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Social Media in Healthcare: Opportunities and Challenges

Understand how social media is used in healthcare, to improve communication and information sharing, with this free online course.

14,779 enrolled on this course

Connecting Patients and healthcare professionals through Social media

  • Duration

    5 weeks

  • Weekly study

    2 hours
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Social media has emerged as a new channel for both seeking information, and for creating and exchanging user-generated content among peers.

But as the amount of information being uploaded to social networks such as Facebook, Whatsapp or YouTube continues to grow, it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern reliable health information from misleading content.

Both medical professionals and patients must be able to use digital technologies in their work and communications properly.

Practical guidance for healthcare providers, researchers and patients

This free online course provides practical guidance to healthcare providers, patients and researchers.

It is an essential course for anyone who is looking into the opportunities and challenges of using social media in healthcare, including as a mass communication tool during infectious disease epidemics.

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Skip to 0 minutes and 25 seconds Welcome to Taipei Medical University, Graduate Institute of Biomedical Informatics, Taiwan. I am Dr. Shabbir Syed Abdul, glad to offer online course on the role of social media in health care and research.

Skip to 0 minutes and 51 seconds With the advancement in the mobile and communication technologies, we are changing the way we are interacting with the information. Now, we can reach millions of our followers in a matter of a few seconds. Immense amount of data is being uploaded every second. The content can be good or bad. It could be useful or it could be harmful. In this course, we focus on health-related information, opportunities, and challenges to empower care providers, patients, and general public. We cover a broad range of topics like Google trends, Health Map, patientslikeme, Mobile Apps, social generated big data, research challenges and opportunities, health communication crisis, gamification, and so on.

Skip to 2 minutes and 2 seconds We are open, and we share. Please join us.

When would you like to start?

Start straight away and join a global classroom of learners. If the course hasn’t started yet you’ll see the future date listed below.

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Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

Who is the course for?

This course is suitable for anyone who is interested in public health, and using information technology for improving health quality and patients’ safety.

Who will you learn with?

Shabbir Syed-Abdul

Dr.Shabbir Syed-Abdul,is an associate professor of Health informatics at Graduate Institute of Biomedical Informatics, College of Medical Science and Technology, Taipei Medical University, Taiwan.

Elia Gabarron

I am psychologist, researcher at the Norwegian Center for eHealth Reseach, in Tromsø, Norway; and also professor at the Open University of Catalonia, in Spain.

Luis Fernandez-Luque PhD

Luis Fernandez-Luque has been involved in eHealth research and development for over 10 years. He is researcher at www.qcri.org & co-funder of Salumedia. https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisfernandezluque

e-Patient Dave deBronkart

Dave deBronkart, better known as "e-Patient Dave," is the world’s best-known advocate for patient engagement. International keynote speaker about patient-clinician partnership.

Who developed the course?

Taipei Medical University

Taipei Medical University (TMU) has been a leader in Taiwan’s healthcare system for over half a century due to its research, teaching excellence, internationalization and outstanding medical service.

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control

Want to know more about learning on FutureLearn? Using FutureLearn

Get a taste of this course

Find out what this course is like by previewing some of the course steps before you join:

1.4
video

What is good about social media?

1.5
video

An example of good usage: Google trends

1.6
video

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