Global Perspective on EMR and eHealth

A goal of this exploratory study was to uncover the attitudes of the public towards health information technology (HIT) during a health crisis (COVID-19 pandemic). A socio-technical network formed by EMR/eHealth, COVID-19, and the tweeters was investigated using the Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) to understand global perspectives on healthcare technology, taking into account the human dimension and social reality in technology. Social Media (SM) analytics was used to mine HIT-related tweets from the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results show that positivity, trust, and anticipation are the three most significant emotions associated with electronic medical records (EMR) and eHealth from the tweets. Our analysis found an acceptance of HIT by the global public and optimism for its role in information dissemination, control and containment, and public health improvement. The ANT analysis reveals a virtual coalition building that occurred through discussions among notable network actors, and the role of crowdsourcing in disseminating digital health information.