Beier Michael, Früh Sebastian
University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons, Chur, Switzerland.
J Med Internet Res. 2020 Mar 9;22(3):e16995. doi: 10.2196/16995.
Social media platforms are important tools for hospitals. These platforms offer many potential benefits in various areas of application for hospitals to connect and interact with their stakeholders. However, hospitals differ immensely in their social media adoption. There are studies that provide initial findings on individual factors influencing social media adoption by hospitals, but there is no comprehensive and integrated model.
This study aimed to develop a comprehensive model of social media adoption by hospitals in the context of the Swiss health care system and to test the model with empirical data from Switzerland.
To develop our model, we applied the general technology-organization-environment framework of organizational technology adoption and adapted it to the specific context of social media adoption by hospitals in Switzerland. To test our model, we collected empirical data on all 283 hospitals in Switzerland and identified the accounts they operate on 7 different social media platforms (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, XING, and YouTube). We tested the hypotheses of our model by means of binary logistic regression (dependent variable: platform adoption) and negative binomial regression (dependent variable: number of different platforms adopted).
Our general model on social media adoption received broad support. Overall, hospitals in Switzerland are more likely to adopt social media if they have a higher share of patients with voluntary health insurance or have a higher patient volume. In contrast, they are less likely to operate their own social media accounts if they are associated with a hospital network. However, some hypotheses of our model received only partial support for specific social media platforms; for instance, hospitals in Switzerland are more likely to adopt XING if they provide an educational program and are more likely to adopt LinkedIn if they are located in regions with higher competition intensity.
Our study provides a comprehensive model of social media adoption by hospitals in Switzerland. This model shows, in detail, the factors that influence hospitals in Switzerland in their social media adoption. In addition, it provides a basic framework that might be helpful in systematically developing and testing comprehensive models of social media adoption by hospitals in other countries.
社交媒体平台是医院的重要工具。这些平台在医院与利益相关者建立联系和互动的各个应用领域提供了许多潜在益处。然而，医院在社交媒体采用方面差异巨大。有研究提供了关于影响医院采用社交媒体的个体因素的初步发现，但尚无全面综合的模型。
本研究旨在构建瑞士医疗体系背景下医院采用社交媒体的综合模型，并使用来自瑞士的实证数据对该模型进行检验。
为构建我们的模型，我们应用了组织技术采用的通用技术-组织-环境框架，并将其适配于瑞士医院采用社交媒体的特定背景。为检验我们的模型，我们收集了瑞士所有283家医院的实证数据，并确定了它们在7个不同社交媒体平台（脸书、谷歌+、推特、照片墙、领英、XING和优兔）上运营的账号。我们通过二元逻辑回归（因变量：平台采用情况）和负二项回归（因变量：采用的不同平台数量）对模型假设进行了检验。
我们关于社交媒体采用的总体模型得到了广泛支持。总体而言，瑞士的医院如果拥有较高比例的自愿医疗保险患者或较高的患者数量，则更有可能采用社交媒体。相比之下，如果它们与医院网络相关联，则运营自己社交媒体账号的可能性较小。然而，我们模型的一些假设仅在特定社交媒体平台上得到部分支持；例如，瑞士的医院如果提供教育项目，则更有可能采用XING，如果位于竞争强度较高的地区，则更有可能采用领英。
我们的研究提供了瑞士医院采用社交媒体的综合模型。该模型详细展示了影响瑞士医院采用社交媒体的因素。此外，它提供了一个基本框架，可能有助于系统地构建和检验其他国家医院采用社交媒体的综合模型。
