Liability Risk for Physician Social Networks?

[Erica Frank]

Physician social networks like Sermo present a great opportunity for doctors to communicate to one another in a private forum. According to a post by Dr. Kevin Pho on KevinMD.com, controversial debate is frequent, along with discussion of patient cases. While this site, along with others, is for physicians only, Dr. Pho points out that anything written on a social network is recorded electronically and can end up surfacing in the future.

There's a debate on whether or not some of the conversations can be taken out of context and used against these doctors. Some argue that what's discussed on these sites cannot be used to sue a doctor because a plaintiff must prove that the physician has a duty to the patient in question. If the doctor is not responsible for the patient's care, it is simply considered an informal discssion on a health issue.

No matter what your stance, it's a good reminder that whatever is said on social networks, private or not, lives in cyberspace forever. As Dr. Pho advises, doctors should use caution with what they type, just as the rest of us should be, on social networks.

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/08/physician-social-networks-liabi...

[Nicole Franklin]

This is an interesting issue. Many of the pharmas are using Sermo to gauge physician sentiment/opinions on various medications, clinical study results, articles etc. It has almost become another type of market research tool for many pharma companies. It will be interesting to see if doctors start holding back on their views and/or perspectives and if this impacts Sermo's business model.

[David Harlow]

This strikes me as one of those areas in which we can get all tangled up in knots over the way in which online communications are different from those IRL. The key distinctions are that the online communications can end up being asynchronous and archived in multiple locations, perhaps indefinitely. But both can be "overheard"/shared with an unintended user, and done so in snippets/out of context. The problem with online communications is that they may be more persistent and may be shared more broadly. The potential for harm (and for being sued) however, is essentially the same. Therefore, the real takeaway here is to communicate online at all times as if whatever you post will end up on the front page of the newspaper.

[Cheri Keith]

This is an post, Erica, thank you for sharing. Certainly good to see what is top of mind with physicians in this new digital realm.