Supportive Roles of Physicians' Activities in Social Media for Healthcare Knowledge Management
نویسندگان
1 Associate Prof., Department of Medical Library and Information Science, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
2 Assistant Prof., Department of Medical Library and Information Science, School of Allied Medical Sciences, Abadan University of Medical Sciences, Abadan, Iran.
3 Professor, Department of Medical Library and Information Science, School of Health Management and Information Sciences, Iran University of Medical Sciences. Tehran, Iran.
doi
10.22034/ijism.2024.1977927.0چکیده
The present study sought to identify the supportive roles of social media in healthcare knowledge management processes, including decision-making, popularizing health knowledge, and empowerment of healthcare processes based on physicians' perspectives and experiences. In a present qualitative study, a semi-structured interview was administered to 28 physicians using purposive snowball sampling. The data analysis was done using the thematic analysis method by MAXQDA 10. The analysis of interviews resulted in the extraction of three themes and eight sub-themes. Firstly, social media supports physicians' decision-making by facilitating peer-to-peer assistance, increasing benchmarking, and virtualizing the community of practices. Secondly, physician activities in social media can popularize health knowledge by developing public health education and disclosing knowledge claims. Third, social media empower healthcare processes by improving post-treatment follow-up, supporting health counseling presentations, and promoting health awareness. Physicians’ experiences and perspectives showed that social media can support healthcare knowledge management implementation.
