Technology solutions in chronic disease management: the role of 'Social Media' Online publication date: Tue, 21-Oct-2014
by Jean Schulz
International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology (IJBET), Vol. 15, No. 4, 2014
Abstract: 'Social Media', such as Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia, and healthcare are melting together and becoming more and more important for our daily life and as healthcare cost is rising the internet and so called Health 2.0 can offer cost-effective opportunities to manage chronic diseases especially diabetes mellitus. This disease occurs at all ages and is one of the most chronic diseases worldwide which can be positively influenced by Social Media. Besides costs additional benefits occur for both the physicians and patients. These benefits lie amongst other things in an improved communication and information infrastructure. However, there are still hurdles that need to be considered, as most chronically ill people are elderly people who are less interested in internet technology. So these benefits only reach part of the patients. Therefore Social Media can be considered as a supplement to traditional care, which has high potential and remains to be an important future technology, particularly when considering mobile solutions.
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