Ethics of Hospital Marketing Management in the Social Media Era: A Literature Review
Keywords:
ethics, hospital marketing, literature review, marketing management, social mediaAbstract
The integration of social media into hospital marketing strategies has transformed healthcare communication, creating both novel opportunities and significant ethical challenges. This review aims to systematically analyze previous researches that investigates the ethical dimensions of hospital marketing management in the social media era. This literature review employed a systematic approach to evaluate researches accessible in full text and published between January 2014 and March 2024 with Pubmed as the primary database. Content analysis was conducted to identify recurring themes, contradictions, and gaps in the literature. The extracted data was organized into a comparative table to facilitate synthesis and identification of patterns across studies. A few key themes emerging from the analysis were identified, including privacy and confidentiality challenges, informed consent issues, misleading content, and exploitation concerns. Despite these challenges, the literature identifies promising solutions to ethical problems particularly related to this matter, including policy development, ethics training, monitoring & adaptation, and oversight commitees. The findings of this review highlight the importance of balancing marketing objectives with healthcare's fundamental ethical principles. Hospitals must eventually develop adaptive ethical regulations that respond to emerging technologies while maintaining the integrity of the patient-provider relationship and public trust in healthcare institutions.Downloads
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References
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Tomycz, N. D. (2006). A profession selling out: lamenting the paradigm shift in physician advertising. Journal of Medical Ethics, 32(1), 26–28. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2005.012617
Varkey, B. (2021). Principles of Clinical Ethics and Their Application to Practice. Medical Principles and Practice : International Journal of the Kuwait University, Health Science Centre, 30(1), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1159/000509119
Ventola, C. L. (2014). Social media and health care professionals: benefits, risks, and best practices. P & T : A Peer-Reviewed Journal for Formulary Management, 39(7), 491–520.
Berkowitz, E. N. (2022). Essentials of Health Care Marketing (5th Edition). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Chen, J., & Wang, Y. (2021). Social Media Use for Health Purposes: Systematic Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 23(5), e17917. https://doi.org/10.2196/17917
Costa-Sánchez, C., & Míguez-González, M.-I. (2018). Use of social media for health education and corporate communication of hospitals. El Profesional de La Información, 27(5), 1145. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2018.sep.18
Farnan, J. M., Snyder Sulmasy, L., Worster, B. K., Chaudhry, H. J., Rhyne, J. A., & Arora, V. M. (2013). Online Medical Professionalism: Patient and Public Relationships: Policy Statement From the American College of Physicians and the Federation of State Medical Boards. Annals of Internal Medicine, 158(8), 620–627. https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-158-8-201304160-00100
Grajales III, F. J., Sheps, S., Ho, K., Novak-Lauscher, H., & Eysenbach, G. (2014). Social Media: A Review and Tutorial of Applications in Medicine and Health Care. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 16(2), e13. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.2912
Harris, J. K., Mueller, N. L., & Snider, D. (2013). Social media adoption in local health departments nationwide. American Journal of Public Health, 103(9), 1700–1707. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2012.301166
Househ, M., Borycki, E., & Kushniruk, A. (2014). Empowering patients through social media: the benefits and challenges. Health Informatics Journal, 20(1), 50–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1460458213476969
Huesch, M. D., Galstyan, A., Ong, M. K., & Doctor, J. N. (2016). Using Social Media, Online Social Networks, and Internet Search as Platforms for Public Health Interventions: A Pilot Study. Health Services Research, 51(S2), 1273–1290. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6773.12496
Hyder, A. S., & Abraha, D. (2014). Marketing strategy in emerging market alliance: a longitudinal study. J. for International Business and Entrepreneurship Development, 7(4), 309. https://doi.org/10.1504/JIBED.2014.064451
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2012). Social media: Back to the roots and back to the future. Journal of Systems and Information Technology, 14(2), 101–104. https://doi.org/10.1108/13287261211232126
Karim, M. Z., Hasan, R., Abdullah, M. S., & Tasnim, K. (2025). Digital Marketing and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: Revolutionizing Patient Engagement and Service Delivery. Journal of Primeasia, 6(1), 1–10.
Kemp, S. (2023, January 26). Digital 2023: Global Overview Report. DataReportal.
Kordzadeh, N., & Young, D. K. (2018). Exploring Hospitals’ Use of Facebook: Thematic Analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(5), e190. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.9549
Kotsenas, A. L., Arce, M., Aase, L., Timimi, F. K., Young, C., & Wald, J. T. (2018). The Strategic Imperative for the Use of Social Media in Health Care. Journal of the American College of Radiology, 15(1), 155–161. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacr.2017.09.027
Lee, N. R., & Kotler, P. (2023). Social Marketing: Behavior Change for Social Good (7th Edition). SAGE Publications.
Mali, S. B. (2023). Social media in health care- - Ethically challenging - -Dangerous but attractive- -use with caution. Oral Oncology Reports, 7, 100079. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oor.2023.100079
McGraw, D., & Mandl, K. D. (2021). Privacy protections to encourage use of health-relevant digital data in a learning health system. NPJ Digital Medicine, 4(1), 2. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-020-00362-8
Moorhead, S. A., Hazlett, D. E., Harrison, L., Carroll, J. K., Irwin, A., & Hoving, C. (2013). A New Dimension of Health Care: Systematic Review of the Uses, Benefits, and Limitations of Social Media for Health Communication. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 15(4), e85. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.1933
Roberts, M. J., Perera, M., Lawrentschuk, N., Romanic, D., Papa, N., & Bolton, D. (2015). Globalization of Continuing Professional Development by Journal Clubs via Microblogging: A Systematic Review. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 17(4), e103. https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.4194
Smailhodzic, E., Hooijsma, W., Boonstra, A., & Langley, D. J. (2016). Social media use in healthcare: A systematic review of effects on patients and on their relationship with healthcare professionals. BMC Health Services Research, 16(1), 442. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-016-1691-0
Taylor, J., & Pagliari, C. (2018). Comprehensive scoping review of health research using social media data. BMJ Open, 8(12). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-022931
Tomycz, N. D. (2006). A profession selling out: lamenting the paradigm shift in physician advertising. Journal of Medical Ethics, 32(1), 26–28. https://doi.org/10.1136/jme.2005.012617
Varkey, B. (2021). Principles of Clinical Ethics and Their Application to Practice. Medical Principles and Practice : International Journal of the Kuwait University, Health Science Centre, 30(1), 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1159/000509119
Ventola, C. L. (2014). Social media and health care professionals: benefits, risks, and best practices. P & T : A Peer-Reviewed Journal for Formulary Management, 39(7), 491–520.
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Published
2025-07-31
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Ethics of Hospital Marketing Management in the Social Media Era: A Literature Review. (2025). Proceeding of International Conference on Economics, Technology, Management, Accounting, Education, and Social Science (ICETEA), 1, 465-478. https://conference.unita.ac.id/index.php/icetea/article/view/394
