Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Apr 02, 2024)
Date Submitted: Dec 12, 2022
Open Peer Review Period: Dec 8, 2022 - Feb 2, 2023
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
NOTE: This is an unreviewed Preprint
Warning: This is a unreviewed preprint (What is a preprint?). Readers are warned that the document has not been peer-reviewed by expert/patient reviewers or an academic editor, may contain misleading claims, and is likely to undergo changes before final publication, if accepted, or may have been rejected/withdrawn (a note "no longer under consideration" will appear above).
Peer review me: Readers with interest and expertise are encouraged to sign up as peer-reviewer, if the paper is within an open peer-review period (in this case, a "Peer Review Me" button to sign up as reviewer is displayed above). All preprints currently open for review are listed here. Outside of the formal open peer-review period we encourage you to tweet about the preprint.
Citation: Please cite this preprint only for review purposes or for grant applications and CVs (if you are the author).
Final version: If our system detects a final peer-reviewed "version of record" (VoR) published in any journal, a link to that VoR will appear below. Readers are then encourage to cite the VoR instead of this preprint.
Settings: If you are the author, you can login and change the preprint display settings, but the preprint URL/DOI is supposed to be stable and citable, so it should not be removed once posted.
Submit: To post your own preprint, simply submit to any JMIR journal, and choose the appropriate settings to expose your submitted version as preprint.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
A technology-enabled, public-driven, and multi-channel communication strategy during Covid19 pandemic in the Province of Trento, Italy
ABSTRACT
Background:
Considering the impact that the pandemic had on healthcare-related communication systems, patients and citizens have been exposed to a plethora of information from different sources and different levels of accuracy and reliability. Proper communication during the emergency period has represented an ethical and public health issue. The Province of Trento (PAT), the local healthcare trust (APSS), the Bruno Kessler Foundation (FBK) with the support of TrentinoSalute4.0 jointly designed and implemented a comprehensive, technology-enabled communication strategy to properly inform citizens on the status and effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, basic health measures against infections and up-to-date regulations, all within the same platform, which could be reached either from the dedicated webpage or using the TreCovid19 mobile application. In addition, information was also available on social media and official websites of the public institutions involved.
Objective:
The aim of this communication initiative was to ensure proper and ethically-sound information to the citizens of the Province of Trento, by providing a set of easy-to-use tools supported by technologies to share information and respond to citizens’ questions focusing on Covid-19 pandemic and related impact in terms of epidemiological, societal, legal aspects
Methods:
We adopted a multi-level strategy with three different – albeit harmonized – communication tools: i) dedicated mobile application designed to provide useful information and recent updates about the epidemic numbers, video tutorials delivered by the Healthcare trust and presenting tips and advice on specific safety procedures, information on the regional and national decrees and regulations linked with the Covid-19 pandemic; ii) social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn...); iii) advanced AI-based chatbot embedded in the healthcare institutions website to inform citizens and timely address their questions related to the COVID pandemic.
Results:
The coordinated work between the main stakeholders managed to release the platform TreCovid19 at the onset of the pandemic, on March 16, 2020. Content on the platform was synchronized with other institutional media that were kept up to date and used to answer citizens' main doubts and concerns about the emergency management and local and national regulations. All information provided was validated by the local healthcare and political authorities. In 2020-2022 the number of TreCovid19 app users was significantly associated with the number of positive cases, but significantly more correlated with rates of deaths and hospitalization (all P values <.001), suggesting it was mainly used during the emergency phase of the pandemic.
Conclusions:
To our knowledge, the initiative described in this paper represents the first experience in Italy of a multi-layer, public-driven strategy to ensure proper information on the status and effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. This initiative was possible thanks to the joint efforts of public health institutions in empowering healthcare staff and citizens and in developing and deploying technology-enabled services. Clinical Trial: NA
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.