Use of social media to facilitate dissemination of medical knowledge
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A presentation on the use social media done for the Asia Pacific Medical Education Conference. I was placed as a finalist for best oration.
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Use of social media to facilitate dissemination of medical knowledge
- 1. Use of social media to facilitate dissemination of medical knowledge A tool for Continuous Medical Education in the Future Pandula Siribaddana and Rikaz Sheriff Postgraduate Institute of Medicine University of Colombo
- 2. Presentation outline • What is ‘social media’ (SM)? • Internet based CME Vs Traditional CME • What social media offers in relation to disseminating medical knowledge? • The theoretical foundation for the role played by SM in CME – The virtual communities of practice. • A working example of using SM for disseminating medical knowledge • Important elements needing to address when incorporating SM into CME – Authenticity and motivation
- 3. What is ‘social media’ (SM)?
- 4. ‘Social media’ is NOT just a ‘media’ “It is the use of web and mobile based technologies to interact with others in a designated network.”
- 5. Internet based CME Vs Traditional CME
- 6. ‘Internet based CME’ is AS EFFECTIVE AS ‘traditional CME’! • But, when the internet based activity is, – Appropriately designed – Evidence based – Have scheduled delivery – Facilitated online discussions – Overcomes the barrier of IT competency among its learners – And overcomes the barrier of technology involved.
- 7. What social media offers in relation to disseminating medical knowledge?
- 8. Social media allows Grouping, Knowledge Dissemination, Interaction And Disbanding • Grouping based on common interests • Virtual grouping may or may not supplement existing ‘communities of practice’ (CoP). • Knowledge dissemination may extent beyond the usual boundaries. • Interaction is the most powerful factor and will be innovative with every passing minute. • Disbanding is possible and is comparable to real world CoP.
- 9. The theoretical foundation for the role played by SM in CME The virtual communities of practice.
- 10. Social media can facilitate ‘Virtual Communities Of Practice’ • Virtual CoPs exclusively interact through technology • Presents its users with a different environment, challenges and opportunities • Main focus in vCoPs would be its ‘interactivity’ • Micro-blogging (ex. Twitter) is one such social media being looked at to create vCoPs.
- 11. A working example of using SM for disseminating medical knowledge
- 12. A working example of using SM to deliver CME • Almost 200 medically related articles were used • Stored in a article directory • Twitter used as the micro-blogging site • The twitter username implied to its followers the activities pertaining to the account • Used the keywords, health, medicine, medical education and doctor to find potential followers. • 177 followers gained after making 250 requests within 1 week. • Twitter automation was used to gain regular postings.
- 13. A working example of using SM to deliver CME…cont • Sample micro-blog:
- 14. A working example of using SM to deliver CME…cont • Number of followers increased by 114% to 380 followers within the study period • Individual followers - 20% • Health and Education related industries – 80% • 40 messages posted by the followers (excluding the welcome messages) • 50% of the messages related to queries or referrals to related articles • Others were advertisements • 25 re-tweets per day……..could have enlarged the audience by several folds.
- 15. A working example of using SM to deliver CME…cont • Side effects
- 16. Important elements needing to address when incorporating SM into CME – Authenticity and motivation
- 17. Authenticity (content, participants, interaction, support) = ‘good’ eCME • Content should be relevant to the ‘community’, credible and accurate. • Followers should be legitimate and should not have ‘hidden agendas’ • Maintain room for interaction • Support towards the ‘community’ engaged in e- CME though micro-blogging.
- 18. ‘Motivation’: the common enemy of any CME programme • More re-tweets and comments during the initial few days. • Interactions lessened as the study progressed • Need novel methods of maintaining motivation to participate and learn suited to the ‘web’
- 19. References Rita W, Suzanne AB, Andrew B (2005), elearning: A Review of Internet-Based Continuing Medical Education, The journal of continuing education in health professionals, vol 24, pp 20-23. Michael F et al (2005) Comparison of the Instructional Efficacy of Internet-Based CME With Live Interactive CME Workshops: A Randomized Controlled Trial, JAMA, 294(9):1043-1051 . Vernon R C, Lisa J F, Fran K (2010) A comparative evaluation of the effect of internet-based CME delivery format on satisfaction, knowledge and confidence, BMC Medical Education, 10:10. Harden R, (2005) A new vision for distance learning and continuing medical education, Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions, Volume 25, Issue 1, pages 43–51. Line D, Anne B, Réal J (2006) Towards a Typology of Virtual Communities of Practice, Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management, 1.
- 20. @APMEC - #Thank you
Editor's Notes
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- Among the many definitions that exist, social media could be described as ‘media that allows its users or the participants the ability to interact, publish and build links with other facilities or the sites available in the internet’. Considering the availability of such tools even within mobile platforms, and the ability it gives to its users for interaction, these tools can also be described as ‘networking tools’ among a set of users. Accordingly, these sites are also known as ‘social network sites’ and as you all know, some of its popular members are the facebook, twitter and myspace. When considering the facts such as, 2/3 of the global internet population is estimated as visiting social networking sites, that visiting social networking sites is the 4th most popular internet activity, social media has allowed its users to become their own publishers and editors, and because the use of social media contributes to almost 10% of the total internet time; understanding its potential when it comes to continuous medical education seems to be timely. It is with this intension, that we have embarked on doing this study using the popular social networking site, twitter where more than 3,000,000 tweets or micro blogs take place each day. <number>
- According to literature, the “internet-based CME programmes are just as effective in imparting knowledge as traditional formats of CME.” Some even hints that it could be superior to that of the existing traditional CME activities specially when the interactivity within the world wide web, particularly through social media, gradually increases the potential of the internet based CME programmes. However, unless such internet based CME programmes are designed appropriately with the aim of building an interactive learning community, make use of evidence based approaches and learning methodologies, exert power over its learners through scheduling and facilitation, overcomes the barriers posed by the IT knowledge of the intended learners and the technologies available for them to access the CME programmes; it may not be able to achieve the equal status or superiority against the traditional CME activities. At the same time, the ability of e-CME to provide ‘just-for-you’ and ‘just-in-time’ learning to the medical professionals could also change the paradigm of future CME as more and more CME activities look to convert medical education into a globalized affair with multi-professional involvement. <number>
- When looking at the available social media, it is evident that they allow its participants or the members to group based on their interests, personal relationships, work related commonalities as well as for many different reasons. In most of these groupings, one thing standing out is the presence of a ‘common interest’ which can be compared to that which is existing in a ‘community of practice’. However, this grouping does not take place in reality but in virtue within the cyberspace either separate or as supplementing the ‘real’ community of practice for which the person is belonging to. At the same time, the many different tools available as social media allows the individuals to exchange knowledge and experiences in an unrestricted manner which may extend beyond the professional boundaries as well as the boundaries formed by formal communities of practice. In summary, the social media today can accommodate text, images, video as well as audio and present them in a manner where users can be louvered into interacting based on what they see. The interaction taking place in the context of social media could be considered as the most powerful factor governing its effectiveness as a learning tool and discussion forums, chat rooms, interactive quizzes, simulations as well as tools for sharing enhances the effectiveness of such interactions with each and every passing minute. Finally, disbanding a group of individuals gathered through common interest can also take place when it comes to networking through social media and this is another characteristic which needs to be taken into account when we compare the formation of communities through internet and the formation of communities of practice in the real world. <number>
- The term virtual community of practice differ from a traditional COP in that, the interaction between the members of the community make use of technology to a greater extent than the traditional COP. In fact, these vCOPs are formed exclusively through the use of technology and therefore will present its members with a totally different environment, challenges and opportunities than the traditional COPs that they have been engaged in. As it is the interaction which enables communities to form, function and disband, the role played by social media should be highlighted. From its early days, social media has allowed virtual communities to thrive using a set of attractive and innovative tools. Among them, micro-blogging sites such as ‘twitter’ is being seen as something worth exploring due to its potential as a social media which can deliver short and informative content to a designated audience through almost all ‘smart’ devices available at present. It is this social media tool, that was used for this study and the process and the outcome of this intervention is expected to pave way towards a debate as to how, when and where to use such social media giants in the process of continuous medical education. <number>
- In order to study the dynamics of using micro-blogging sites for the dissemination of medical knowledge, we made use of multiple medically related articles and stored them in a article directory in the web. (the copyrights for these articles were obtained for dissemination purposes). Twitter was chosen as the micro-blogging site for this study and a twitter account was set-up using a name which relates to the activities it is expected to carry out. The name points towards medicine and enables another twitter member to search its profile using the key words such as medicine, health and CME. In order to maintain regular postings in the twitter, an automated technique for micro-blogging was used through a web site and it enabled the researcher to regularly post ‘tweets’ throughout the study period without a disruption. In order to gain followers for the CME, the study made use of keywords such as health, medicine, medical education, and doctor. Upon requests, the twitter account gained 177 followers at the beginning of the study out of 250 requests and the study was carried out for a complete week. The total number of micro-blogs made per day was around 100 and all these blogs referred to a separate article hosted in the article directory. As a single tweet only allows 140 characters to be added, the link was shortened using a ‘URL shortner’ in order to allow a description to be added to the ‘tweet’. The description conveyed the topic of the article as well as some important keywords within the same article. The same article was repeated on every third day during the study period. <number>
- The total number of micro-blogs made per day was around 100 and all these blogs referred to a separate article hosted in the article directory. As a single tweet only allows 140 characters to be added, the link was shortened using a ‘URL shortner’ in order to allow a description to be added to the ‘tweet’. The description conveyed the topic of the article as well as some important keywords within the same article. The same article was repeated on every third day during the study period. <number>
- There were 177 followers in the social media account at the beginning of the study and it increased to 380 followers at the end of 1 week. Among them, 20% were individual followers while 80% were considered to be from health and education related industries. There were 100 tweets related to health related articles tweeted each day at regular intervals and the same tweets were repeated after every 3rd day. There were 40 messages posted by all the followers and among them, 20 were related to queries regarding the information or referrals for similar articles. Others were considered to be advertisements. Within the 1 week, the study observed additional 25 re-tweets per day which may have increased the reach of these articles beyond 380 followers. <number>
- During the study period, some un-intended events took place and these were mainly related to the responses gained by some of the tweets. Thus, it indicated the potential that it has (the micro-blogging) in order to evoke response and interaction between those who follow each other even in the absence of organized network of members as in the case of twitter followers. <number>
- During the study, it was observed that, some micro-blogs gained more re-tweets while some did not gain any. Thus, it has to be postulated that, for the particular list of followers of this twitter account, the interest were focused on some areas of medicine than the others. Therefore, aiming the content to suite the followers should be one aspect of making ‘good’ e-CME. At the same time, having authentic followers should also enhance an activity of e-CME as micro-blogging and other social media is being heavily abused by marketers and other interested parties to gain financial benefits than disseminate knowledge as was expected through this e-CME activity. As it is rather easy for any twitter member or any other social media site member to gain followers through various means, it is vital that the followers are authentic and does not have hidden motives when it comes to interacting with the other members. The virtual community which is formed therefore needs a clear mechanism for vetting authentic members. Unless there is room for interaction, it is not possible for e-CME activities to be conducted through virtual communities of practice or virtual communities of learners. Micro-blogging does allow its members to interact through messaging, re-tweeting…etc which caters to this need to a certain extent. Lastly, the support given in terms of member training to maintain better interaction, keeping the blogs clean and focused as well as preventing technological mishaps should also contribute towards a ‘good’ e-CME. <number>
- As with many other continuous medical education programmes, maintaining motivation is of paramount importance especially in the context of e-CME where face to face interactions are almost non-existing. It was apparent from the study, that, the number of re-tweets and comments were more in the initial few days than the latter days of the study. It is based on this observation that one needs to maintain motivation of the participants of a e-CME activity through novel ways suited to the web based mode. <number>