The Ethics of Managing Conflicts in the Era of Social Media
Increasingly, patients and families are engaging the media to influence transplant eligibility decisions for themselves or their family members. This chapter starts by reviewing the history of social media and how social media works as a means of persuasion, particularly in healthcare cases. The chapter then provides an overview of so called social media crises, and presents an ethical framework to inform and assist policymakers, hospital centers and healthcare providers in responding to public outcry, while managing legal constraints to maintain patient confidentiality and ethical constraints to promote equity and utility in transplant access. In conclusion, the chapter addresses preventive strategies to mitigate both patient harm and public misperceptions.