Empowering the public during the COVID pandemic through interactive social media platform

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals and academic facilities are called to provide leadership in disseminating accurate and timely information through approaches that meet the needs of the public. Graduate students from a university in Taiwan collaborated with experts to provide interactive live broadcasting sessions on the COVID-related topics to the public through the Facebook platform. The broadcasting sessions also trained the students to communicate COVID-related information through succinct and interactive presentations. Twelve broadcasting sessions were conducted twice a week for three weeks in May 2020. Upon completion of the broadcasting sessions, students demonstrated growth in professional confidence, assessment of the public's knowledge gaps and needs, and preparation and delivery of professional live broadcasts. We recommend creating a live broadcast training application through an artificial intelligence (AI) expert system. Multidisciplinary academic-practice collaboration in preparing for the broadcasting and engaging in dialogues with the public is recommended.