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With over 15 million UK Twitter users, how can pharmacies use this and other social media platforms to their advantage? 

While some people may regard social media with a certain amount of suspicion, others – including a growing number of pharmacists and organisations – are embracing the possibilities it can bring. Alistair Murray, a pharmacist and clinical lead at Londonbased Green Light Pharmacy, describes social media as being “a force for good”. He says he and colleagues have found Twitter the easiest to use so far.

“Once you get your head around only having 140 characters to work with, it is quick and easy to get a message across,” he explains. “It is great,” he adds, “in that it breaks down the hierarchy within the profession and within companies – it doesn’t matter what your role is, how old you are or where you are, you can take part. It is very democratic.”

A sense of community

Social media can help to fend off the feelings of isolation that working in community pharmacy can sometimes bring, Alistair believes. “If you are a pharmacist, a technician or a counter assistant, you may be the only one working in your particular role in your business, and you can feel a bit like a panda in the wild – you know there are others like you out there, but you might not come across them very often. With something like Twitter, you have a peer group within reach whenever you need it and you can call on people’s support and expertise – or just share an amusing anecdote.”

A weekly event, #PharmacyHour, happens every Monday on Twitter and is, he says, “a bit like a village well – you know everyone will be there”. Reena Barai, a community pharmacist based in London and recently voted ‘Britain’s best pharmacist’ in the Woman’s Weekly ‘I love my pharmacist’ competition, is a regular and enthusiastic Twitter user. “I find social media very useful in that, through using it, I have met so many like-minded people who are very pro-pharmacy,” she says.

“You meet a whole family of people you didn’t even know existed. Soon, I’m hoping to set up a small project with people I have met on Twitter which we hope will enhance patient care.” Reena also believes that it gives pharmacists a platform to shout about what they do.

“Not all my followers are pharmacy professionals. Some, for example, are my local councillors who have gained a better understanding of the part a local pharmacy plays in a community through some of my tweets.” Neal Patel, head of corporate communications at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), says that the Society has started to notice that “more and more pharmacists are watching and listening to social media” and also that there is increasingly more proactive work going on via social media.

He gives as one example the @WePharmacists #24hrsInPharmacy event on Twitter, held at the beginning of April this year. The aim of the event was to help highlight the valuable contribution pharmacy makes by getting people in pharmacy to tweet about what work they had done that day, their successes and challenges. “It had so much activity that at one point a server broke,” says Alistair.

The idea for the event, he explains, came about through online conversations, retweeting and private messages, which led to a physical meeting and more online collaboration. “It provided so many examples of great practice,” he adds. “It wasn’t just community pharmacists taking part, but hospital pharmacists, technicians, academics – all sorts of people were tweeting about what they were up to. We got to number six in the trending charts at one point.”

Although the majority of tweeters were from within pharmacy, they were by no means all pharmacists. “They were very much from across the skills mix,” says Alistair. “It inspired our counter assistants and technicians to join Twitter. They didn’t really see the point of it all before, but now they see it as a great way to network and to keep abreast of things, and also because of the sense of community it provides.”

James Andrews is a pharmacist and lead for @WePharmacists, which he describes as being “a 5,000 strong, pharmacy-orientated Twitter community that connects, drives and supports each other through Twitter chats, networking and social media resources”. (The WePharmacists account is part of the WeNurses family.) Social media, “and Twitter in particular, holds huge potential for networking with the widest range of healthcare professionals, other professionals from related fields and with pharmacists from all sectors”, he says.

He cites a recent joint pharmacy, nursing and medical interprofessional Twitter chat – hosted by @WePharmacists – which reviewed a COPD case study, on the request of a fourth-year pharmacy student for their final year project. The patient in question was fictional but the idea of it was to see how the case study could encourage collaboration and working together.

“The results were an excellent demonstration of the potential benefits [of social media],” says James. “Seventy five people from across nursing, pharmacy and medicine took part, each sharing and learning from each other in a way not possible outside of social media.” The sense of community that social media can nurture can also bring community pharmacy strength in numbers, believes Alistair.

“We have started a lot of collaborations through Twitter. It helps you to get in touch with other businesses within pharmacy, which is better than trying to work individually. If you are not operating on a scale where you can speak to local commissioners, if you can start to pull expertise together through working with other pharmacies, it starts to become something that commissioners can’t ignore.”

Social media is a fantastic tool for pharmacists to network not only with colleagues but with other health professionals and organisations, agrees Neal. “For example, a community pharmacist could do well to follow their local commissioning group, local dentist or GP practices,” he says.

“Social media helps pharmacies to expand the professional networks they already have, and enables them to talk to their local GPs and their local authority about health services. Following these people through social media – on Twitter or LinkedIn, for example – is a good way of keeping in touch with what’s new and what is current.”

 

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Patient focused

Pharmacies can also use social media to help improve health outcomes for patients. “I think that on this front there is a lot they can do,” says Neal. “It can be as simple as taking on board and passing on the messages from community or national health campaigns, such as stopping smoking, early cancer detection or sensible drinking guidelines. Pharmacists can use social media to help inform and to spread the right messages.”

At the moment, Reena only uses Twitter for herself professionally, but is looking into it for her business, as she is planning a new website, which will include Twitter and Facebook. “I am hoping to have a Twitter feed on my new website and plan to use that to raise awareness among my local community about the various services we offer, and to promote national campaigns such as Ask Your Pharmacist week or Stoptober, for example.” 

In terms of patients, Alistair says that he and his colleagues haven’t worked out yet where to go with social media: “There are obviously issues around patient confidentiality. We probably go overboard and get really explicit consent if we want to use someone’s photo, for instance, but it’s better to be overly safe.” “For us, the next phase will probably be looking at things such as Instagram as I think using images and words will be very useful to promote public health messages,” he adds.

Alistair has a great story to illustrate the reach of social media, too. “The other day I had a patient in Peru who contacted us on Twitter because she had lost her Yellow Fever Certificate, which she had got through us and she wondered whether we could help. We were able to sort it out and she’s happily in Bolivia now.”

Studies have shown that social media is being used by many community pharmacy chains to share information about their services and keep their customers up to date, according to Maria Bell, regional manager for the Centre for Pharmacy Post-graduate Education Yorkshire and the North East. “Increasingly,” says Maria, “there is a move from communication to intervention. Various healthcare projects have used social media to improve patients’ adherence to medicines and to promote public health messages, including reminders for HIV medication, safe sex reminders and smoking cessation support.”

What are we waiting for?

It’s hard to say how many people in pharmacy are currently using social media. People can find the idea of social media intimidating, concedes Neal.

“That’s why the Royal Pharmaceutical Society drew up guidelines to help people to engage in it. Good advice for the newcomer is to just spend time watching what’s going on and seeing what kind of things people say and how others respond, before taking the plunge. Once you have a real idea of what’s going on, then you can start dipping into the debates.”

The main potential pitfall of using social media is forgetting that it’s a public forum. “It’s important to treat social media in the same way as you would any other public space,” advises Neal. “Think of it like this: if you were standing in a room with 100 people in it, what would you be happy for them to hear? If you wouldn’t want them to hear what you are thinking about tweeting, then don’t tweet it.”

Twitter has got its limitations and it is important to be aware of these, says Reena. “You have to be conscious that people can take things you tweet in the wrong way and it is essential to be aware of patient confidentiality.” Social media should never get in the way of looking after patients, adds Alistair, “and it’s important if you work for a large company to be aware of any social media policies”.

His final advice is this: “Bear in mind: what would you be happy for other people to hear? Regardless of your role within pharmacy, we need to behave in an appropriate manner and be responsible on behalf of ourselves as well as our employers. It’s a big learning curve, but practice makes perfect. My message is: get going with it!”

Worry about it or not, it is happening and evolving fast. “Social media use by healthcare professionals is no longer a niche activity and it’s happening whether you’re involved or not,” says James. “Networks are being forged, conversations are going on, projects are being developed, information is being shared and learning is occurring every day – you will miss out if you’re not a part of that.”

 

Before taking the plunge...

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has these top 10 tips on how to use social media to benefit pharmacy:

1 Interact and engage in conversations. Don’t post and log out

2 Share useful information that could benefit the reader’s health in a language they can understand

3 Be an ambassador for the profession by sharing positive news about the industry or your practice

4 Be cautious about giving medical advice online. Encourage offline discussion and be aware of confidentiality

5 Consider being anonymous. However, this can reduce credibility and trust

6 Ignore trolls and don’t become swept up in negative discussions

7 Remember social media is the real world – maintain professional standards

8 Create a strategy for what you aim to achieve via social media. Fifty per cent of what you upload should benefit your career or the profession

9 Engage with healthcare professionals outside of pharmacy for valuable information and discussions. Healthcare managers can offer insight into the overall health system

10 Encourage others to join the social media party. The bigger the online pharmacy community, the more that can be achieved.

You can feel a bit like a panda in the wild – you know there are others like you out there, but you might not come across them very often

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