Twitter Review as a Tool in Public Health Informatics

Twitter review as a tool in public health informatics
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Introduction
Public healthcare delivery and sensitization have been changing over time due to the
influx of social media platforms. One of the most used social media platforms in the healthcare
industry is twitter. It offers a variety of activities such as direct communication between
individuals and a group chats (Yepes, MacKinlay & Han, 2015). In this regard, twitters would be
used as a tool to discuss a variety of healthcare issues and their appropriate solutions. The
discussion is based on three healthcare twitter accounts conversations on different subjects but
all related to public health. The three twitter accounts which form bases of the debate are;
@HealthyPolicies, @TheMarmotReview, and @ehealthpaho. The analysis of these twitter
account and its content would be based on discussion within the last five weeks. These online
forums would be used to analyze the topics of interest in the public on healthcare.
The content of the twitter accounts
The overview of the three accounts seems to have different subjects within the last five
weeks but all the three accounts discussions are based on the quality of healthcare. First,
@ehealthpaho opens up the discussion with benefits associated with telemedicine. It is observed
that telemedicine is being advocated to be a game changer in healthcare delivery (Nambisan,
Luo, Kapoor, Patrick & Cisler, 2015). One of the forum member praises introduction and use of
telemedicine because it offers “excellent clinical outcomes, increase in patient satisfaction,
improved reliability, reduced service waiting time and cost saving”. It has been also noted that
the general public recognizes telemedicine can be used to improve service delivery in the
healthcare industry. The next discussion was based on prostate cancer, though this did not seem
to attract so much attention from members. From the discussion, prostate cancer has been linked
to a higher number of deaths among men. To reduce deaths related to prostate cancer, web-based

decision making has been advocated because it is more convenient, readily available and offers
privacy (Gomes & Coustasse, 2015). The final discussion adopted from @ehealthpaho is an eye-
opener in mental health-related diseases and HIV/AIDS. The focus was based on the awareness
and management of patients suffering from mental illness. Developing countries from sub-
Saharan Africa such as Zimbabwe, Malawi among other African countries are on the center of
discussion. Due to lack of awareness in low-income countries, diseases outbreak takes months
before they are noticed.
The next analysis is on @HealthyPolicies which aims at advancing and creating
awareness on policies that increase access to healthcare resources. These policies range from
USA president trump's policies on universal healthcare policies to climate change policies which
have advanced effects on healthcare delivery (Paul et al., 2016). The @HealthyPolicies forum
highlights different political aspects and their perception of rules regarding healthcare services.
The discussion seems to agree that climate change remains a great threat to the healthcare sector,
but no substantial measures have been adopted by the international community. At some point,
the discussion centers on the European Union (EU) and the United States of America (USA) on
healthcare policies. Brexit seems to be a significant issue with some quarters of the forum
arguing it's a lousy deal for United Kingdom (UK) welfare. Finally, the forum discusses the
welfare and policies that should be put in place to govern employees. It highlights benefits and
issues that workers face due to lack of good relationship policies to protect employees’ health.
Similarly, @TheMarmotReview objective is to reduce the existence of health inequalities
by working on social determinants of health. The discussion starts by exploring widening
healthcare inequalities in England and possible measures which can be adopted. Members are
concerned with the latest statistics that 22% of the UK population are in poverty which raises