Paper accepted and presented at the 5th European Conference on Social Media in Ireland, 21-22 June 2018. Analysis of the Australian 'My Health Record', a personally controlled electronic health record, using tags #MyHR #MyHealthRecord and #PCEHR discussions in Twitter.
Analysis of three Twitter hashtags for discussion of personal electronic health records
1. Stuart Palmer - Deakin University
@s_palm - spalm@deakin.edu.au
Bronwyn Hemsley - University of Technology Sydney
@BronwynHemsley - Bronwyn.Hemsley@uts.edu.au
Analysis of three Twitter hashtags
for discussion of personal
electronic health records
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2. Electronic Health Records
Potential to improve the efficiency and quality of
health services
Implementation of EHRs has had mixed success
It is vital that public-facing information about
EHRs is current and accurate information
Governments need to engage the public about
their concerns as EHRs develop
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3. EHRs and social media
Personal EHRs coincided with social media
EHRs feature in social media communication
Social media have become an important source
of health information
Research on social media in health
communication is limited, including for EHRs
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4. Personal EHRs in Australia
The ‘Personally controlled Electronic Health Record’ (PCEHR)
launched July 2012 as an opt-in system
Pilot included social media activities
Reviewed 2013 – renamed ‘My Health Record’ (MyHR)
2017 – legislation provides for an opt-out system of
registration
Opt-out registration to occur nationally from 16 July 2018
Implementation of the system remains contentious,
including on social media
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5. Project aims
1. Investigate the representation of Australia’s
MyHR on Twitter via relevant hashtags
2. Employ time sequence analysis, text analytics
and network visualisation to characterise the
Twitter activity and content
3. Identify influential users and their
relationships
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6. Method
Ethics – public data ruled exempt
Hashtags: #PCEHR #MyHealthRecord & #MyHR
All data from 1 Aug 2016 to 31 Aug 2017
Time sequence analysis
Text analytics via KH Coder – multidimensional scaling
Network visualisation via Gephi
Development of measures of ‘influence’
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8. Hashtag use
Used tags Colour No. nodes Used tags Colour No. nodes
#MyHealthRecord only Red 993 #MyHR only Blue 107
#PCEHR only Yellow 10 #MyHealthRecord & #MyHR Purple 95
#MyHealthRecord & #PCEHR Orange 22 #MyHR & #PCEHR Green 8
All three tags Black 44 8
21. In conclusion
Most tweets used a single hashtag #MyHealthRecord
Tweet content spanned supportive to opposing
6 users influential; 3 users highly influential
Limited interaction between ‘opposing’ users
Twitter platform is under-utilised in public health
engagement about Australian national EHR
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22. Possible additional strategies
Live tweeting of evidence about MyHR at health
conferences or other events
Hashtag chats for engagement of people with diverse
(and opposing) views
Using Twitter to teach users about the system
Promote credible sources and provide (feed) correct
and current information on Personal e-Health Records
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23. Thank you for your time
The authors acknowledge funding from
the National Health and Medical Research
Council of Australia (grant number
G1083566) administered by the University
of Newcastle; in-kind support from Twitter
Australia in the form of provision of access
to the Twitter data collected; and funding
to support conference attendance from
the University of Technology Sydney.
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