Clin Res Cardiol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00392-023-02180-w
Social media diffusion of a novel digital health approach: A social network analysis of the #TeleCheckAF project
K. Betz1, J. J. van Haren2, M. Gawalko1, A.N.L. Hermans1, R. M. Van der Velden1, N. A. Pluymaekers1, J. Hendriks3, M. Manninger-Wünscher4, J. Lemmink2, D. Linz5
1CARIM - School for Cardiovascular Sciences, Maastricht UMC+Heart+Vascular Center, Maastricht, NL; 2School of Business and Economics, Maastricht University, LM Maastricht, NL; 3Centre for Heart Rhythm Disorders, University of Adelaide and Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide, AU; 4Klinische Abteilung für Kardiologie, LKH-Univ. Klinikum Graz - Universitätsklinik für Innere Medizin, Graz, AT; 5Department of Cardiology, Maastricht UMC+Heart+Vascular Center, Maastricht, NL;

Background: TeleCheck-AF is a novel remote on-demand mobile health (mHealth) infrastructure which consists of a structured teleconsultation (“Tele”) preceded by an app-based on-demand heart rate and rhythm monitoring infrastructure (“Check”) and the consecutive integration of the app-derived findings in a comprehensive AF management (“AF”). During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media (SoMe) communication on Twitter contributed to the rapid dissemination and implementation of this health care innovation into 41 European hospitals by using the hashtag #TeleCheckAF.

Aim: To (1) analyze the SoMe Twitter network behind #TeleCheckAF, (2) describe the communities, behavioral groups within the network and (3) to determine the opinion leaders and influencers.

Methods: Publicly available data on actors and interactions within the #TeleCheckAF SoMe network was collected by web-scraping from the platform Twitter. This included all public tweets that have used the hashtag #TeleCheckAF including their meta-data, the tweets within their comment sections, as well as their retweets and quotes.  Based on this data a node list (Twitter accounts) and an edge list (ties between accounts) was created. Based on this, a social network was created by using tools based on social network analysis and qualitative data analysis was performed. 

Results: The network consisted of 413 086 nodes and 636 502 edges and represents the maximum potential reach of the #TeleCheckAF tweets. A total of 287 actors within the SoMe Twitter network behind #TeleCheckAF, who were directly involved with Telecheck-AF either as diffusers of information, adopters or communicative adopters were further analyzed. Peaks in Twitter activity could be temporally related to large international virtual conferences, where results on TeleCheck-AF were presented (Fig.1). Two official European Society of Cardiology (ESC) Twitter handles (@escardio and @ESC_Journals) and two Twitter handles of ESC SoMe supervisors and ESC Journal SoMe editors were among the group of key opinion leaders reflecting the effect of the ESC SoMe promotion strategy. In total, 22 different communities and 20 opinion leaders were identified. Overall, not only professionals directly involved in the TeleCheck-AF project, but also different other stakeholders such as allied health professionals and health technology companies were represented within the network.

Conclusion: The SoMe Twitter network behind #TeleCheckAF shows a wide diffusion involving a broad spectrum of healthcare professionals and was accelerated by the official ESC Twitter handles. Social network analysis creates a helpful insight into the mechanisms behind innovation diffusion within social media. Future research on the quantitative impact of a SoMe based research dissemination strategy is needed to confirm these findings. 


Fig. 1 Cumulative tweet frequency of #TeleCheckAF and related tweets.

Congresses were added only when TeleCheck-AF was part of a congress session/presentation.

 
https://dgk.org/kongress_programme/jt2023/aP2117.html