Doctor advocates use of social media to improve healthcare services

A medical practitioner, Dr Ademola Adeyeye, has identified social media as a tool through which effective healthcare services could be delivered to the populace.
Adeyeye of Lifecount International Hospital spoke at the opening of an online healthcare platform entitled: “Ajipe Health and Wellbeing ’’ on Tuesday in Ilorin, Kwara.
Adeyeye, in a lecture entitled: “The Electronic Media as a Tool for Healthcare’’ urged medical practitioners to take advantage of the social media to enhance healthcare services.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that AHW is an online platform, through which medical experts could interact with one another and their patients for robust healthcare services.
He said that it was time for healthcare professionals to develop positive attitude toward consistent use of social media.
Adeyeye described social media as effective platform through which medical practitioners could attend to their patients to save time and prevent unnecessary delay.
The practitioner also encouraged his colleagues to embrace the idea of keeping records of their clients in form of database on their personal accounts in various social media platforms.
Adeyeye said: “You can create a database for records of clients on your online accounts such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp among other online platforms.
“This will afford the practitioners the opportunity to respond quickly to the clients in need of medical attention.’’
He said that such database would afford medical experts the ability to provide healthcare services from a single source to large number of patients.
In his remarks, the chairman of the online platform, Shehu Odurinde, explained that the AHW scheme was established to create connectivity between the medical practitioners and their patients.
He said that through the platform, health experts could take full advantage of the electronic media to carry out their jobs and enhance service delivery.
Odurinde, who is a Social Psychologist, said that the project would serve as a bridge between pharmacists, doctors and other health personnel.
He said that the social media platform would close the existing gaps between the healthcare providers and the patients, as well as medical establishment and the public.
Also, the Chief Executive Officer of AHW, Dr Faisol Oladosu, said that the initiative was borne out of the need to create a new paradigm shift in providing effective healthcare services.
According to him, the use of social media is growing among the populace, which encourages some practitioners to think of tapping the potential.
Oladosu said that the scheme would leave up to its mandate of achieving the cardinal objectives establishing the platform to improve healthcare services to Nigerians.