Hashtags of the Week (HOTW): Physicians and Mobile Health (Week of February 18, 2013)

After reading the full article that inspired a post on the THL blog earlier this week, I went to Twitter to see what people were saying about technology and healthcare. To start my exploration, I clicked on the number next to the tweet icon for the article . This took me to the top tweets that referenced this article in Twitter. From there I was able to browse hashtags featuring the article.

By far, the most frequently used hashtag was #mHealth. This hashtag focuses on mobile health as it relates to healthcare professionals, tech professionals, mobile applications, and patient engagement.

Report finds pregnancy apps more popular than fitness apps shar.es/YU4LL #mhealth #digitalhealth

— Samia Lounis (@samialounis) February 18, 2013

Apple launches dedicated ‘Apps for Healthcare Professionals’ collection bit.ly/UHkTQb #mhealth

— Berci Meskó, MD, PhD (@Berci) February 20, 2013

National Library of Medicine @nlm Gallery of Mobile Apps #ehealth #mhealthnlm.nih.gov/mobile/index.h…

— PAHO/WHO Equity (@eqpaho) February 19, 2013

MIT hackathon tackles HIV, CHF, and Parkinson’s with open-source #tech: spr.ly/6015nOrf #mhealth

— SAP for Healthcare (@SAP_Healthcare) February 19, 2013

5 reasons why we need to conduct clinical trials with mobile health technologies – digihlth.info/sI #mhealth #digitalhealth

— Enspektos, LLC (@enspektosllc) February 7, 2013

Another hashtag that was sprinkled into the #mhealth stream was #medsm. This hashtag focuses on medicine in social media and while it is not used a ton, sometimes that is a good thing. Hashtags like #science and #tech are so broad that it is harder to find the diamonds in the rough. This stream though has multiple postings per day and many of them are very high quality. These posts also often tend to be tagged with #hcsm, so it may be that they are trying to gain some traction for a spinoff hashtag. Below are some of the best posts I found while combing through the stream.

Doctors Call Out 90 More Unnecessary Medical Tests, Procedures #MedEd #MedSMforbes.com/sites/brucejap…

— Ali R. Jalali (@ARJalali) February 21, 2013

IBM’s Watson makes the cover of this month’s issue of The Atlantic. tmblr.co/ZYw8LtefaiU8 #DigitalMedicine #medsm #meded

— medicine.io (@medicineio) February 21, 2013

RT @scanman: How drug companies mislead doctors zite.to/VBzXAi #medsm

— Le Doctor (@drmenz) February 19, 2013

From the NNT archives: The Big Business of Board Prep Courses blog.joshherigon.com/post/289207399… (From my early writing but still relevant!) #meded #medsm

— Josh Herigon, MPH (@JoshHerigon) February 17, 2013

ED overcrowding may be linked to later PTSD symptoms in pts w acute coronary syndrome via @jamainternalmed archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?a… #medsm

— Ryan Madanick, MD (@RyanMadanickMD) February 12, 2013

[New Episode] 005: Length Is Not The Most Important Thing medicineio.com/episode/005 #medsm #hcsm

— medicine.io (@medicineio) February 18, 2013

Free Physician Podcasts on iTunes: bit.ly/TrPTDH #dxerror #mdchat #hcsm #medsm #ptsafety #mhealth #healthit

— Best Doctors (@bestdoctors) February 14, 2013

Best #nutrition support practice recommendations for intestinal rehab patients: review paper in JPEN bit.ly/UYvrM0 #RDchat #medsm

— Kipp Ellsworth, RD (@PedNutritionGuy) February 11, 2013

#MustRead #medsm Why Even Radiologists Can Miss A Gorilla Hiding In Plain Sight n.pr/Wd7c9R via @arvindkannaiyan @nprnews #fb

— Vijay(@scanman) February 11, 2013

How Facebook Is Transforming Science and Public Health | Wired Business | buff.ly/zibYqD bit.ly/WMXuvT #hcsm #medsm

— Best Doctors (@bestdoctors) February 12, 2013