Abstract
Background: In the last decade, social media users across the world have crossed 1 billion, making it one of the fastest growing sources of big data. Also, people needing healthcare continue to increase in every society. Through accessibility, communication and interaction between health practitioners and patients, this type of ever-growing, social media subscriber–based platform can be of significant use in improving healthcare delivery to society. However, users encounter serious challenges in their attempts to make use of social media and big data for health-related services. The challenges are primarily caused by factors such as integration, complexity, security and privacy. The challenges are mainly owing to the sensitive nature of the healthcare environment, as a result of personalisation and privacy of information. Objectives: The objectives of the study were to examine and gain a better understanding of the complexities that are associated with the use of social media and healthcare big data, through influencing factors, and to develop a framework that can be used to improve health-related services to the patients. Methods: The interpretivist approach was employed, within which qualitative data were collected. This included documents and existing literature in the areas of social media and healthcare big data. To have a good spread of both previous and current state of events within the phenomena being studied, literature published between 2006 and 2016 were gathered. The data were interpretively analysed. Results: Based on the analysis of the data, factors of influence were found, which were used to develop a model. The model illustrates how the factors of influence can enable and at the same time constrain the use of social media for healthcare services. The factors were interpreted from which a framework was developed. The framework is intended to guide integration of social media with healthcare big data through which service delivery to patients can be improved. Conclusion: This study can be used to guide integration of social media with healthcare big data by health facilities in the communities. The study contributes to healthcare workers’ awareness on how social media can possibly be used to improve the services that they provide to the needy. Also, the study will benefit information systems and technologies and academic domains, particularly from the health services’ perspective.
Highlights
The term big data is used to describe massive data sets, which are large and have more varied and complex structure with difficulties in storing, analysing and visualising for further processes or results (Sagiroglu & Sinanc 2013)
This article is intended to be of benefit to both the healthcare and academic domains, from theoretical, methodological and practical perspectives
This study reveals the factors that can influence the use of social media big data for improved healthcare, which both organisations and academics will find useful in their pursuit for advancement
Summary
The term big data is used to describe massive data sets, which are large and have more varied and complex structure with difficulties in storing, analysing and visualising for further processes or results (Sagiroglu & Sinanc 2013). The characteristics of big data include size, velocity and variety, which are significant to organisations and businesses for various reasons (Russom 2011). As a result of these attributes and factors, Syed, Gillela and Venugopal (2013) suggested that the size of big data makes it complicated to process using on-hand database management tools or traditional data processing applications, as it often exceeds the capacity of conventional database systems. This is one of the challenges that have been experienced with social media over the years (Schroeder 2014). The challenges are mainly owing to the sensitive nature of the healthcare environment, as a result of personalisation and privacy of information
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