Hospitals must fight misinformation, and see it as a threat to their business

Dr. Geeta Nayyar has spent a lot of time examining misinformation about healthcare in social media.

Nayyar wrote a book, “Dead Wrong,” published in October 2023, looks at how misinformation is affecting healthcare. She describes her reaction to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that he is ending the practice of fact-checking on Facebook.

“It was one of disappointment, and it was one that was not surprising,” Nayyar says.

But Nayyar says healthcare leaders must step up to confront misinformation.

Hospitals and health systems need to see the spread of misinformation as a threat to their business, which could imperil their ability to build connections with patients.

“We've got to be accountable when it comes to healthcare information. Certainly, no one is going to do this for us,” Nayyar says.

“We are really the truth-sayers and the defenders of science and healthcare, and we can't leave it to social media companies,” she adds. “We can't leave it to any number of powers that be. I think that truly, the owner of the patient-doctor relationship remains in the hands of the healthcare industry, and we're seeing just how powerful mis- and disinformation can be.”

In an interview with Chief Healthcare Executive®, Nayyar talks about the spread of misinformation, how health systems should respond and why hospitals and other providers need to see it as a business imperative.

Nayyar, the former chief medical officer of Saleforce, serves as the chief medical officer of RadiantGraph, a company focused on improving patient engagement. She also sits on the board of the American Telemedicine Association and is an advisor to the American Medical Association.

She notes that misinformation will only grow on social media platforms, since it is a “big business.”

“It drives engagement, it drives clicks, it drives views, and it drives profit,” Nayyar says. “So they have no reason to be concerned about the patient and the consumer. But we certainly do, and our business models certainly are at risk ourselves from a profit standpoint.”

(See part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)

‘Hungry for information’

The proliferation of misinformation on social media clearly worries healthcare leaders.

In an exit interview with The Washington Post published Sunday, U.S. Health & Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra bemoaned falsehoods about vaccines and how federal health officials can’t capture as much attention as social media influencers.

“I can’t go toe to toe with social media,” Becerra told The Post.

Many Americans are using social media for information about their health. A KFF poll found roughly one in four Americans (24%) search on social media once a week for information or advice about health.

Nayyar says some of that searching needs to be considered in the context of a physician shortage, with many Americans facing months-long waits for appointments to see a doctor.

“People are hungry for information about their health,” Nayyar says. “We have lived through a pandemic. We need to acknowledge that the consumer in a post-pandemic world sees health as a priority, and they're so hungry and thirsty for it that they'll go anywhere.”

Misinformation isn’t new. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, misinformation and false information flourished after the emergence of age, Nayyar notes.

Too often, healthcare leaders and clinicians have simply ignored it or just treated it as if it was just a fact of life. But Nayyar says that approach isn’t sufficient.

“It's been around, but we've often treated it like the wallpaper in the hospital,” she says. “It's just the context in which we practice, the context in which we put out fires. But that wallpaper is now turning neon pink, and it is becoming unavoidable.”

Now, it’s time for the healthcare industry to take a different approach.

She says, “The real call to action is to say, in this era where mis- and disinformation is turning bright neon pink, what are we going to do about it?”

Nayyar says misinformation is hurting healthcare providers, with the potential to do more damage.

“This is, in fact, affecting patient acquisition, retention, trust in the industry,” she says. “If you're trying to do value-based care, if our patients, our consumers, don't know what a mammogram is, they're not getting a mammogram.”

Hospitals and other providers should recognize that they have a different type of rival taking their business.

“It is time to pay attention, and it is going to and already is affecting the bottom line of many organizations that are really now facing a new competitor,” Nayyar says.

“You're no longer competing with the doctor down the street, the hospital down the street,” she continues. “You're competing with the nameless influencers with no license and no accountability, that are simply entertainers.”

Taking a new approach

In looking at social media and misinformation, Nayyar says hospitals should view it similarly to someone standing in the lobby deriding doctors or telling patients to go elsewhere. As Nayyar says, a hospital wouldn’t sit still if that were occurring.

“That's essentially what's happening in the social media and marketing space, and so we as healthcare shouldn't tolerate it, both from a business standpoint, but also from a moral compass standpoint, as the defenders of the patient-physician relationship,” Nayyar says.

Given the expansive reach of social media, Nayyar says the healthcare industry needs to do a better job of outreach “in a pro-fact, pro-science way.”

Health systems should be taking advantage of technologies and platforms that can offer a personalized connection with users. She notes that social media uses algorithms that personalize the experience to reach and engage visitors.

“When we look at healthcare, we don't do that very well. We look at healthcare, we get that generic postcard in the mail. … ‘Happy birthday. It's time for your colonoscopy.’ Not as inspiring,” she says.

“But on the flip and the optimistic side of that is when we think about what it is to be a healthcare leader in 2025, we have all those tools at our disposal,” she adds. “We have just as much innovation and technology happening in healthcare. We have the same AI technologies. We just have to prioritize it and harness it.”

• Read more: Even with AI, healthcare must be in the humanity business

Hospitals and health systems need to integrate marketing into their approach to patient engagement, she says.

“The chief medical officer and the chief marketing officer, they’ve got to be besties,” Nayyar says. “You know, it's time to understand marketing is actually no longer a nice-to-have and a cute addition to the strategy, but actually, fundamentally, how you're going to do patient acquisition, retention, value-based care.”

Hospitals and health systems also need to build on the fact that many people like their own doctors.

“Your doctor knows you, so when there is that relationship, it remains unshakably the one that the consumer goes to for trust,” Nayyar says.

“So again, as a hospital system, we’ve got to lean into that," she continues. "We got to lean into that physician patient relationship. It has always been the sauce that drives everything, from a revenue standpoint, whether it is the admissions, whether it is outpatient visits, whether it's getting that blood pressure follow up, it remains fundamentally what drives people into the outpatient and inpatient setting.”

‘Industry-level problem’

Nayyar says healthcare organizations and leaders need to see misinformation as “an industry-level problem,” especially as conspiracies and lies are more widely spread online.

As she says, “This really has to be the payers, the providers, pharma, med tech, at that C level saying, what are we doing about this? Are we taking control of the narrative and not being the victim of the narrative?

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and healthcare leaders have spoken out against that choice. They cite Kennedy’s lack of experience leading healthcare organizations and his history of criticizing vaccines.

Nayyar also has concerns about Kennedy potentially leading the health department.

“It's very concerning, and again, even more reason for healthcare leaders to feel emboldened and that we have a mandate to protect our patients, to protect our businesses and to protect our communities,” Nayyar says.

Even acknowledging the scope of misinformation on social media and the threat posed to the healthcare industry, Nayyar remains upbeat about the prospects of doctors, providers and leaders finding novel ways to engage and serve patients.

“I'm forever the optimist,” Nayyar says. “I believe healthcare is going to win. I think we're always going to win.”