Social Media in Health care

Social Media refers to refers to Internet-based tools that allow individuals and communities to gather and communicate; to share information, ideas, personal messages, images, and other content; and, in some cases, to collaborate with other users in real time. Social media sites provide a variety of features that serve different purposes for the individual users like social networking, professional networking, media sharing, content production and microblogs, knowledge/information aggregation, virtual reality and gaming environments. Social media also serves as a means of education, promotion, patient care and health programs. However, misleading information and reliability are the main challenges in the usage. Social media brings a new dimension to health care as it offers a medium to be used by the public, patients, and health professionals to communicate about health issues with the possibility of potentially improving health outcomes.