Social Media Use Among Hand Surgeons.

Area of Science:

• Medical Informatics
• Digital Health
• Surgical Practice Analytics

Background:

• Patient engagement with online health information is rising.
• Physicians' social media presence is increasingly utilized by patients for medical insights and provider searches.
• Understanding social media adoption among specialists is crucial for modern healthcare communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze social media utilization by hand surgeons.
• To compare social media engagement between academic and private practice hand surgeons.
• To identify platform preferences and usage patterns within hand surgery.

Main Methods:

• Identified active hand surgeons in the ten most populated U.S. cities via the American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) directory.
• Assessed social media presence through internet searches across various platforms.
• Stratified surgeons by practice model (academic vs. private) and analyzed data using statistical tests and logistic regression.

Main Results:

• Out of 256 hand surgeons, 150 were academic and 106 were private practice.
• Academic surgeons showed higher prevalence on ResearchGate (82%) and YouTube (70%).
• No significant difference in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram presence between academic and private practices.

Conclusions:

• Hand surgeons are increasingly using social media for patient outreach.
• Contrary to prior literature, academic hand surgeons in major urban centers exhibit comparable social media activity to private practice surgeons.
• Platform-specific engagement, notably on ResearchGate and YouTube, favors academic settings.