Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Jan 8, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: Jan 11, 2019 - Mar 8, 2019
Date Accepted: Jun 29, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
The Impact of Institutional Social Media Involvement in Gastroenterology Divisional Ranking
ABSTRACT
Background:
Patients often look to social media as an important tool to gather information about institutions and professionals. Since 1990, U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) has published annual rankings of hospitals and subspecialty divisions. It remains unknown if social media presence is associated with USNWR Gastroenterology and G.I. Surgery divisional rankings or how changes in online presence over time affects division ranking.
Objective:
To determine if social media presence is associated with USNWR Gastroenterology and G.I. Surgery divisional rankings and ascertain how changes in online presence over time affects division ranking
Methods:
Social media presence among the top 30 institutions listed in the 2014 USNWR Gastroenterology and G.I. Surgery divisional rankings were assessed using Pearson’s correlation coefficients and multivariate analysis controlling for co-variates. Linear and logistic regression using data from 2014 and 2016 USNWR rankings were used to assess the association between institutional ranking or reputation score with change in number of followers over time. Sensitivity analysis was performed by assessing the area under the ROC curve (AUC) to determine the follower threshold associated with improved/maintained ranking by dichotomizing change in followers at values between 7000 and 12000.
Results:
Twitter follower count was an independent predictor of divisional ranking and reputation score in 2014 (β=0.00004, p<0.0001 and β=-0.00002, p=0.03 respectively). Academic affiliation also independently predicted USNWR division ranking and reputation score. Between 2014 and 2016, Twitter followers remained significantly associated with improved/maintained rankings (OR 14.63, p=0.044). On sensitivity analysis, an increase in Twitter follower by 8000 significantly predicted improved/maintained ranking compared to other cutoffs.
Conclusions:
Institutional social media presence is independently associated with USNWR divisional ranking and reputation score. Improvement in social media following was also independently associated with improved/maintained divisional ranking and reputation score with a threshold of 8000 additional followers as the best predictor of improved/stable ranking.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
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.