BACKGROUND
Social media has penetrated all walks of life. Chinese Healthcare Institutions are increasingly utilizing social media to connect with their patients for better health service delivery. Current research has focused heavily on the use of social media in developed countries, with few exploring its usage in the context of developing countries, such as China. This study examines China’s best hospitals, as recognized by The National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) of the People’s Republic of China, mapping out the landscape of current social media usage by hospitals when engaging with patients.
OBJECTIVE
This study aims to examine China’s best hospitals, as recognized by The National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) of the People’s Republic of China, and to map out the landscape of current social media usage by hospitals when engaging with patients.
METHODS
We examined the best 705 hospitals in China, collecting and analyzing their usage of popular Chinese social media applications, Sina Weibo and WeChat. Specific data included: (1) hospital characteristics (i.e. established time, number of beds, hospital type, regions/localities) and (2) status of social media usage on two of the most popular local social media platforms in China (i.e. initiated time, number of followers and number of tweets or posts). We further used a logistic regression model to test the association between hospital characteristics and social media adoption.
RESULTS
A total of 537 (76.17%) tertiary-referral hospitals have created official accounts on either Sina Weibo or WeChat. Of these, WeChat is more popular than Sina Weibo. In addition, our study suggests that larger and newer hospitals with greater resources are more likely to adopt social media, while hospital type and affiliation to universities are not significant predictors of social media adoption among hospitals.
CONCLUSIONS
Our study demonstrated that hospitals are more inclined to use WeChat. The move by hospitals from Sina Weibo to WeChat means that patients are seen to be not satisfied by mere communication and now place more value on health services delivery. For the future, a long journey still lies ahead for hospitals in running their official social media accounts.