Diffusion of social media in public health and health care reform: Intrinsic characteristics of best practices

The adoption of Web 2.0 social media is gaining rapid momentum in public health practice with over 1,200 social network patent applications submitted in the informatics industry in 2010. This presentation explores Roger's five characteristics (i.e., relative advantage; compatibility; complexity vs. simplicity; trialability; and observability) of best practices within the common social media venues (i.e., blogs, micro-blogging, twitter, social networking, wikis, and virtual worlds, to name a few) used in public health practice. While the field is experiencing rapid diffusion of these innovations, barriers include critical ethical dilemmas that continue to plague further adoption of these technologies. Current trends in social media within health care reform include engaging and educating e-patients, convergence of social media with electronic health records, virtual support and online communities, and social media for health care providers. The authors provide quality assurance recommendations to ensure the integrity of social media approaches in public health practice.