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The risks and benefits of using social media to engage consumers in service design and quality improvement in Australian public hospitals: findings from an interview study of key stakeholders

BACKGROUND: Engaging consumers - patients, families, carers and community members who are current or potential service users - in the planning, design, delivery, and improvement of health services is a requirement of public hospital accreditation in Australia. There is evidence of social media being...

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Autores principales: Walsh, Louisa, Hyett, Nerida, Howley, Jayne, Juniper, Nicole, Li, Chi, MacLeod-Smith, Belinda, Rodier, Sophie, Hill, Sophie J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8393819/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34445972
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06927-x
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author Walsh, Louisa
Hyett, Nerida
Howley, Jayne
Juniper, Nicole
Li, Chi
MacLeod-Smith, Belinda
Rodier, Sophie
Hill, Sophie J.
author_facet Walsh, Louisa
Hyett, Nerida
Howley, Jayne
Juniper, Nicole
Li, Chi
MacLeod-Smith, Belinda
Rodier, Sophie
Hill, Sophie J.
author_sort Walsh, Louisa
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Engaging consumers - patients, families, carers and community members who are current or potential service users - in the planning, design, delivery, and improvement of health services is a requirement of public hospital accreditation in Australia. There is evidence of social media being used for consumer engagement in hospitals internationally, but in Australia this use is uncommon and stakeholders’ experiences have not been investigated. The aim of the study was to explore the experiences and beliefs of key Australian public hospital stakeholders around using social media as a consumer engagement tool. This article focuses on the study findings relating to methods, risks, and benefits of social media use. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Australian public hospital stakeholders in consumer representative, consumer engagement/patient experience, communications or quality improvement roles. Qualitative data were analysed using a deductive content analysis method. An advisory committee of consumer and service provider stakeholders provided input into the design and conduct of this study. RESULTS: Twenty-six Australian public hospital service providers and consumers were interviewed. Participants described social media being used to: recruit consumers for service design and quality improvement activities; as an online space to conduct consultations or co-design; and, to gather feedback and patient experience data. The risks and benefits discussed by interview participants were grouped into five themes: 1) overcoming barriers to engagement, 2) consumer-initiated engagement; 3) breadth vs depth of engagement, 4) organisational transparency vs control and 5) users causing harm. CONCLUSIONS: Social media can be used to facilitate consumer engagement in hospital service design and quality improvement. However, social media alone is unlikely to solve broader issues commonly experienced within health consumer engagement activities, such as tokenistic engagement methods, and lack of clear processes for integrating consumer and patient feedback into quality improvement activities.
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spelling pubmed-83938192021-08-30 The risks and benefits of using social media to engage consumers in service design and quality improvement in Australian public hospitals: findings from an interview study of key stakeholders Walsh, Louisa Hyett, Nerida Howley, Jayne Juniper, Nicole Li, Chi MacLeod-Smith, Belinda Rodier, Sophie Hill, Sophie J. BMC Health Serv Res Research BACKGROUND: Engaging consumers - patients, families, carers and community members who are current or potential service users - in the planning, design, delivery, and improvement of health services is a requirement of public hospital accreditation in Australia. There is evidence of social media being used for consumer engagement in hospitals internationally, but in Australia this use is uncommon and stakeholders’ experiences have not been investigated. The aim of the study was to explore the experiences and beliefs of key Australian public hospital stakeholders around using social media as a consumer engagement tool. This article focuses on the study findings relating to methods, risks, and benefits of social media use. METHODS: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Australian public hospital stakeholders in consumer representative, consumer engagement/patient experience, communications or quality improvement roles. Qualitative data were analysed using a deductive content analysis method. An advisory committee of consumer and service provider stakeholders provided input into the design and conduct of this study. RESULTS: Twenty-six Australian public hospital service providers and consumers were interviewed. Participants described social media being used to: recruit consumers for service design and quality improvement activities; as an online space to conduct consultations or co-design; and, to gather feedback and patient experience data. The risks and benefits discussed by interview participants were grouped into five themes: 1) overcoming barriers to engagement, 2) consumer-initiated engagement; 3) breadth vs depth of engagement, 4) organisational transparency vs control and 5) users causing harm. CONCLUSIONS: Social media can be used to facilitate consumer engagement in hospital service design and quality improvement. However, social media alone is unlikely to solve broader issues commonly experienced within health consumer engagement activities, such as tokenistic engagement methods, and lack of clear processes for integrating consumer and patient feedback into quality improvement activities. BioMed Central 2021-08-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8393819/ /pubmed/34445972 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06927-x Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Walsh, Louisa
Hyett, Nerida
Howley, Jayne
Juniper, Nicole
Li, Chi
MacLeod-Smith, Belinda
Rodier, Sophie
Hill, Sophie J.
The risks and benefits of using social media to engage consumers in service design and quality improvement in Australian public hospitals: findings from an interview study of key stakeholders
title The risks and benefits of using social media to engage consumers in service design and quality improvement in Australian public hospitals: findings from an interview study of key stakeholders
title_full The risks and benefits of using social media to engage consumers in service design and quality improvement in Australian public hospitals: findings from an interview study of key stakeholders
title_fullStr The risks and benefits of using social media to engage consumers in service design and quality improvement in Australian public hospitals: findings from an interview study of key stakeholders
title_full_unstemmed The risks and benefits of using social media to engage consumers in service design and quality improvement in Australian public hospitals: findings from an interview study of key stakeholders
title_short The risks and benefits of using social media to engage consumers in service design and quality improvement in Australian public hospitals: findings from an interview study of key stakeholders
title_sort risks and benefits of using social media to engage consumers in service design and quality improvement in australian public hospitals: findings from an interview study of key stakeholders
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8393819/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34445972
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06927-x
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