Journal of medical Internet research
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2015
Sources of traffic and visitors' preferences regarding online public reports of quality: web analytics and online survey results.
In the context of the Affordable Care Act, there is extensive emphasis on making provider quality transparent and publicly available. Online public reports of quality exist, but little is known about how visitors find reports or about their purpose in visiting. ⋯ Report sponsors interested in increasing the influence of their reports could consider using techniques to improve search engine traffic, providing cost information and patient comments, and improving the website experience for both consumers and health care professionals.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2015
Using patient experiences on Dutch social media to supervise health care services: exploratory study.
Social media has become mainstream and a growing number of people use it to share health care-related experiences, for example on health care rating sites. These users' experiences and ratings on social media seem to be associated with quality of care. Therefore, information shared by citizens on social media could be of additional value for supervising the quality and safety of health care services by regulatory bodies, thereby stimulating participation by consumers. ⋯ The results showed that social media could be used to include the patient's perspective in supervision. However, it appeared that the rating site ZorgkaartNederland was the only source that provided information that was of additional value for the DHI, while other sources such as forums and social networks like Twitter and Facebook did not result in additional information. This information could be of importance for health care inspectorates, particularly for its enforcement by risk-based supervision in care of the elderly. Further research is needed to determine the added value for other health care sectors.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2015
The painful tweet: text, sentiment, and community structure analyses of tweets pertaining to pain.
Despite the widespread popularity of social media, little is known about the extent or context of pain-related posts by users of those media. ⋯ Taken together, our results suggest that pain-related tweets carry special characteristics reflecting unique content and their communication among tweeters. Further work will explore how geopolitical events and seasonal changes affect tweeters' perceptions of pain and how such perceptions may affect therapies for pain.
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J. Med. Internet Res. · Jan 2015
Twitter sentiment predicts Affordable Care Act marketplace enrollment.
Traditional metrics of the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and health insurance marketplaces in the United States include public opinion polls and marketplace enrollment, which are published with a lag of weeks to months. In this rapidly changing environment, a real-time barometer of public opinion with a mechanism to identify emerging issues would be valuable. ⋯ This correlation indicates Twitter's potential as a real-time monitoring strategy for future marketplace enrollment periods; marketplaces could systematically track Twitter sentiment to more rapidly identify enrollment changes and potentially emerging issues. As a repository of free and accessible consumer-generated opinions, this study reveals a novel role for Twitter in the health policy landscape.