Simple Analysis on when to hit the "Like", "Share" or "Retweet" to spread health information.11/25/2014 Health Informatics, a new discipline in healthcare is growing rapidly around the world in order to make use and manage health data appropriately and effectively. It is a multipronged discipline that deals with the retrieval, communication and optimal use of health related data, a critical element in sustainable health care delivery.
Therefore it is almost impossible to describe an organization without information technology since the intersection and interchange of information is crucial at this point of time. In 1960, computers were in scientific meeting and to understand news human movement and kinetics in order to design prostheses with the use of classic IBM 650, 1620 and 7040. This investment and work led to a paradigm shift in biomedical engineering and within five years, the National Library of Medicine started to use MEDLINE, which was the first medical online library in the world for medical practitioners and researchers to share their work, research and opinions. As health informatics was evolving, in 2004, it finally hit the commercial market, whereby the use of health informatics in hospitals introduced was known as Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System (MUMPS) which was then modify to Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA). VistA was then reengineered for various Hospitals in various countries and it is believed that current health informatics system that exist today in our hospitals is (HIS), are part of MUMPS and VistA once upon a time. Surprisingly, in the UK, health informatics in clinical field also existed in the 1950’s and subsequently evolved to other sub disciplines in pathology on 1960, radiotherapy on 1962, immunization on 1963, and even primary care on 1968. In view of the 2010 strategy This shows how aggressive the British was to promulgate health informatics which we are enjoying today. WHO (World Health Organization) has also been propagating health informatics in various countries and has branded health informatics as an “umbrella” in the evolving discipline of using computing, to support the health related fields in nursing, pharmacy, medicine and dentistry. It is also said that, healthcare will play a significant role and healthcare professionals will need to put in more interest to be computer literate in order to function effectively in a digital environment. Chaudry (2006) mentioned that in hospitals and clinics, healthcare information technology has already been shown to improve quality by increasing adherence to guidelines and decreasing medication errors. This has saved life and increased the patient safety level at organisational level. It also has the potential to improve communications across a difficult geographical terrain, facilitate information to respective providers, patients and community and eliminate repetitive duplication. By rectifying this, we can actually increase the quality of patient care and safety. Now comes the latest trend of social media messaging & reliable health websites that can also provide a good outcome to the community. In fact this approach is considered one step ahead than simple software or mobile health related programs since it allows medical professionals to take the initiative and the lead to educate, communicate & disseminate health information to the community. In view of this, the Malaysian Medical Gazette team led by Dr Hidayah Ismawi, Dr Khoo Yoong Khean and myself has performed a short analysis on readers perception & readers attention time span in reading health related articles. This background analysis was performed in order to maintain Malaysian Medical Gazette's outcome based approach & the sustainability of the gazette in order to execute a good reading material for the public. Our analysis showed that, most readers tend to spend their time reading health related article between 7pm to 12am, peak during 11pm - 12am with 1,348,830 million hits. Secondly during the day between 6am - 10am reaching more than 1,575,735 million hits. (Refer Table Below) Another important fact is the duration that a person spends in reading heath related articles. In our service analysis (related to Malaysian Medical Gazette), we realize that maximum attention span for health related article is around 30 seconds, which accounts to almost 79.6% of our readers. This tells us that health related article should be short and concise. Anything more than 1 (A4) page might not get enough attention span from the community. (Refer table below). Conclusion, it is important to always keep track on evidence base intervention. Promulgating health information needs a definite direction. It is almost impossible to shout, blast, like, share or retweet heath articles when you are not sure when is the right time to do it. On top of that, your content should be short and sharp. Hit the right point at the right time doctors. Thank you. References: 1. Chaudhry, B. (2006). Impact of health information technology on quality, efficiency, and costs of medical care. Annals of Internal Medicine, 144, 742-752. 2. Hostgator.com ( Malaysian Medical Gazette ) Acknowledgment: 1. Dr Hidayah Ismawi (Chief Editor of Malaysian Medical Gazette) 2. Dr Khoo Yoong Khean (Managing Editor of Malaysian Medical Gazette) |
DR DHESI BR (MD,MPH)Epidemiology. Humanitarian Relief. Emergency Response. Public Health Threats. |