, of course) what the patient's father had just reported on his blog.

This is, in fact, not okay. Just because the patient's family reports it, and they've signed a release to us to use their image and interviews on our social media channels and website doesn't give us the right to discuss what procedure the patient will have next, or what the doctors will be doing later on in the day in relation to the patient's recovery. That personal information is for the patient to disclose.

What we can do is let our community know that the patient is doing well, and for a more detailed update, direct them to the latest news video or the blog the patient's father runs. This is part of the privacy that we owe to our patients. If they want to explain in their own words or on tape what's going on and give us permission, we can post that using our various social media channels. But we cannot speak for them.

As always, our main concern as a hospital is to provide our patients and their families with the best care possible. This includes protecting their privacy.