Use of social media has become widespread across the United States. Although businesses have invested in social media to engage consumers and promote products, less is known about the extent to which ...hospitals are using social media to interact with patients and promote health.
The aim was to investigate the relationship between hospital social media extent of adoption and utilization relative to hospital characteristics.
We conducted a cross-sectional review of hospital-related activity on 4 social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and Foursquare. All US hospitals were included that reported complete data for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey and the American Hospital Association Annual Survey. We reviewed hospital social media webpages to determine the extent of adoption relative to hospital characteristics, including geographic region, urban designation, bed size, ownership type, and teaching status. Social media utilization was estimated from user activity specific to each social media platform, including number of Facebook likes, Twitter followers, Foursquare check-ins, and Yelp reviews.
Adoption of social media varied across hospitals with 94.41% (3351/3371) having a Facebook page and 50.82% (1713/3371) having a Twitter account. A majority of hospitals had a Yelp page (99.14%, 3342/3371) and almost all hospitals had check-ins on Foursquare (99.41%, 3351/3371). Large, urban, private nonprofit, and teaching hospitals were more likely to have higher utilization of these accounts.
Although most hospitals adopted at least one social media platform, utilization of social media varied according to several hospital characteristics. This preliminary investigation of social media adoption and utilization among US hospitals provides the framework for future studies investigating the effect of social media on patient outcomes, including links between social media use and the quality of hospital care and services.
Full text
Available for:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Regular physical activity reduces the risk of cardiovascular events, but most ischemic heart disease (IHD) patients do not obtain enough.
ACTIVE REWARD (A Clinical Trial Investigating Effects of a ...Randomized Evaluation of Wearable Activity Trackers with Financial Rewards) was a 24-week home-based, remotely monitored, randomized trial with a 16-week intervention (8-week ramp-up incentive phase and 8-week maintenance incentive phase) and an 8-week follow-up. Patients used wearable devices to track step counts and establish a baseline. Patients in control received no other interventions. Patients in the incentive arm received personalized step goals and daily feedback for all 24 weeks. In the ramp-up incentive phase, daily step goals increased weekly by 15% from baseline with a maximum of 10 000 steps and then remained fixed. Each week, $14 was allocated to a virtual account; $2 could be lost per day for not achieving step goals. The primary outcome was change in mean daily steps from baseline to the maintenance incentive phase. Ischemic heart disease patients had a mean (SD) age of 60 (11) years and 70% were male. Compared with control, patients in the incentive arm had a significantly greater increase in mean daily steps from baseline during ramp-up (1388 versus 385; adjusted difference, 1061 95% confidence interval, 386-1736;
<0.01), maintenance (1501 versus 264; adjusted difference, 1368 95% confidence interval, 571-2164;
<0.001), and follow-up (1066 versus 92; adjusted difference, 1154 95% confidence interval, 282-2027;
<0.01).
Loss-framed financial incentives with personalized goal setting significantly increased physical activity among ischemic heart disease patients using wearable devices during the 16-week intervention, and effects were sustained during the 8-week follow-up.
URL: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov. Unique identifier: NCT02531022.
Objective
Crowdsourcing research allows investigators to engage thousands of people to provide either data or data analysis. However, prior work has not documented the use of crowdsourcing in health ...and medical research. We sought to systematically review the literature to describe the scope of crowdsourcing in health research and to create a taxonomy to characterize past uses of this methodology for health and medical research.
Data sources
PubMed, Embase, and CINAHL through March 2013.
Study eligibility criteria
Primary peer-reviewed literature that used crowdsourcing for health research.
Study appraisal and synthesis methods
Two authors independently screened studies and abstracted data, including demographics of the crowd engaged and approaches to crowdsourcing.
Results
Twenty-one health-related studies utilizing crowdsourcing met eligibility criteria. Four distinct types of crowdsourcing tasks were identified: problem solving, data processing, surveillance/monitoring, and surveying. These studies collectively engaged a crowd of >136,395 people, yet few studies reported demographics of the crowd. Only one (5 %) reported age, sex, and race statistics, and seven (33 %) reported at least one of these descriptors. Most reports included data on crowdsourcing logistics such as the length of crowdsourcing (n = 18, 86 %) and time to complete crowdsourcing task (n = 15, 71 %). All articles (n = 21, 100 %) reported employing some method for validating or improving the quality of data reported from the crowd.
Limitations
Gray literature not searched and only a sample of online survey articles included.
Conclusions and implications of key findings
Utilizing crowdsourcing can improve the quality, cost, and speed of a research project while engaging large segments of the public and creating novel science. Standardized guidelines are needed on crowdsourcing metrics that should be collected and reported to provide clarity and comparability in methods.
Full text
Available for:
EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OBVAL, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Access to voting is increasingly recognized as a social determinant of health. Health equity could be improved if healthcare workers (HCWs) routinely assessed the voter registration status of ...patients during clinical encounters and helped direct them towards appropriate resources. However, little consensus exists on how to achieve these tasks efficiently and effectively in healthcare settings. Intuitive and scalable tools that minimize workflow disruptions are needed. The Healthy Democracy Kit (HDK) is a novel voter registration toolkit for healthcare settings, featuring a wearable badge and posters that display quick response (QR) and text codes directing patients to an online hub for voter registration and mail-in ballot requests. The objective of this study was to assess national uptake and impact of the HDK prior to the 2020 United States (US) elections.
Between 19 May and 3 November 2020, HCWs and institutions could order and use HDKs to help direct patients to resources, free of cost. A descriptive analysis was conducted to summarize the characteristics of participating HCWs and institutions as well as the resultant total persons helped prepare to vote.
During the study period, 13,192 HCWs (including 7,554 physicians, 2,209 medical students, and 983 nurses) from 2,407 affiliated institutions across the US ordered 24,031 individual HDKs. Representatives from 604 institutions (including 269 academic medical centers, 111 medical schools, and 141 Federally Qualified Health Centers) ordered 960 institutional HDKs. Collectively, HCWs and institutions from all 50 US states and the District of Columbia used HDKs to help initiate 27,317 voter registrations and 17,216 mail-in ballot requests.
A novel voter registration toolkit had widespread organic uptake and enabled HCWs and institutions to successfully conduct point-of-care civic health advocacy during clinical encounters. This methodology holds promise for future implementation of other types of public health initiatives. Further study is needed to assess downstream voting behaviors from healthcare-based voter registration.
Full text
Available for:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Voting affords citizens a direct say in the leaders and policies that affect their health. However, less than 20% of eligible U.S. citizens have been offered the chance to register to vote at a ...government-funded agency like a hospital or clinic that provides Medicaid or Medicare services. Medical students are well positioned to increase voting access due to their interactions with multiple actors in health care settings, including patients, visitors, colleagues, and others.
Vot-ER, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that aims to promote civic engagement in health care settings, launched the inaugural Healthy Democracy Campaign from July 20 to October 9, 2020. As part of this national, gamification-based competition, medical student captains were recruited to lead teams of health care trainees and professionals that helped eligible adults start the voter registration and/or mail-in ballot request process before the November 2020 elections. Post competition, medical student captains were surveyed about their motivations for participating and skills and knowledge gained.
In total, 128 medical student captains at 80 medical schools in 31 states and the District of Columbia formed teams that helped 15,692 adults start the voter registration and/or mail-in ballot request process. Eighty-two (64.1%) captains responded to the post competition survey, representing 56 (70.0%) of the participating schools. The top-ranked motivation for participating in the campaign was the desire to address social and racial inequities (37, 45.1%). Respondents reported gaining skills and knowledge in several aspects of civic engagement, including community organizing (67, 81.7%) and voting rights (63, 76.8%). The majority of respondents planned to incorporate voter registration into their future practice (76, 92.7%).
Future Healthy Democracy Campaigns will aim to continue closing the voting access gap and promote the long-term inclusion of hands-on civic engagement in medical education and practice.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has upended every aspect of life in the United States and forced Americans to rethink their daily activities, including how they work, attend school, ...secure food, obtain health care, and maintain social connections. For vulnerable populations that were already facing significant barriers to health, such as people experiencing homelessness, the pandemic has only generated new hardships and exacerbated existing inequities. Compared with the general population, people experiencing homelessness suffer from poorer health and have higher rates of mental illnesses, infectious and noncommunicable diseases, and premature mortality.1,2 Since the start of the pandemic, this highly vulnerable population has also faced increased risks of being exposed to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-the virus that causes COVID-19. Nightly, many of these individuals must make the difficult decision between lodging in crowded shelters, where the risk of outbreaks is high, and staying outdoors, where they must weather the elements and risk their safety.3 5 Many people experiencing homelessness also have little or no access to personal protective equipment and testing, and even when testing is available, it may be challenging to conduct contact tracing and quarantine individuals in this population because of their lack of housing and limited access to mobile phones and mailing addresses.6 Furthermore, given their preexisting medical conditions and other factors such as poor nutrition and lack of health insurance, people experiencing homelessness are also more likely to have worse outcomes if they develop COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has also affected the nonprofit organizations that provide people experiencing homelessness with basic needs such as food, clothing, and medical care. Across the United States, communities are engaging in a collective effort to shelter in place and practice social distancing to reduce the person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Although these measures are essential to "flattening the curve" of active cases of COVID-19, they have dramatically reduced the number of people who are able to volunteer for nonprofit organizations.8 Likewise, the temporary and permanent shuttering of businesses has resulted in sharp declines in the monetary and material donations that sustain these entities.8,9 It is also likely that the high unemployment rate will eventually translate into increased numbers of people experiencing homelessness.
Full text
Available for:
CEKLJ, DOBA, FSPLJ, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, ODKLJ, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
IMPORTANCE: Glycemic control often deteriorates during adolescence and the transition to young adulthood for patients with type 1 diabetes. The inability to manage type 1 diabetes effectively during ...these years is associated with poor glycemic control and complications from diabetes in adult life. OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of daily financial incentives on glucose monitoring adherence and glycemic control in adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: The Behavioral Economic Incentives to Improve Glycemic Control Among Adolescents and Young Adults With Type 1 Diabetes (BE IN CONTROL) study was an investigator-blinded, 6-month, 2-arm randomized clinical trial conducted between January 22 and November 2, 2016, with 3-month intervention and follow-up periods. Ninety participants (aged 14-20) with suboptimally controlled type 1 diabetes (hemoglobin A1c HbA1c >8.0%) were recruited from the Diabetes Center for Children at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. INTERVENTIONS: All participants were given daily blood glucose monitoring goals of 4 or more checks per day with 1 or more level within the goal range (70-180 mg/dL) collected with a wireless glucometer. The 3-month intervention consisted of a $60 monthly incentive in a virtual account, from which $2 was subtracted for every day of nonadherence to the monitoring goals. During a 3-month follow-up period, the intervention was discontinued. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The primary outcome was change in HbA1c levels at 3 months. Secondary outcomes included adherence to glucose monitoring and change in HbA1c levels at 6 months. All analyses were by intention to treat. RESULTS: Of the 181 participants screened, 90 (52 57.8% girls) were randomized to the intervention (n = 45) or control (n = 45) arms. The mean (SD) age was 16.3 (1.9) years. The intervention group had significantly greater adherence to glucose monitoring goals in the incentive period (50.0% vs 18.9%; adjusted difference, 27.2%; 95% CI, 9.5% to 45.0%; P = .003) but not in the follow-up period (15.3% vs 8.7%; adjusted difference, 3.9%; 95% CI, −2.0% to 9.9%; P = .20). The change in HbA1c levels from baseline did not differ significantly between groups at 3 months (adjusted difference, −0.08%; 95% CI, −0.69% to 0.54%; P = .80) or 6 months (adjusted difference, 0.03%; 95% CI, −0.55% to 0.60%; P = .93). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Among adolescents and young adults with type 1 diabetes, daily financial incentives improved glucose monitoring adherence during the incentive period but did not significantly improve glycemic control. TRIAL REGISTRATION: clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02568501.
As trusted sources of information, geriatricians can discuss with their patients plans for safe voting, including getting vaccinated, masking, social distancing, and considering voting by mail where ...available and if eligibility criteria are met—much like they already ask about seat belt and smoke detector use and firearm safety as part of the social history. By doing so, geriatricians can help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and ensure older adults continue to have a say in the matters that affect their health.
Full text
Available for:
BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
BackgroundPatients have adopted web-based tools to report on the quality of their healthcare experiences. We seek to examine online reviews for US emergency departments (EDs) posted on Yelp, a ...popular consumer ratings website.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative analysis of unstructured, publicly accessible reviews for hospitals available on http://www.yelp.com. We collected all reviews describing experiences of ED care for a stratified random sample of 100 US hospitals. We analysed the content of the reviews using themes derived from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) inpatient care survey. We also used modified grounded theory to iteratively code the text of the reviews, identifying additional themes specific to emergency care. The data were double-coded, and discrepancies were evaluated to ensure consensus.ResultsOf the 1736 total reviews, 573 (33%) described patient experiences involving the ED. The reviews contained several themes assessed by the HCAHPS survey, including communication with nurses, communication with doctors, and pain control. The reviews also contained key themes specific to emergency care: waiting and efficiency; decisions to seek care in the ED; and events following discharge, including administrative difficulties.ConclusionsThese exploratory findings suggest that online reviews for EDs contain similar themes to survey-based assessments of inpatient hospital care as well as themes specific to emergency care. Consumer rating websites allow patients to provide rapid and public feedback on their experience of medical care. Web-based platforms may offer a novel strategy for assessing patient-centred quality in emergency care.
PDF
