Blog – connecting the dots in healthcare social media

Hashtags to Access Health Information

Update: The research has now been published in JAMA Oncology Katz MS, Utengen A, Anderson PF, et al. Disease-Specific Hashtags for Online Communication About Cancer Care. JAMA Oncol. Published online … Continued

Measuring the Impact of Live-Tweeting a Chronic Disease

Last year I conducted an advocacy effort within the diabetes community live-tweeting a day of diabetes thoughts and actions. I chronicled the results of that effort here on Symplur. Efforts … Continued

Promoting Data Literacy Skills Among Students and Scholars in the Health Sciences

In collaboration with the innovative healthcare social media analytics company Symplur, the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI) has launched a new workshop series to help students … Continued

The Intersection of Cancer Research and Twitter: a Groundbreaking Opportunity

At the National Cancer Institute (NCI), we see first hand every day how people in the cancer community have relied upon social media to gather and share information—as well as … Continued

Applying the Power of Twitter to Medical Journal Clubs

“At some point we must go beyond the introduction and into application [of social media].” — Dr. Bryan Vartabedian, 33charts.com Recently, a number of specialties have started forming journal clubs on Twitter, and … Continued

An Interview with #hcsm Creator and Moderator, Dana Lewis

After researching the data for last month’s blog post about the influence and impact of #hcsm on the broader healthcare social media landscape, it only seemed fair to share my … Continued

An Investigation into the Influence and Impact of #hcsm

Over the last few years I’ve had the privilege of meeting a number of patient community organizers, managers, and innovators and despite the varied backgrounds, purposes, and methods used to … Continued

Stanford Medicine X and Symplur announce social media analytics research challenge

Stanford Medicine X and Symplur are pleased to announce a joint initiative designed to spark scholarly research activity in healthcare social media. The Stanford Medicine X | Symplur Signals Research … Continued

Did #MeaslesTruth Create a New Form of Twitter Communication?

A new form of social media was created last week – a 10 minute “TwitterStorm” broke out over the topic of childhood immunizations one month after the Disneyland exposure and … Continued

Patient inclusiveness now also at the White House – #PrecisionMedicine

Last Friday we received a hashtag submission from @NIH for #PrecisionMedicine and about 30 minutes later the tweet activity just exploded. We realized we had to take a closer look … Continued

Looking Forward to Looking Back – How Do Patient Communities Approach New Year’s Goals?

The coming of a new year is an opportunity to set new goals, make new year’s resolutions, and approach new tasks with vigor and enthusiasm. I know for some, it … Continued

The Oncology Tag Ontology: Professional–Centered Collaboration and Networking

Just a little bit over a year ago, Symplur shared the Cancer Tag Ontology (CTO), a set of disease-specific hashtags to help connect people interested in specific types of cancer. … Continued

A Closer Look: Did #wddchat14 Feature the Whole World?

Our friends at the Diabetes Community Advocacy Foundation, moderators of the #dsma Twitter chat, hosted a 24-hour conversation on World Diabetes Day, featuring the hashtag #wddchat14. The objective of this … Continued

SC CTSI Teams Up with Symplur to Introduce Researchers to the Power of Social Media Data

Hundreds of millions of people discuss their medical conditions on social media platforms every day, often forming connections for information and support. These conversations can be vital to investigators, as … Continued

CDC, Ebola & Tweet Chats: was this venue a success?

In our previous post we discussed how Ebola had been emerging as a topic of discussion on social media, and how the conversation was actually dwindling as the number of … Continued

Can the World’s Most Powerful Technology Drive Connections and Innovation in Health?

It’s time for a pop quiz. What’s the world’s most powerful technology: a) mobile, b) nuclear reactors, c) the Internet, or d) Big Data? Did you pick c? I hope … Continued

Social Conversations from Doctors 2.0 & You in Paris

One of the joys of having large data sets about the past is the opportunity to learn from observing patterns. And from observing patterns you may be able to give … Continued

The Impact of European Healthcare Conferences

2013 was a remarkable year for healthcare conferences. We like to call 2013 the year healthcare conferences became social. More than 1,080 healthcare conferences were registered and tracked with us … Continued

What Happens After a Healthcare Conference?

What happens when a healthcare conference is over? Not all healthcare conferences are created equal. Some conferences leave a lasting impact with stories that will stay with you as a … Continued

Hashtags in Cancer Care: Embedding Meaning in Digital Health

Many of my patients have no interest in going online, because they can’t trust the cancer information they find through Google, or learn where to find it. What if a … Continued

The True Audience of Healthcare Conferences – It’s not what you think

If you’ve been to a healthcare conference lately, you probably had a moment where you sat down in the main stage room and looked around in order to size up … Continued

Graphing Mayo Clinic’s Transform Symposium

Mayo Clinic’s Transform Symposium (#TXFM) had another successful year. There were several ways one could be part of last week’s event: by physically attending, following the free live stream, or … Continued

Analyzing Twitter Conversations from Healthcare Conferences

So far this year, over 400 healthcare conferences have registered their hashtag with Symplur. It’s an amazing number! We’ve commented on the growth of Twitter use in healthcare conferences in … Continued

#RareDisease … Searching for Rare Disease Support on the Social Web

When it comes to The Healthcare Hashtag Project, one of the most rewarding things for us at Symplur is to see people use and share the tools and information that … Continued