Friday, March 30, 2012 - Business Courier by James Ritchie, Staff Reporter

Doctors and other health care providers are warming up to social media, a survey suggests.

Nearly one third of respondents used social media when searching for a job in 2011, the San Diego-based staffing and consulting firm AMN Healthcare (NYSE: AHS) found. That compared with 21 percent in 2010.

Nearly half of the health care professionals surveyed, including physicians, nurses, allied health practitioners and pharmacists, said they use social media for professional networking.

Among the 2,790 respondents, physicians were health care’s heaviest users of mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. More than 40 percent of them used such devices for health care-related content or jobs in 2011.

Nicci Weber, manager of non-profit physician-recruiting group Cincinnati MD Jobs, sees social media use among doctors increasing.

“It’s still not to the extent that other professionals are using social media. In their work lives, they’re not sitting on a computer other than to enter medical records,” Weber said. “But as the current residents and fellows finish up training, I think we’ll see it pick up more.”

Facebook was the top social-media destination, with 75 percent of health care professionals choosing it as their favorite site for job-hunting.

Hospital use of social media is also growing. More than 1,200 hospitals were using social media in 2011, compared with 291 in 2009, according to AMN Healthcare.