Are social media the villain or the hero in the healthcare industry?

Introduction: September 2006 was a watershed moment in the world’s history with Facebook opening its doors to the general public. Ever since, the power of social media influences both our personal lives and businesses with breathtaking speed. In spite of the fact that it is unclear whether it is ethical to parallel a hospital with an enterprise or not, reputation and public satisfaction-based on experience have played a vital role in the realm of preference for both of them. Purpose: The pandemic has done a good job of enhancing trends like digitalization and remote working only to make social medias’ dominion inescapable. Social media are hinted at as the fifth estate however, more often than not, they are profiled as the antagonist. Can they optimize healthcare or once again, are they up to no good? Methodology: A bibliographic searched was performed in the electronic database “Pubmed” and through the search engine “Google Scholar” with the keywords: social media, nursing, care. Articles were excluded if English or Greek were not the main language. Results: A clinic’s performance in the sphere of patient experience is generally determined by using systematic surveys with close-ended questions, but patient-generated narrative feedback through the comments on social media, can lead to more specific results to identify the components of care that contribute to patient satisfaction. When it comes to using social networks in Greece’s healthcare, we still have a long way to go. For now, nearly every health center has a facebook page where you can find information on its location and how to get there as well as the hospital’s phone number, email, messenger and official website. Most importantly, you can see the “customer’s” reviews from the ratings and the comments. Social media have great potential for bettering the quality of healthcare we provide even though there is minimum effort for them to be submerged into hospitals. The lack of regulation, the absence of necessary equipment and privacy issues seem to pull the plug on any ongoing procedures.