title: Medical Institutions and Twitter: A Novel Tool for Public Communication in Japan.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service on the Internet. Medical professionals and patients have started to use Twitter in medicine. Twitter use by medical institutions can interactively and efficiently provide public health information and education for laypeople.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study examined Twitter usage by medical institutions.
  
  
  METHODS
  We reviewed all Japanese user accounts in which the names of medical institutions were described in the user's Twitter profile. We then classified medical institutions' tweets by content.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We extracted 168 accounts for medical institutions with ≥500 followers. The medical specialties of those accounts were dentistry and oral surgery (n=73), dermatology (n=12), cosmetic surgery (n=10), internal medicine (n=10), ophthalmology (n=6), obstetrics and gynecology (n=5), plastic surgery (n=2), and others (n=50). Of these, 21 accounts tweeted medical knowledge and 45 accounts tweeted guidance about medical practice and consultation hours, including advertisements. In the dentistry and oral surgery accounts, individual behavior or thinking was the most frequent (22/71, 31%) content. On the other hand, consultation including advertisements was the most frequent (14/23, 61%) in cosmetic surgery, plastic surgery, and dermatology.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Some medical specialties used Twitter for disseminating medical knowledge or guidance including advertisements. This indicates that Twitter potentially can be used for various purposes by different medical specialties.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Promotion of Medical Science ResearchYamagata University Faculty of MedicineYamagataJapan; Cancer Prevention and Control DivisionKanagawa Cancer Center Research InstituteYokohamaJapan.
authors.forename: Yuya
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-2371-3487
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sugawara
authors.affiliation: Cancer Prevention and Control DivisionKanagawa Cancer Center Research InstituteYokohamaJapan; Department of Public HealthYamagata University Graduate School of MedicineYamagataJapan.
authors.forename: Hiroto
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0383-4911
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Narimatsu
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Science and Engineering Yamagata University Yonezawa Japan.
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-2934-1808
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tsuya
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Science and Engineering Yamagata University Yonezawa Japan.
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-2584-8871
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Yamagata University Graduate School of Medicine Yamagata Japan.
authors.forename: Akira
authors.identifier: 0000-0003-4575-0369
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fukao
keywords: Web 2.0; advertisement; consultation guidance; medical education; social media