Social Media Use in Physician-Patient Interaction - A Fit Perspective

The meaningful use of health information technologies is being heralded as means to engage patients and families in the management of their own healthcare. Patient engagement and their wellbeing can be enhanced by improving communication between the patient and his/her physician. In spite of the widespread use of social media in social communication, their role in complementing physician-patient interaction is highly restricted. These technologies have great potential to overcome cost and access limitations of face-to-face physician-patient interactions. This study attempts to fill the gap in our understanding of the facilitators and inhibitors of the utilization of social media technologies in physician-patient interaction. Drawing on multiple theoretical streams of task-technology fit, risk-benefit analysis, and social-technical gap, we develop a conceptual model of fit of social media utilization by physicians and articulate related propositions.