Computing and Information Systems - Research Publications
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ItemChanges in Doctor-Patient Relationships in China during COVID-19: A Text Mining Analysis(MDPI, 2022-10)Doctor-patient relationships (DPRs) in China have been straining. With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the relationships and interactions between patients and doctors are changing. This study investigated how patients' attitudes toward physicians changed during the pandemic and what factors were associated with these changes, leading to insights for improving management in the healthcare sector. This paper collected 58,600 comments regarding Chinese doctors from three regions from the online health platform Good Doctors Online (haodf.com, accessed on 13 October 2022). These comments were analyzed using text mining techniques, such as sentiment and word frequency analyses. The results showed improvements in DPRs after the pandemic, and the degree of improvement was related to the extent to which a location was affected. The findings also suggest that administrative services in the healthcare sector need further improvement. Based on these results, we summarize relevant recommendations at the end of this paper.
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ItemSocial Media Engagement in Two Governmental Schemes during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Macao(MDPI, 2022-08)Social media engagement is a vehicle for effective communication and engagement between governments and individuals, especially in crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, it can be used to communicate resilience measures and receive feedback. This research aims to investigate public social media engagement with resilience measures related to COVID-19 in Macao. We examined 1107 posts and 791 comments about the government's face mask supply and consumption voucher schemes on Facebook. Using the Crisis Lifecycle model, we partitioned the data and analyzed the content and engagement of related posts, as well as the word semantics in user comments. Our findings show that social media engagement in these resilience measures is high and positive in the early stages of the pandemic, suggesting social media's potential in mobilizing society, preserving social resilience, and serving as a two-way communication tool in public health emergencies.
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ItemBetter Health Explorer: Designing for Health Information Seekers(Association for Computing Machinery, 2015)A vast amount of health information has been published online, yet users often report difficulties in locating information in this particular domain. Based on our prior research, we consider four categories of online health information seekers who demonstrate mixed information needs. Although their searching needs are often well satisfied by entering keywords into search engines, their need to explore information is not so well supported, thus affecting their user experience and satisfaction. In this paper, we propose design principles for supporting the exploration of online health information. We present the rationale and the design process of a web app - Better Health Explorer - which is a proof-of-concept app tailored to health information exploration. This work contributes to the design of online health information systems as well as exploratory systems in general.
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ItemEngagement of Government Social Media on Facebook during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Macao(MDPI, 2021-04)Government social media is widely used for providing updates to and engaging with the public in the COVID-19 pandemic. While Facebook is one of the popular social media used by governments, there is only a scant of research on this platform. This paper aims to understand how government social media should be used and how its engagement changes in prodromal, acute and chronic stages of the pandemic. We collected 1664 posts and 10,805 comments from the Facebook pages of the Macao government from 1 January to 31 October 2020. Using word frequency and content analysis, the results suggest that the engagement was relatively low at the beginning and then surged in the acute stage, with a decreasing trend in the chronic stage. Information about public health measures maintained their engagement in all stages, whereas the engagement of other information was dropping over time. Government social media can be used for increasing vigilance and awareness in the prodromal stage; disseminating information and increasing transparency in the acute stage; and focusing on mental health support and recovery policies in the chronic stage. Additionally, it can be a tool for controlling rumors, providing regular updates and fostering community cohesion in public health crises.
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ItemBetter health information exploration(ACM, 2015-12-07)The provision of health information has to be clear and appealing to users. Research has shown that health information seekers do not all have the same attributes, skills or needs. In any given health-related app or website, there is a need to provide tools for accessing information in ways that appeal to users. This is not always supported by current web technologies. As such, based on prior research on health information seeking behaviour and needs, we designed and created a proofof- concept website named Better Health Explorer to experiment on health information seekers. The pilot results show a positive effect on supporting and improving the experience of seekers with exploratory search behaviour.
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ItemWhy Do Consumers Review Doctors Online? Topic Modeling Analysis of Positive and Negative Reviews on an Online Health Community in China(Shidler College of Business, 2020-01-01)Consumers often learn from others through a social learning process (e.g. electronic word of mouth) before making decisions. From the e-business perspective, online reviews have changed how people select products and services, and no doubt it is the same in the e-health sector. In this study, we examine online reviews of patients and health consumers for their doctors in an online health consultation platform in China. We combine machine learning and qualitative techniques to derive the themes of online reviews and the factors leading to positive and negative reviews. Our analysis demonstrates that service levels of hospitals, doctors’ communication skills and their professional skills influence the sentiment of reviews. Our findings offer important insights into theories and practice for studying online reviews in the healthcare context.
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ItemPrivacy concerns of the Australian My Health Record: Implications for other large-scale opt-out personal health records(Elsevier, 2020-11)Personal health records offer the convenience of accessing medical history and personal health information, but also raise a range of privacy concerns which affect their adoption. In 2018, the Australian nationwide personal health record, My Health Record (MHR), was changed to an opt-out model, meaning that users are automatically enrolled unless they opt out. This significant change sparked wide-ranging and vociferous discussions of the privacy concerns of MHR on Twitter thus provided a lens into people's concerns. This lesson offers useful insights for improving MHR and better implementing future large-scale health records. By using qualitative coding and topic modeling on Twitter data, we categorized the stakeholders who participated in the discussions and the privacy concerns expressed. We have identified 10 categories of stakeholders and 9 types of privacy concerns in the discussions, and our analysis finds that these stakeholder groups focused on different privacy aspects of MHR. This work implies that, for future provisions of similar systems, it is important to involve these stakeholders in the design and address their privacy concerns early, as they are interested in providing input and their strong opinions may influence the uptake of such systems. Based on the lesson gleaned from this case, we propose that system owners can proactively communicate the privacy and the security aspects of their PHRs with different parties on social media. We also highlight some suggestions for improving the consent model and third-party access to personal health records in this paper.
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ItemExploring the facilitators and barriers to using an online infertility risk prediction tool (FoRECAsT) for young women with breast cancer: a qualitative study protocol.(BMJ Journals, 2020-02-10)INTRODUCTION: As cancer treatments may impact on fertility, a high priority for young patients with breast cancer is access to evidence-based, personalised information for them and their healthcare providers to guide treatment and fertility-related decisions prior to cancer treatment. Current tools to predict fertility outcomes after breast cancer treatments are imprecise and do not offer individualised prediction. To address the gap, we are developing a novel personalised infertility risk prediction tool (FoRECAsT) for premenopausal patients with breast cancer that considers current reproductive status, planned chemotherapy and adjuvant endocrine therapy to determine likely post-treatment infertility. The aim of this study is to explore the feasibility of implementing this FoRECAsT tool into clinical practice by exploring the barriers and facilitators of its use among patients and healthcare providers. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: A cross-sectional exploratory study is being conducted using semistructured in-depth telephone interviews with 15-20 participants each from the following groups: (1) premenopausal patients with breast cancer younger than 40, diagnosed within last 5 years, (2) breast surgeons, (3) breast medical oncologists, (4) breast care nurses (5) fertility specialists and (6) fertility preservation nurses. Patients with breast cancer are being recruited from the joint Breast Service of three affiliated institutions of Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia-Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital and Royal Women's Hospital, and clinicians are being recruited from across Australia. Interviews are being audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and imported into qualitative data analysis software to facilitate data management and analyses. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study protocol has been approved by Melbourne Health Human Research Ethics Committee, Australia (HREC number: 2017.163). Confidentiality and privacy are maintained at every stage of the study. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed scholarly and scientific journals, national and international conference presentations, social media, broadcast media, print media, internet and various community/stakeholder engagement activities.
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ItemThe Twitter Adventure of #MyHealthRecord: An Analysis of Different User Groups During the Opt-Out Period.(IOS Press, 2019-08-08)My Health Record (MHR), which is an online health summary for Australians, was changed from the opt-in to the opt-out model, and therefore sparked a vast discussion on Twitter. In order to understand the debate, the information dissemination and the levels of engagement, we have analysed tweets posted from July 2018 to February 2019. In this paper, we report on the findings of the patterns of discussion, the hashtags and the numbers of retweets and likes from different user categories. The results show that the discussion was highly political, and the tweets from the MHR official accounts had lower propagation and engagement than other user groups. This work highlights the implications of using social networking sites (SNSs) to promote large-scale mandatory electronic health record systems.
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ItemThe Use of Web-Based Technologies in Health Research Participation: Qualitative Study of Consumer and Researcher Experiences(JMIR Publications, 2018-10-01)Background: Health consumers are often targeted for their involvement in health research including randomized controlled trials, focus groups, interviews, and surveys. However, as reported by many studies, recruitment and engagement of consumers in academic research remains challenging. In addition, there is scarce literature describing what consumers look for and want to achieve by participating in research. Objective: Understanding and responding to the needs of consumers is crucial to the success of health research projects. In this study, we aim to understand consumers’ needs and investigate the opportunities for addressing these needs with Web-based technologies, particularly in the use of Web-based research registers and social networking sites (SNSs). Methods: We undertook a qualitative approach, interviewing both consumer and medical researchers in this study. With the help from an Australian-based organization supporting people with musculoskeletal conditions, we successfully interviewed 23 consumers and 10 researchers. All interviews were transcribed and analyzed with thematic analysis methodology. Data collection was stopped after the data themes reached saturation. Results: We found that consumers perceive research as a learning opportunity and, therefore, expect high research transparency and regular updates. They also consider the sources of the information about research projects, the trust between consumers and researchers, and the mobility of consumers before participating in any research. Researchers need to be aware of such needs when designing a campaign for recruitment for their studies. On the other hand, researchers have attempted to establish a rapport with consumer participants, design research for consumers’ needs, and use technologies to reach out to consumers. A systematic approach to integrating a variety of technologies is needed. Conclusions: On the basis of the feedback from both consumers and researchers, we propose 3 future directions to use Web-based technologies for addressing consumers’ needs and engaging with consumers in health research: (1) researchers can make use of consumer registers and Web-based research portals, (2) SNSs and new media should be frequently used as an aid, and (3) new technologies should be adopted to remotely collect data and reduce administrative work for obtaining consumers’ consent.