PC118. #VascularSurgery

Abstract

To characterize the vascular surgery Twitter network. There were 35,791 consecutive tweets mentioning vascular surgery from October 23, 2014, to January 15, 2018, that we analyzed. Twitter analytics, including activity metrics, content analysis, user characteristics, engagement, and network analysis were obtained using Symplur Signals, a healthcare social media analytics platform. Vascular surgery tweets, the number of users tweeting about vascular surgery, and vascular surgery tweet impressions have increased by 114%, 124%, and 271% over the past 2 years, respectively. Physician users have increased by 68.2% over the same time period. Twitter activity trend analysis showed consistent annual growth over the study period with an average 28.4 ± 3.4 additional tweets per month (P < .001; Fig). As for tweet content, 2731 tweets (7.6%) were pertaining to patients, and 2677 tweets (7.5%) were regarding new or innovative topics (Table), 30,837 tweets (86.2%) included links to websites or journals, and 8127 tweets (22.7%) contained at least one image (Table). Deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, healthcare, diabetes, endovascular interventions, and trauma were among the most commonly discussed health topics (Table). A small portion of tweets were composed by physicians (15.3%) and patients (1.1%). As for engagement, 9086 tweets (25.4%) being retweeted, 482 replies (1.3%), and 11,730 mentions (32.8%). Network analysis revealed central hubs to be vascular surgery societies, academic institutions, academic journals, and physicians. The use of Twitter to discuss vascular surgery is growing rapidly with increasing use by vascular surgeons and vascular medicine physicians. An effort to involve more patients in the vascular surgery Twitter social network may allow for more opportunities to educate, and garner interest and support for vascular surgery.Table#VascularSurgeryNo. of tweetsUsers who tweetedImpressionsTweets per userAll vascular surgery tweets35,791100.0%8926100.0%186,656,5364.0User identity Physicians546415.3%240226.9%16,319,5552.3 Provider organization28838.1%4755.3%16,092,1696.1 Advocate organization28117.9%6367.1%11,794,7284.4 Media organization7332.0%2162.4%11,706,8663.4 Patients3831.1%2052.3%912,7161.9Content Tweet contains link30,83786.2%698478.2%160,179,2874.4 Tweet contains image812722.7%366541.1%79,199,2262.2 Patient related tweets27317.6%174119.5%22,584,2091.6 Innovation related tweets26777.5%149516.7%10,632,1351.8Topic DVT/PE778612.8%343438.5%44,532,7612.3 Healthcare17272.8%4344.9%8,707,6494.0 Diabetes14412.4%100111.2%13,387,6141.4 Endovascular8031.3%3974.4%2,529,6232.0 Trauma7151.2%4835.4%3,712,0991.5 Guidelines6531.1%5115.7%3,524,7491.3 Venous disease6501.1%4094.6%1,560,5321.6 Aortic aneurysm2890.5%2212.5%2,370,6121.3 PAD2270.4%1711.9%739,0051.3 EVAR1670.3%1071.2%549,8151.6 Tobacco930.2%740.8%1,752,5401.3DVT, Deep venous thrombosis; EVAR, endovascular aneurysm repair; PAD, peripheral arterial disease; PE, pulmonary embolism. Open table in a new tab