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In late October 2010, Fox ePractice, a health consultancy, announced the development of the "Healthcare Hashtag Project."  The Project provides health industry stakeholders with in-depth information regarding popular hashtags focusing on a range of subjects, including marketing and digital communications.  Hashtags (e.g., #hcmktg, or healthcare marketing) have become a popular way for Twitter users to organize information.  In addition, some hashtags are associated with weekly or regular virtual meetings where like-minded individuals discuss topics related to the health field. (Click here for a partial listing of popular Twitter health conversations.)

Project Scope

According to Fox ePractice, the Healthcare Hashtag Project is designed to achieve the following objectives:

• "Allow exploration by either hashtag or healthcare subject matter.
• Show hashtags that are related to one another in the healthcare field.
• Demonstrate frequency of use of related hashtags so as to facilitate hashtag selection.
• Identify most frequent users and most frequent @mentions with each hashtag so as to find the influencers to follow on your healthcare topic of choice.
• Determine which healthcare hashtags overall are most popular at any given time.
• To provide a live feed of conversations related to each hashtag so as to easily explore what’s currently being shared on Twitter in your healthcare topic of choice.
• To encourage visitors to vote on which hashtags are most useful in hopes of bringing multiple conversations together.  (example:  #pediatric, #pediatrics, #pediatrician, #pediatricians)"

Project Data

As of October 2010, the Project provides users with the following data on ongoing health-related Twitter conversations: 

• Total mentions of the hashtag over the previous seven days

#hcmktg conversation volume (click to enlarge)

• Hashtag-related Twitter activity compared to related conversations (e.g., hcmktg is related to #socpharm pharmaceutical marketing and social media)

#hcmktg conversation volume compared to related hashtags (click to enlarge)

• Key influencers of the conversation

Key Twitter users influencing conversation (click to enlarge)

 Transcripts of Healthcare Twitter Conversations

In late December 2010, Fox ePractice expanded the Project by releasing a tool which automatically generates transcripts for healthcare Twitter conversations.  According to the firm: "This transcript tool has a simple and clean layout, but with flexible functionality. You control the timeframe of your transcript down to the very minute. And it’s live! The live feature means you can setup a transcript timeframe that’s in the future and you will see your transcript grow as the future becomes realtime using the same URL or link."  Learn more about the transcript tool here.