Effect of age on U.S. gynecologic patients' use of social media for women's health information.

OBJECTIVE: To compare use, timing, and perceived benefit of social media for women's health information between different aged gynecologic patients. METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional survey of patients presenting to a U.S. academic gynecology clinic over three months in spring 2021. We compared social media use for women's health information among patients of different age groups. RESULTS: Most respondents use social media to learn about women's health (57.0 %), believe women's health information should be available on social media (92.4 %), and find it helpful in making health decisions (58.5 %), without significant differences by age group. With each increasing decade of age, patients increasingly reported actively searching for women's health information rather than passively finding it on a feed (p = 0.024 for overall comparison) and using social media for health information specifically around doctor's visits (p = 0.023 for overall comparison), and less commonly reported trusting social media influencers (p = 0.030 for overall comparison). CONCLUSION: Reproductive and non-reproductive aged patients all highly utilize social media for women's health information, however there are differences in usage patterns by age. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Understanding social media use patterns can facilitate direction to and creation of accessible, medically-accurate and patient-friendly content.

Improving Utilization of an After-Hours Phone Triage Service: A Resident Quality Improvement Initiative.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Phone triage systems are increasingly used by primary care clinics to improve patient satisfaction and direct low-acuity patients to appropriate care settings. Despite the prevalence of telephone triage, the majority of pediatric training programs do not include this practice in their curricula. Our aim was to increase the volume of after-hours patient phone calls per week by 25% and to secondarily reduce "treat and release" emergency department (ED) visits by 5% over the course of a 9-month quality improvement (QI) study. METHODS: A resident-led QI project was conducted from 2017 to 2019 at a mixed faculty-resident pediatric primary care practice providing care for an urban, primarily immigrant, underserved population. Eight Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles were developed on the basis of identified key drivers and included efforts to increase the visibility of the call service to patient families. After-hours calls were tracked and compared with similar practices, and ED visits for the first week of each month were reviewed using the electronic medical record system. RESULTS: After promoting the service via various modalities, the number of after-hours calls increased by 30%, from an average of 6.5 calls per week to 8.5. Treat and release ED visits decreased by 6%, from a baseline of 64.3 to 60.3 visits per week. CONCLUSIONS: The increased patient awareness of and availability of a reliable after-hours call service in pediatric practices are promising tools for reducing unnecessary ED visits, leveraging resident direction and implementation to promote the service through varying modalities.