Nowadays we almost can not live without social networks and rare is the health professional or the medical center that is not present in social networks, it is even common to see how health care become famous influencers and best sellers of books.

What social networks do doctors use?

Through social networks, information is not only communicated and disseminated to patients in a specific and concise way, but also this transfer of communication is done quickly.

Facebook Instagram is used by 53.7% of the doctors surveyed, 30.3% use Instagram, 25.3% use Twitter and 18.3% use the professional network Linkedin. From these data about medical social networks, we see that, of all female medical professionals, 84.2% of them are users, as opposed to 78.4% of men who are medical users.

Therefore, social networks for doctors are based on a virtual community mostly female, but also composed of a large male presence.

Facebook, Instagram.Regarding the types of social networks that doctors can use, on the one hand, there are general social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or Instagram, but there are also specific social networks of this group, which I will mention later.

Private groups within Facebook are very useful for both doctors and patients and not only on general medical topics, but also on specific topics such as congresses, events, medical specialties or specific patient groups.

In addition to general social networks, there are specific spaces to talk about health issues, such as forums, communities and vertical social networks, which are platforms for medical content and in which different patient audiences participate.

Digital marketing experts say it is more effective for a medical professional to focus on vertical networks and not focus efforts on general networks, because by focusing on specific networks we optimize our time.

Medical-specific social networks

• Specific networks for medical students.
• Technical networks for professionals in the same specialty.
• Networks aimed at collaboration between medical members so that they can share
• specific doubts of other specialties and can share knowledge.
• Networks to connect the scientific community with primary care medicine and
• medical practitioners of health centers and hospitals.
• Specific networks to establish relationships between doctors and patients.

I would like to highlight the following twelve health social networks that you should know and that may be more useful:

1. Sermo: pioneer medical social network in the sector and currently the number one in the United States. It was founded in 2005 in this country and currently has a presence in more than 80 countries. It is a very good social network if what you want is to have a meeting point with professionals from other countries, in which you can assess complex cases that you have anonymously or request second opinions from your colleagues.
2. Neomed: social network exclusively for registered doctors, training and knowledge exchange.
3. Pupilum: social network of a formative nature and also intended exclusively for collegiate doctors, created by the same creators of Neomed and very focused on online training specific to the sector.
4. Esanum: medical social network very focused on networking between doctors of different specialties, so that they help each other, share interdisciplinary knowledge and reflect on clinical cases and medical observations in the practice of their daily work.

The importance of expanding knowledge on digital health issues

One of the most difficult things in terms of managing social networks is their daily administration and the enormous time they consume on a day-to-day basis.

My opinion is that it is one of the best tools to make the disclosure to patients about health issues and that it would also be very important not to forget the importance of the dissemination of knowledge about the digital health, one of the most important issues in the present day due to hyperconnectivity with computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices, which passes bill on the day-to-day face to our sleep habits, stress and fatigue of the eye after having spent so much time in front of the computer.