Surprising results in the HIT100 list
The third annual HIT100 list, ostensibly listing the 100 most influential Twitter accounts in health IT, has been published at Healthcare IT News, and I’m more surprised than flattered to be at No. 44, named 14 times by tweets carrying the #HIT100 hashtag. More accurately, I am in a five-way tie for No. 41, with the likes of: “social venture entrepreneur” Sherry Reynolds (9,000 Twitter followers); Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO and health IT rock star Dr. John Halamka (10,600 followers); health IT product strategist Lisa Crymes (2,200 followers); and pre-eminent health IT social media researcher Susannah Fox of the Pew Internet & American Life Project (13,800 followers).
That doesn’t seem right, does it?
It also doesn’t seem right that I’m ahead of: “E-Patient” Dave deBronkart; true digital health rock star Dr. Eric Topol; The Health Care Blog and Health 2.0 founder Matthew Holt; Chilmark Research’s John Moore, one of the most insightful analysts I’ve ever come across; KevinMD founder Dr. Kevin Pho (though he focuses on a lot more than just health IT); health economist and patient engagement guress Jane Sarasohn-Kahn; well-known EHR consultant Jim Tate; health IT policy expert Shahid Shah; and, coming in at 100 on the list, White House CTO and technology entrepreneur-in-residence Todd Park, who previously was CTO at HHS and co-founded Athenahealth.
It’s nice to be mentioned among and even above some of those names, and I thank those who voted for me. I also thank the more than 3,600 people who follow me on Twitter. But am I really more influential in health IT than any of the people I mentioned above? I doubt it.
What are your thoughts? Is there a better way of measuring influence than just counting the number of people who tweeted your name with the #HIT100 hashtag?
For the record, topping the list was Dr. Wen Dombrowski, who is about as active as they get when it comes to health IT social media. No arguments here, though I wouldn’t have objected either if Brian Ahier, Regina Holliday, Lionel Reichardt, Gregg Masters, Paul Sonnier (his Digital Health LinkedIn group just passed 19,000 members) or Keith Boone had been No. 1. A case also could be made for John Lynn, founder of the Healthcare Scene network, which hosts this blog.
And then, there’s this:
As I look at the list, I think that there’s a direction correlation to your activity on the tag and your place on the list. If you look at the top people, they are some of the most prolific tweeters. I believe there’s a direct noise to list rank correlation.
With that said, like you I appreciate those who mentioned me. I mostly just like to see the full list so I can find some new interesting people in the health IT space. I don’t see it as a ranked list as much as a list of 100 interesting people where the rank matters little.
I agree with you John. I like the HIT100 event as it comes at a slow time of summer and is rather amusing. And I totally agree with the idea of noise to rank correlation – in some cases.
I purposefully did not do any ‘campaigning’ this year and was somewhat dismayed at how some votes were cast.
I think the idea of followers and Klout/Kred or some other metric needs to be used. I made a post on Symplur about this before last years HIT100 event.
http://www.symplur.com/shorts/can-we-measure-the-quality-of-a-healthcare-conference-twitter-stream/
This is one ‘election’ where voter Id and candidate background is surely a good idea. But HIT100 is what it is and I think it has done a lot to make others aware of HIT and social media.
Steve,
Incredibly informative post. A lot more could be done with the data. Definitely confirms many of the things I’d considered. It’s also really interesting how different the Twitter activity is based on the conference.