While most of the book takes an introductory approach to using and setting up social media, the strongest point is the evidence-based approach supplying statistics and case studies.

This article published with permission from iMedicalApps.com.

“Social media has been clearly changing the way medicine is practiced and healthcare is delivered. Medical professionals must be able to meet the special needs of technology-aware patients and use digital technologies in their work and communications properly. Each physician should find the tools that will assist them in their workflow, and patients need to be educated how to use the internet. It is the responsibility of medical professionals to contribute to this process.”

So reads the backcover of Social Media in Clinical Practice, a book by Bertalan Meskó MD, PhD.

Meskó is a medical futurist and acts as managing director of Webicina.com, a service that curates the medical and health-related social media resources for patients and medical professionals. He is also the author of the award-winning medical blog, Scienceroll.com. The book was published recently (August 2013) by Springer and now we’ll take a close look at it.

Sometimes it’s nice to read a good old fashion book, so we decided to get our hands on a printed version instead of an ebook. It’s a softcover book that fits nicely in your white coat, handy for those who read between patients.

The book is organized as a series of chapters encompassing the following topics:

• Social media is transforming medicine and health care

• Using medical search engines with a special focus on Google

• Being up-to-date in medicine

• Community sites Facebook, Google+ and medical social networks

• The World of E-Patients

• Establishing a medical blog

• The role of Twitter and microblogging in medicine