The Impact of Social Media on Healthcare Decision-Making Processes

This project examines the influence of social media on decision-making within healthcare organizations. It explores the rationale behind integrating social media, addressing issues like lack of public awareness and the need for improved patient engagement. The research questions focus on how social media facilitates interaction, increases awareness, and promotes healthy lifestyles. The project employs a top-down design approach, including SDLC and agile methodologies, along with a detailed project plan encompassing deliverables, a work breakdown structure, risk analysis, and a Gantt chart. Ethical considerations such as information misuse and compliance requirements are also addressed. The project highlights social media's potential to connect patients and providers, promote health information, and improve operational efficiency. It references key studies on the use of social media in healthcare, emphasizing its role in building trust and enhancing communication.

Running head: EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION
Emerging Technology and Innovation: Role of Social media in Health Organizations
Decision- Making process
Name of the student:
Name of the university:

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1. Rationale
1.1 Problem domain
Due to lack of public awareness in previous days the healthcare organizations were
facing major operational and functional issues. The system was unable to engage the target
audience to grow relationships. In addition to this, it was also not capable of demonstrate
advocacy, via leadership as well as professional’s opinions. It also failed to showcase the
community level activities and professional achievements. The concept of online presence
through either social media or websites will help to create primary channel for connecting
patients and providers. In other words, it will help to reveal personalized as well as people side
healthcare providers.
1.2 Purpose and justification
It has been analyzed that, with the advent of social media platform has completely
changed the way through which the consumers and the organizations communicate online. The
purpose of incorporating social media platform to healthcare organizations is to increase the
interaction approach and to enhance the availability of shared information. Other purpose is to
increase the accessibility and widening the server access. It will also help the healthcare
organizations to provide a public health surveillance and emotional support from the public
community. Apart from this, it will also influence the health policies of the healthcare industries.
Overall, it will support and encourage the operational and functional system of the healthcare
organizations.

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2. Research questions
 Does the social media platform help to establish an interactive path between the
providers and target audiences?
 How social media helps to increase public awareness?
 How social media helps to promote the existing healthy lifestyles, compliances,
personal health management and decision making approaches?
4. Conceptual or theoretical framework
There are different ways and reasons for which social media platform can be
implemented in the healthcare organizations. The social media platform is projected to give
abilities to both the users and provider’s ability to access data much quickly from the server
without error. These websites and tools can be used to share needful data among the community.
Social media improves the quality and also increases the operational efficiency of the healthcare
organizations.
The conceptual framework will provide a big picture about the importance of
implementing social media platform in the healthcare industries. In order to conduct the research
to reach the objectives different needful data are being collected from the sources and analyzed
as well. Different tools and methods are available which is used to introduce social media
platform. In this project, top down design approach is followed considering the five phases
(Initiation, planning, design, execution and closure) of implementation. Apart from this, real time
simulation, co-design and system architecture are followed to implement the social media
platform to healthcare organization to reduce application complexity and making effective
decisions.

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The theoretical framework on “Implementation of social media platform in healthcare for
improving decision making approaches”, It will help to give a shape to the entire topic. In order
to design theoretical framework a Gantt chart, risk analysis matrix rather the complete project
plan is created and discussed accordingly the below section.
5. Methodology
5.1 Research method
In order to incorporate social media platform in the healthcare organization firstly its
functional and operational efficiency should be analyzed. After analyzing the research topic it
has been found that, for implementing this, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) method,
and agile method can be used. The Agile/Scrum method is an iterative approach which follows
sequential processing.
5.2 System design method
The most effective and beneficial system design method that should be applied for
implementing social media platform in the healthcare organization is top down approach. This is
also known as stepwise design approach. The system overview is formulated in this design
approach through giving specification. However, this design method is unable to provide details
of first level subsystems. After that each of the sub system is refined with a greater research
details and in some cases in different additional subsystem level. This process progress till all the
specifications are reduced to the very basic elements. As soon as the sub elements are processed
the individual components are integrated all together.

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5.3 Ethical issues
 Information misuse
 Confidential data hijack
5.4 Compliance requirements in workplaces: Health Organizations
 For the healthcare organizations the list of compliance requirements includes:
 Compliance program design, implementation and tailored advancements
 Analysis of the compliance program, strength, objectives and complete
effectiveness
 Standard elements of the SOX
 Compliance training
 Internal services (investigating)
 Regulatory advisory services
 Identification of target audience
 Increasing public awareness program
 Review from the due diligence
6. Project plan
6.1 Deliverable
According to Mount and Martinez (2014), social media has evolved huge numbers of
opportunities for the health systems. The organizations are allowed to establish connection, share
discoveries and develop credibility through the application of social media platform. It has been
found that the other industries are mostly focused on the number of likes they are getting from

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the followers whereas; the healthcare industry is focused to its impact. Moreover, it can be said
that social media is focused on building trust among the patients and doctors. In other words,
social media act as a referral site on the steroids. With the help of social interaction the patients
will be able to possess a first impression of the healthcare industry as well as physician before
professional meeting.
Hawkins, Duszak and Rawson (2014) stated that, the patients can use the social media
platform to take effective decisions and research regarding the healthcare challenges and issues.
Gagnon and Sabus (2015) opined that, over 70% to 75% of the United States based patients use
the internet services to take healthcare advises. Among them, 40% of the patients are also relied
upon the responses generated from the social media platform. This analysis report displays that,
social media has become a much preferred and interactive platform for the patients to doctors,
doctor to patients, doctor to doctor and patient to patient communication or interaction.
The term mount referral can be revitalized and communication barriers can be completely
eliminated as soon as the healthcare organizations make themselves engaged on the social sites.
Again Househ, Borycki & Kushniruk (2014) argued that, social media can promote the specific
healthcare network among both the physicians and patients. The patients can also explore care
approaches that must be followed by the doctors. The authority of the users and the popularity
can provide huge numbers of opportunities engage consumers and also educate the patients. Live
tweet is another approach that the healthcare organizations are incorporating to use hash-tags in
the recent social updates. Houston, et al., (2015) stated that social media has now become a
necessity for the healthcare organizations. With the strategic leverage to social media the
healthcare organizations can reach the target audiences. Therefore, collectively it can be said
that, social media can spring

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6.2 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
Project schedule
development
Project initiation
Project scope
statement
development
Analyzing the current
situation of the
healthcare
organization
Feasibility study
Budget estimation
Resource
identification
Selecting tools and
methods
Project planning phase
Risk management
plan
Team allocation
Stakeholder
management
Contingency
management plan
Procurement
management plan
Project execution phase
Selection of the social
platform to be
implemented
Competitive analysis
Social media
guidelines
presentation
Creating social
media calendar
Details double
checking
Project monitoring phase
Feedback collection
from the patients and
physicians
Change
management
implementation
closure
Closure phase
Stakeholder’s
signoff
Final document
submission
Post maintenance
plan
Figure 1: work Breakdown Structure for the social media implementation project
(Source: Created by author)
6.3 Risk analysis
Risks Probability Impact Ranking
(1-10)
Mitigation strategy
Privacy
concern
unlikely High 7 Privacy is referred to as one of the most
important things in the healthcare
industries. The system designer needs to
concentrate on the security of the health
record keeping system. Encryption and

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application firewall are the privacy
mechanism or technologies should be
applied to keep the access limited. This
allows only the registered users to
access the information shown
Lack of
training
and
developme
nt
Possible Medium 5 Professional and technical training and
development program is required to be
used by the project managers and project
team members to keep them engaged to
their job roles and project requirements.
Communi
cation
barrier
Very unlikely High 8 Using social media communication
platform to take effective decisions
Limits of
patient
informatio
n
Very likely Extreme It may happen that the health record
keeping system have limited store and
as a result limited amount of data are
stored within it. Therefore, cloud vendor
can be used by the designers to give the
healthcare organizations a much storage
capacity.
6.4 Duration
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessor Resource Cost

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s Names
Project schedule
development 68 days Tue
5/22/18
Thu
8/23/18 $584.00
Project initiation 14 days Tue
5/22/18 Fri 6/8/18 $177.00
Project scope
statement
development
3 days Tue
5/22/18
Thu
5/24/18 business analyst $30.00
Analyzing the
current situation of
the healthcare
organization
2 days Fri 5/25/18 Mon
5/28/18 2
Project
manager,
hospital
stakeholder
community
$45.00
Feasibility study 3 days Tue
5/29/18
Thu
5/31/18 3 business analyst $30.00
Budget estimation 3 days Tue
5/29/18
Thu
5/31/18 3 Project manager $20.00
Resource
identification 2 days Fri 6/1/18 Mon
6/4/18 4,5 decision maker $35.00
Selecting tools
and methods 4 days Tue 6/5/18 Fri 6/8/18 6 developer $17.00
Project planning
phase 13 days Mon
6/11/18
Wed
6/27/18 $110.00
Risk management
plan 3 days Mon
6/11/18
Wed
6/13/18 7 Project manager $20.00
Team allocation 2 days Thu
6/14/18 Fri 6/15/18 9 business analyst $30.00
Stakeholder
management 3 days Mon
6/18/18
Wed
6/20/18 10 business analyst $30.00
Contingency
management plan 4 days Thu
6/21/18
Tue
6/26/18 11 system tester $18.00
Procurement
management plan 5 days Thu
6/21/18
Wed
6/27/18 11 technical
experts $12.00
Project execution
phase 23 days Thu
6/28/18
Mon
7/30/18 $175.00
Selection of the
social platform to be
implemented
3 days Thu
6/28/18
Mon
7/2/18 12,13 Project manager $20.00
Competitive
analysis 6 days Tue 7/3/18 Tue
7/10/18 15 business analyst $30.00
Social media
guidelines
presentation
4 days Wed
7/11/18
Mon
7/16/18 16 business analyst $30.00
Creating social 6 days Tue Tue 17 hospital $60.00

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media calendar 7/17/18 7/24/18
stakeholder
community,
developer,
system tester
Details double
checking 4 days Wed
7/25/18
Mon
7/30/18 18 developer,
system tester $35.00
Project monitoring
phase 11 days Tue
7/31/18
Tue
8/14/18 $60.00
Feedback
collection from the
patients and
physicians
6 days Tue
7/31/18 Tue 8/7/18 19 decision maker $35.00
Change
management
implementation
closure
5 days Wed
8/8/18
Tue
8/14/18 21
hospital
stakeholder
community
$25.00
Closure phase 7 days Wed
8/15/18
Thu
8/23/18 $62.00
Stakeholder’s
signoff 2 days Wed
8/15/18
Thu
8/16/18 22 business analyst $30.00
Final document
submission 3 days Fri 8/17/18 Tue
8/21/18 24 Project manager $20.00
Post maintenance
plan 2 days Wed
8/22/18
Thu
8/23/18 25 technical
experts $12.00

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6.5 Gantt chart
Figure 2: Gantt chart for the social media implementation project
(Source: Created by author)

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References
Bhaskaran, N., Kumar, M., & Janodia, M. D. (2017). Use of Social Media for Seeking Health
Related Information-An Exploratory Study. Journal of Young Pharmacists, 9(2).
De Choudhury, M., Morris, M. R., & White, R. W. (2014, April). Seeking and sharing health
information online: comparing search engines and social media. In Proceedings of the
SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems(pp. 1365-1376). ACM.
Gagnon, K., & Sabus, C. (2015). Professionalism in a digital age: opportunities and
considerations for using social media in health care. Physical therapy, 95(3), 406-414.
Grajales III, F. J., Sheps, S., Ho, K., Novak-Lauscher, H., & Eysenbach, G. (2014). Social
media: a review and tutorial of applications in medicine and health care. Journal of
medical Internet research, 16(2).
Hawkins, C. M., Duszak, R., & Rawson, J. V. (2014). Social media in radiology: early trends in
Twitter microblogging at radiology's largest international meeting. Journal of the
American College of Radiology, 11(4), 387-390.
Hollis, C., Morriss, R., Martin, J., Amani, S., Cotton, R., Denis, M., & Lewis, S. (2015).
Technological innovations in mental healthcare: harnessing the digital revolution. The
British Journal of Psychiatry, 206(4), 263-265.
Househ, M., Borycki, E., & Kushniruk, A. (2014). Empowering patients through social media:
the benefits and challenges. Health informatics journal, 20(1), 50-58.