STAT6001: Public Health Informatics Report - Twitter and Telemedicine

This report, prepared for a Public Health Informatics course (STAT6001), analyzes the use of Twitter as a social media tool in public health. It critiques how Twitter facilitates informed public health informatics, including its role in managing outbreaks, predicting diseases, and addresses ethical conce...Read More

Twitter Review
Social Media in health informatics
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Twitter Review
Contents
Part 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Critique on how Twitter as a social media tool, can be utilised for informed public health
informatics field...............................................................................................................................3
Twitter facilitating public health informatics..............................................................................5
Managing outbreaks.....................................................................................................................6
Disease prediction........................................................................................................................7
Ethical concerns...........................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
Part 2...............................................................................................................................................9
Introduction......................................................................................................................................9
Barriers to uptake telemedicine...................................................................................................9
ICT/Infrastructure support structures........................................................................................10
Challenges for uptake of telemedicine is Australia...................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................13
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Twitter Review
Part 1
Introduction
Twitter is an interactive social media platform built in 2006 that allows users to send 140
characters to each other. Public health researchers have begun using Twitter to conduct research
to interact with research participants and tap into data platforms. However, this growing work
has not been systematically studied. Twitter-based public health research is an area of continuous
development. Future work needs to help create standardized reporting guidelines to improve the
repeatability and comparability of Twitter research. In social media networks, Twitter provides a
unique source of big data for public health researchers due to the real-time nature of content and
the convenience of accessing and searching for publicly available information. The scope and
number of data is important every day, with more than 300 million active users sending 500
million tweets worldwide (Gualtieri, 2010). Although Twitter users do not represent the US
population, they represent a broad demographic group. In addition to its potential as a more
traditional data source, Twitter is also interactive; researchers can contribute to social networks
and use this as a recruiting tool or intervention.
Critique on how Twitter as a social media tool, can be utilised for informed
public health informatics field.
Twitter-based health research is a rapidly growing field. The number of publications per year has
roughly tripled. Twitter research has received support from various funding organizations,
including the federal government through the National Institutes of Health, the National Science
Foundation, the Food and Drug Administration, foundations and universities. The diversity and
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Twitter Review
breadth of funding opportunities demonstrate the value and broad interest of Twitter-based health
research.
Three public health-related Twitter accounts @Healthypolicies is a health policy and a blog
dedicated to advancing policies that protect and expand vital resources for health.
@RuralMental_Hth is yearly conference dedicated for mental health as well as for mental
health facilities, practices, and workers in most rural and remote areas of Australia. At the Rural
and Remote Mental Health Symposium 2019 Australia, listen to the insights of experts working
to improve mental health services in rural and remote areas, and learn what you can do to
provide and advocate equal mental health services for all Australians (Hall, Nam, Thornton,
DeAngelus & Dasey, 2015). Australians living and working in rural and remote areas can only
receive mental health services in one-fifth of the urban area. This inequality poses a serious risk
to a large number of Australians, leading to increased suffering for those seeking help, support
and treatment of mental health problems. Connect with professionals to promote services and
support mental health in rural and remote areas, from leading keynote speakers and industry
workers to governments, academics, researchers and personal service providers.
@TheMarmotReview: The Institute for Health Equity is committed to reducing health-related
inequities by simply addressing the social determinants of health. After focusing on all three
public health-related Twitter accounts, I learned five weeks of knowledge from these feeds.
Twitter is becoming a popular way to build communities that can provide public health
professionals with microblogging capabilities that can reach people with special health problems
and help them suffer from disease burdens at peak times. Since the full text of the tweet is
available and the individual tweets can be tracked over time, multiple symptoms can be tracked
as well as other information about how the individual is not related to the disease. In addition to
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Twitter Review
using this information to detect and track disease, these same Twitter networks can also be the
goal of public health officials with more specific information, risk warnings, and other
interventions to manage health risks more effectively. Tweets occur shortly after symptoms
appear, suggesting that tweets provide early information on most diseases that start with certain
symptoms and slowly increase in severity. Time and space tracking via Twitter can be used to
track infectious diseases and manage health risks. The ability to extract information about
disease severity and longitudinal disease pathways from tweets helps to better understand the
burden of disease and may also help to further strengthen early detection of disease outbreaks.
Twitter data can be used as a source of feedback for feedback on the efficacy and side effects of
specific drugs and other interventions in controlling disease risk (Hart, Stetten, Islam & Pizarro,
2017).
Twitter facilitating public health informatics
Recently, Weibo has become a famous addition to the possibilities of Soialmedia available to the
Internet users. Twitter® is a popular Weibo service that limits online diary to 140 or fewer text
characters. Although Twitter is ubiquitous online, research into this form of the communication
as a method of communicating as well as sharing personal health experiences moreover
information is limited. A recent example of Twitter® for health promotion was highlighted in the
recent report on health-related policies @Healthypolicies. During the health-related disaster,
@TheMarmotReview, as a means of communication, equally updates the public distribution of
government health-related services for everyone so that there is no inequality in health services.
Similarly, @ RuralMental_Hth was used to stimulate fundraising and medical services in rural
areas affected by natural disasters or political turmoil. During the 2009 Haiti earthquake, some
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entities used Twitter® as a communication tool to help raise funds and raise awareness of
disaster relief efforts (Mowery, Smith, Cheney, Bryan & Conway, 2016).
Researchers assessing doctors using Twitter® for the professional practices found that the
clinicians efficiently share medical information with public; however there is an online
discussion of ethical violations and unprofessional content in the Twitter® community. People
who manage type 1 diabetes experience health information is published more frequently than
clinical information participants within the network, reporting daily life events, sensible
guidelines (for example checking blood glucose), and maintaining physical activity issues
(Okugami, 2014).
Managing outbreaks
In 2011, earthquakes and tsunami in Japan's historical crisis resulted in the destruction of the
northern part of the country. With seriousness of life, all the buildings of the area were
destroyed: buildings were crushed and the phone was destroyed. However, this mobile phone is
still available, and doctors can decide to use Twitter to tell patients about the long-term care they
receive. A report from Keio University School of Medicine in Tokyo for Lancet Yuichi Tamura
and Keiichi Fukuda wrote: "We can tell patients about the pharmacy on Twitter." The "tweets"
are now through the patient's body, most people can join their healthier care (Okugami, 2014).
Today, Twitter's success has risen, with more than 500 million dollars and more than half of its
daily use. It's not just Twitter. The use of the latest news quadrupled in five years ago: Facebook
has more than 800 million users' supplies, and WordPress is one of the most popular blogging
platforms with over 15 million blogs. Using physicians to communicate with patients using the
newspapers has created a variety of health problems, especially for diagnostic purposes.
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Twitter Review
However, the ability of using this information is not the start of the process. Scientist researchers
and researchers have worked closely with the computer to improve the health care system using
the open source data.
Disease prediction
Twitter's real-time capabilities, such as GPS positioning and tracking, and easy analysis of tweets
that transmit information only within 140 characters, is an easy way to develop simple language
processing methods and machine learning techniques to make better use of the data obtained. .
Compared to other media that used to use Twitter as a means of disseminating information, the
platform was used together with other social media tools such as Facebook to determine social
status, detect outbreaks and emergencies, predict disease, monitor disease, public lifestyles and
habits, and determine psychology. Health issues and focuses on geographic locations that require
more attention from public health professionals and workers (Hart, Stetten, Islam & Pizarro,
2017).
Ethical concerns
Increase in publication as well as microblogging platforms in last five years, combined with the
expansion of "large data" processing and utilization of technology, provides critical public
services the use of content developed. However, it is also unwanted by the creation of a moral
responsibility to control this new information. One big issue is privacy, which means that all
tweets on the platform are public, which means that without the knowledge and consent of them,
the personal details of Twitter users are not considered leaked. These ethical issues create a huge
gap between traditional research methods compared to research conducted through Twitter data.
Given the popularity of anonymity on social media, one cannot assess whether these tweets come
from individuals or robots, so not the authenticity of each tweet can be relied upon. Furthermore,
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as mentioned above, research using Twitter data has problems in informed public consent; users
do not know that their tweets and personal information are being used for informatics (Gualtieri,
2010).
Conclusion
Twitter is the most valuable resource for the health researchers interested in the capturing real-
time data on health topics or researching recruitment or interventions using interactive platforms.
Twitter-based health research is an evolving field, with more and more publications per year and
more funding agencies. The review defines a new taxonomy that describes the use of the Twitter
in six categories of health research. Many of the data features that can be extracted from a user's
Twitter profiles, especially demographics, are highlighted in literature and can provide new
opportunities to identify users who analyze the data in these studies. Use of Twitter and policies
for future work must develop standardized guidelines for health researchers for reporting who
address privacy and ethical issues in social media research.
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Twitter Review
Part 2
Introduction
Telemedicine is the process by which patients and doctors communicate with each other. With
the help of this process, patients sit at home to consult their doctor. This process is
revolutionizing the healthcare industry. In the report, the report is based on telemedicine and its
implications. The report also discusses the barriers to taking health insurance. In addition, the
report discusses strategies to help address telemedicine barriers. Telemedicine refers to the
distribution of health care services through technical tools, electronic information and
telecommunications. It will allow clinicians to contact patients located away from clinics or
medical institutions. However, clinicians will be able to provide patients with medical advice,
advice and medications, and even seek follow-up (LeRouge, & Garfield, 2013). However, this
approach is different compared to physical settings and therefore present challenges to the
implementation and use of services. However, the technology will help spread awareness,
provide access to health care services in rural areas, provide reminders to patients, and store their
data in the system for future use, ensuring that people are satisfied with these services.
Barriers to uptake telemedicine
Telemedicine is the process by which patients and doctors communicate with each other. With
the help of this process, patients sit at home to consult their doctor. This process is
revolutionizing the healthcare industry. The reports in the report are based on telemedicine and
its impact. The report also discusses the barriers to purchasing health insurance. In addition, the
report discusses strategies to help address telemedicine barriers. In addition, funding is another
obstacle to telemedicine. For equipment that medical institutions can communicate with patients,
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Twitter Review
a lot of money is needed. In addition, due to funding issues, most health care organizations fail to
adopt telemedicine processes within their organizations. In addition, another barrier is the
infrastructure. In order to adopt telemedicine processes, organizations need to adopt the right
infrastructure through which doctors can properly communicate with patients. As a result, most
health insurance organizations in Australia have failed to provide effective services to patients
due to the lack of necessary infrastructure (Wade, Soar, & Gray, 2014). In addition, the lack of
equipment skills is one of the most important obstacles to telemedicine, as WHO doctors do not
have the skills to operate telemedicine properly and the organization fails to provide effective
services to parents. Healthcare organizations and physicians need to use the right technology to
help the organization communicate properly with patients (Khosravi, & Fayaz-Bakhsh, 2012).
ICT/Infrastructure support structures
Information technology has brought about a revolution within WHO, as it helps medical research
in patient care and medical education. With the help of ICT, healthcare organizations can
produce mobile healthcare, telemedicine applications, computing frameworks, telemedicine and
Internet-based telemedicine. It has recently been discovered that WHO uses technical equipment
to provide high quality services. It seems to be health care. In addition, better Internet access
helps healthcare organizations to communicate appropriately with patients. Due to the
unreasonable ICT infrastructure in the country, many people in Australia do not have access to
appropriate telemedicine. Most importantly, people living in rural areas receive 0.24% of
telemedicine facilities. In addition, telemedicine is still in its infancy. Doctors are not good at the
technology. Telemedicine has no infrastructure. Therefore, medical institutions need to adopt
infrastructure that can enhance telemedicine services. The organization also needs to provide
training to doctors to use the equipment they need to provide services. The Australian
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Twitter Review
government needs to improve the ICT infrastructure in rural areas. Better Internet access in rural
areas helps patients communicate with medical institutions. The Australian government needs to
provide effective services in rural Australia, and patients in rural areas can comfortably
communicate with patients and get better services.
Challenges for uptake of telemedicine is Australia
The ICT infrastructure in Australia is in a mild environment. In addition, with the help of ICT,
most industries are innovating new products and services. In addition, ICTs play a huge role in
innovative services. In addition, it is helpful to provide effective services to customers. In
Australia, ICT has played a huge role in improving telemedicine services. ICT helps WHO to
provide effective services to patients.
ICT helps WHO to innovate software through which WHO provides efficient and effective
services for patents. For example, the new software helps the healthcare department
communicate with their patients and provides prescriptions to patients who can get information
by placing their home. In one study, most health organizations improved their facilities and
telemedicine with the help of ICT. In addition, ICT has helped Medicare to improve its services.
For example, organizations can develop new devices through which medical institutions can
provide quality services to patients at a reasonable price, as technical equipment helps reduce
service rates (Brooks, Turvey, & Augusterfer, 2013).
Conclusion
The report is based on telemedicine and its importance. To understand the importance of
telemedicine and its barriers, the report considers the telemedicine process in Australia and the
obstacles facing the Australian government and healthcare organizations. In addition, the report
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discusses different aspects that help improve telemedicine operations. In addition, better
telemedicine process recommendations have been proposed. After completing this report, it can
be concluded that telehealth is in the initial stages of Australia if health care organizations follow
better strategies to help WHO run telemedicine.
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References
Brooks, E., Turvey, C., & Augusterfer, E. (2013). Provider Barriers to Telemental Health:
Obstacles Overcome, Obstacles Remaining. Telemedicine And E-Health, 19(6), 433-437.
doi: 10.1089/tmj.2013.0068
Gualtieri, L. (2010). From Twitter to Megaphones: Seven Lessons Learned about Public Health
Crisis Communication. Online Journal Of Public Health Informatics, 2(3). doi:
10.5210/ojphi.v2i3.3179
Hall, L., Nam, K., Thornton, J., DeAngelus, M., & Dasey, T. (2015). User-Customizable Health
Pattern Detector Framework: Twitter Analysis Example. Online Journal Of Public
Health Informatics, 7(1). doi: 10.5210/ojphi.v7i1.5798
Hart, M., Stetten, N., Islam, S., & Pizarro, K. (2017). Twitter and Public Health (Part 1): How
Individual Public Health Professionals Use Twitter for Professional Development. JMIR
Public Health And Surveillance, 3(3), e60. doi: 10.2196/publichealth.6795
Jang-Jaccard, J., Nepal, S., Alem, L., & Li, J. (2014). Barriers for Delivering Telehealth in Rural
Australia: A Review Based on Australian Trials and Studies. Telemedicine And E-Health,
20(5), 496-504. doi: 10.1089/tmj.2013.0189
Khosravi, B., & Fayaz-Bakhsh, A. (2012). Regarding: “Barriers to Telemedicine: Survey of
Current Users in Acute Care Units”. Telemedicine And E-Health, 18(9), 718-719. doi:
10.1089/tmj.2012.0050
LeRouge, C., & Garfield, M. (2013). Crossing the Telemedicine Chasm: Have the U.S. Barriers
to Widespread Adoption of Telemedicine Been Significantly Reduced?. International
Journal Of Environmental Research And Public Health, 10(12), 6472-6484. doi:
10.3390/ijerph10126472
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Mowery, D., Smith, H., Cheney, T., Bryan, C., & Conway, M. (2016). Identifying Depression-
Related Tweets from Twitter for Public Health Monitoring. Online Journal Of Public
Health Informatics, 8(1). doi: 10.5210/ojphi.v8i1.6561
Okugami, C. (2014). Twitter Data Offers Opportunities for Public Health Professionals. Journal
Of Health & Medical Informatics, 05(04). doi: 10.4172/2157-7420.1000e123
Wade, V., Soar, J., & Gray, L. (2014). Uptake of telehealth services funded by Medicare in
Australia. Australian Health Review, 38(5), 528. doi: 10.1071/ah14090
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