A comparison of health communication effectiveness and the improvement of management strategies: taking two Chinese traditional medicine hospitals\u2019 WeChat public accounts as examples

Jie Wang,Lanting Wu

doi:10.1186/s12913-020-05901-3

Abstract

BackgroundIn the light of “Internet plus”, hospitals are following the trend of using mobile internet and adopting a strategy of spreading public health knowledge through mobile terminals. WeChat is a social media with the largest number of users in China. Its public account has become the most popular service among the public.MethodsWe examine the health communication of medical institutions on social media platforms. The WeChat public accounts of Zhejiang Provincial Chinese Traditional Medicine Hospital and Jiangxi Provincial Chinese Traditional Medicine Hospital were taken as cases to measure the communication effect from the following dimensions: update interval, content positioning and design, numbers of clicks and likes as well as topic types.ResultsThe update interval of WeChat public account of Jiangxi Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine was regular, compared with that of the other hospital. The accounts of the two hospitals both set up special sections to facilitate patients to obtain medical services online. There is an extremely significant difference between the two hospitals’ mean numbers of clicks (p < 0. 001), compared with no significant difference between their mean numbers of likes. One-way analysis of variance suggests the type of topic on posts is significantly correlated with the number of clicks. Moreover, there is an extremely significant difference between public health knowledge and news propaganda.ConclusionThe development of hospitals’ WeChat public accounts can promote people’s health and equity in accessing medical information and service, and also boost “Internet plus health care” service. The topic type of hospital’s news publicity is paid a relatively lower attention by users. Therefore, hospitals’ WeChat public accounts need to adjust their strategy from propaganda-oriented to users-centered, with topic planning and posts designed to fulfill users’ needs.

Highlights

In the light of “Internet plus”, hospitals are following the trend of using mobile internet and adopting a strategy of spreading public health knowledge through mobile terminals
Gai thought WeChat has become the ultimate combination of Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Zynga which provides payment, reservations, booking, games, instant messaging (IM) and other services [2]
The content of the posts on November 16 was deleted by the publisher, and the type of posts released on November 9 was public health knowledge

Summary

Introduction

In the light of “Internet plus”, hospitals are following the trend of using mobile internet and adopting a strategy of spreading public health knowledge through mobile terminals. In the context of “Internet plus”, one of China’s national strategies is to encourage industrial innovation as well as promoting cross-border integration, aiming at using information and communication technology to make the internet deeply integrated with various traditional industries. It will improve people’s wellbeing and push forward social development and innovation [1]. WeChat has the largest number of users in China. In 2019, the number of WeChat monthly active users exceeded 1.15 billion people [5]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion