Social media in health care

Abstract

To identify existing streams of research and develop an agenda for future research, we reviewed and synthesized the existing literature relevant to social media in health care. In particular, our review encompassed two themes-Patient Use of Social Media and Healthcare Organization/Professional Use. Within these overarching themes, we focused on four subthemes (i. e., two under each main theme): community/public health and patient support/use, as well as medical litigation & compliance risk and health education & information sharing. From this review, we have also proposed future research topics and questions to further cultivate this salubrious research domain.