Blogging Doctors
With blogging becoming an increasingly important medium between communicating with your clients, doctors are beginning to get in on the act. But are they revealing too much information in their writing? A new study from the Journal of General Internal Medicine believes so, and your doctor may just be revealing your personal medical information in his blog.
The study, which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, examined 271 blogs and found that, while overt violations were rare, 45 blogs, or 16.6 percent, included sufficient info for patients to identify their doctors or themselves. Individual patients were described in 114, or 42.1 percent of the blogs. Patients were portrayed positively in 43 blogs, or 15.9 percent, and negatively in 48 blogs, or 17.7 percent. And three blogs showed recognizable photographic patient images.
They cite an example in which the anonymous blogger “Flea” revealed details of a patient’s death after a malpractice case was brought against him. The lawyer for the plaintiffs recognized the description of the case, and shortly thereafter, the case was settled out of court and the author removed his blog from the Internet.
Any revelation of patient information is in gross violation of patient confidentiality, yet blogging in a sense gives one the feeling of anonymity. But does that make even alluding to a case by a doctor right? And not only are doctors writing about cases on their blogs, they are also using them as a space to publicly endorse certain products, which could easily be seen as a conflict of interest.
Another interesting finding - healthcare products were promoted, either by images or descriptions, in 31, or 11.4 percent of the blogs. The products included prescription drugs, medical devices and nutritional supplements. She [lead author of the study Tara Lagu] notes that a recent poll found 29 percent of bloggers have been approached by a public relations professional to endorse a product, and of those, 52 percent had written a post endorsing the products on their blogs. Meanwhile, the study found there were no disclosures indicating author conflicts of interest info.
Freedom of speech is a great and powerful thing, but at what point must the line be drawn, especially in the medical profession where lives of people are at stake and breaking the laws of patient confidentiality has the ability to do so much damage?
