La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.
, Woodend, Australia.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2021 Aug 26;21(1):876. doi: 10.1186/s12913-021-06927-x.
Engaging consumers - patients, families, carers and community members who are current or potential service users - in the planning, design, delivery, and improvement of health services is a requirement of public hospital accreditation in Australia. There is evidence of social media being used for consumer engagement in hospitals internationally, but in Australia this use is uncommon and stakeholders' experiences have not been investigated. The aim of the study was to explore the experiences and beliefs of key Australian public hospital stakeholders around using social media as a consumer engagement tool. This article focuses on the study findings relating to methods, risks, and benefits of social media use.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Australian public hospital stakeholders in consumer representative, consumer engagement/patient experience, communications or quality improvement roles. Qualitative data were analysed using a deductive content analysis method. An advisory committee of consumer and service provider stakeholders provided input into the design and conduct of this study.
Twenty-six Australian public hospital service providers and consumers were interviewed. Participants described social media being used to: recruit consumers for service design and quality improvement activities; as an online space to conduct consultations or co-design; and, to gather feedback and patient experience data. The risks and benefits discussed by interview participants were grouped into five themes: 1) overcoming barriers to engagement, 2) consumer-initiated engagement; 3) breadth vs depth of engagement, 4) organisational transparency vs control and 5) users causing harm.
Social media can be used to facilitate consumer engagement in hospital service design and quality improvement. However, social media alone is unlikely to solve broader issues commonly experienced within health consumer engagement activities, such as tokenistic engagement methods, and lack of clear processes for integrating consumer and patient feedback into quality improvement activities.
在澳大利亚，让消费者——患者、家属、照顾者和社区成员，即当前或潜在的服务使用者——参与到卫生服务的规划、设计、提供和改进中，是公立医院认证的要求。有证据表明，社交媒体在国际上被用于医院的消费者参与，但在澳大利亚，这种用法并不常见，也没有调查利益相关者的经验。本研究的目的是探讨澳大利亚主要公立医院利益相关者在将社交媒体用作消费者参与工具方面的经验和信念。本文重点介绍了与社交媒体使用方法、风险和益处相关的研究结果。
对澳大利亚公立医院中具有消费者代表、消费者参与/患者体验、传播或质量改进角色的利益相关者进行半结构化访谈。使用演绎内容分析法对定性数据进行分析。一个由消费者和服务提供者利益相关者组成的顾问委员会为这项研究的设计和实施提供了意见。
对 26 名澳大利亚公立医院服务提供者和消费者进行了访谈。参与者描述了社交媒体的以下用途：招募服务设计和质量改进活动的消费者；作为在线空间进行咨询或共同设计；以及收集反馈和患者体验数据。访谈参与者讨论的风险和收益分为五个主题：1）克服参与障碍；2）消费者主动参与；3）参与的广度与深度；4）组织透明度与控制；5）用户造成的伤害。
社交媒体可用于促进消费者参与医院服务设计和质量改进。然而，仅社交媒体不太可能解决在卫生消费者参与活动中普遍存在的更广泛问题，例如象征性的参与方法，以及缺乏将消费者和患者反馈纳入质量改进活动的明确流程。
