Social Media and Digital Epidemiology

As a result of the Modern Communication Revolution the notion of healthcare and health in general has been removed from isolated offices and organizations and brought into the public sphere. Mass exchange of data and information is taking place over social media and giving rise to a new field of epidemiology. This new field, being coined digital epidemiology, is the use of trending social media tweets and posts for real-time analysis, intervention, and even predictions of health-related events. Digital epidemiology has enabled broader health communication, alternative disaster relief, and tracking of real-time disease outbreaks. As a result, two seemingly unique fields, social media and health, are converging in complex and intricate ways. Social media has been utilized as both an intentional driver to influence epidemiological response, in cases such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, but also during an unintentional driver through the spread of heightened awareness and concern as seen through the Ebola virus outbreak. Through social media, public awareness on various diseases and outbreaks has greatly increased and has seemingly generated a ripple effect of both private and public funding and general response efforts toward a “trending” disease. Social media has the potential to elicit great effects in healthcare; however, it raises cause for concern with regards to the spread of misinformation. Consequently, further analysis is necessary in order to better understand and construct meaningful practices that minimize the negative impacts of social media and utilize its numerous advantages

Utilization of intravascular imaging in elective non chronic total occlusion percutaneous intervention and chronic total occlusion percutaneous intervention: Trends in utilization and impact on in-hospital mortality

Objectives: The objectives of this retrospective study include outcomes associated with and without intravascular imaging in cases of elective single vessel (SV) CTO PCI and in non-CTO PCI. Method: We explored the NIS database from October 1, 2015 to December 31, 2018 to identify 317,090 adult admissions with elective SV PCI. Admissions with STEMI and NSTEMI were excluded to identify elective cases only. Using the ICD 10 diagnosis code for CTO, we identified 33,345 admissions that underwent SV CTO PCI. We classified the remaining cases as SV non-CTO PCI. Results: Intravascular imaging was utilized in 2930 (8.8%) cases in CTO PCI group and 23,710 (8.3%) cases in non-CTO PCI groups. The utilization of intravascular imaging (IVUS/OCT) significantly increased in elective SV CTO PCI, 6.4%–11.2%, p-trend<0.001 and non-CTO PCI group, 7.3%–9.0%, p-trend<0.001. There was no significance difference in mortality with and without intravascular imaging (combined IVUS/OCT vs no IVUS/OCT: 1.5% vs 1.3%, p = 0.195) in the CTO PCI group. But, in non-CTO PCI admissions, there was a significantly lower in-hospital mortality when intravascular imaging was used (0.7% vs 0.8%, p = 0.003). The cost of hospitalization was significantly higher when intravascular imaging was used in elective single vessel CTO PCI admissions, combined IVUS/OCT vs no IVUS/OCT: $27,427 vs$21,452, p < 0.001 and non-CTO PCI admissions, combined IVUS/OCT vs no IVUS/OCT: $23,620 vs$20,272, p < 0.001. Conclusions: In conclusion, despite the cost, intravascular imaging use decrease mortality in non-CTO PCI groups but there is no difference in mortality in CTO PCI groups