Impact of Social Media on Finding a Gastroenterology Specialist

Introduction: Social Media has become an important platform for the public to decide on where to receive medical services from. However, reliability of social media on deciding on a physician, especially a gastroenterologist, remains a huge challenge and still underdetermined Methods: Online search results for the keywords “Gastroenterology doctors’ in city name” for five major cities (New York, Chicago, Dallas, Seattle and Los Angeles) on the 3 most commonly used web sites (Facebook, Google and Yelp) were included. The top 5 results for each website were studied with respect to the type of gastroenterology practice, including university-based or private practice. A comparative analysis of the order in which the results were displayed in each of these three websites was performed Results: < ![if !supportLists] >• < ![endif] > After searching 151 websites, Facebook, Yelp, and Google search engines were included in the study. These 3 platforms mostly showed gastroenterologists in private practices as their top results. There was no correlation between physician ranking and placement. The search results for 90 websites (Facebook, Yelp, Google) were dominated by private practice Gastroenterologist. No academic Gastroenterology practice made the top 5 search results. There was no correlation between the ranking and placement of search results across different websites. The Gastroenterology practices listed as number one on Google in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas and Seattle were not listed among the top 5 practice results on Facebook. There was no significant correlation between the ranking on Facebook and Yelp. Conclusion: Private and Small practices run by non- academic gastroenterologists dominate the search results for “Gastroenterologist” in the top 5 metro areas in United States. This may be due to academic institutes or academic affiliated institutes not relying on developing their social media as much as private practices. No significant correlation has been found between the top search results on the major social media platforms. Therefore, if patients do rely on social media platforms to choose their gastroenterologist, it may be beneficial to use multiple search engines rather than a single engine. American College of Gastroenterology should further promote to streamline this process and provide with a possible review body that can help patients with more reliable source of information in choosing their gastroenterologist.Figure 1.: Social media search results.