P72. Spine surgeons social dilemma: Benefits and risks of social media for spine surgery practice in the 21st century

• Published in: The spine journal 2021-09, Vol.21 (9), p.S174-S175
• Main Authors: Haddas, Ram, Samtani, Rahul, Webb, Antonio J., Burleson, John R., Berven, Sigurd H., Theologis, Alexander A., Abotsi, Edem J., Burch, Shane, Deviren, Vedat
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1529-9430; 1878-1632
• DOI: 10.1016/j.spinee.2021.05.280

Social media allows millions of users of different geographic, political, socioeconomic and national backgrounds to communicate and exchange information worldwide. The internet and social media use have sky-rocketed in the past 15 years. Seventy-two percent of all adults have used social media to gather health care information. The use of social media by providers can enhance patient education, complement offline information, allows patients to receive support, stimulate brand building and strengthen the organization's market position. The number of patients showing up to their doctor's office with a diagnosis in hand from the internet continues to grow compared to as little as 10-15 years ago. Social media can be utilized by the technologically-savvy spine surgeon to grow their exposure and brand. Risks of social media include, but are not limited to, a lack of quality, reliability, and credibility misrepresentation of credentials, influence of hidden and overt conflicts of interest, and content that may jeopardize patient privacy, HIPAA regulations, and physicians' credentials and licensure. As physicians' use of social media may expose him/her to lawsuits if providing specific medical advice on media platforms, informed consent should be obtained prior to online discussions regarding medical care between health care providers and patients. To highlight the benefits and risks of having and maintaining a social media presence. Cross-sectional observational. A total of 325 Spine Surgeons from 76 institutions across the US. Surgeons’ age, gender, years of experience, clinic type and size, years at the current practice, and publication record, along with surgeon's social media involvement. We performed web-based searches of spine surgeons using the North American Spine Society Fellowship Database. We defined “active” presence as the frequency and type of social media posts relating to Spine Surgery. We described the sample using frequency for categorical variables and mean for continuous variables. Moreover, we used Pearson's correlation to investigate the relationships between the variables. Out of the 235 surgeons, 96% were males with an average age of 51.5±10.7 years and 14.1±9.6 years of experience. There were 41.4% of these practices that included at least 8 surgeons, and 25.2% and 19.0 for more than 20 surgeons and less than 2 surgeons, respectively. The frequency for social media included 17.8% of surgeons had professional Facebook, 13.8, 8.9, 6.8, 57