Health Policy Twitterati 2014

Two years ago, I compiled a list of the . The methodology was elegantly simple, look back several months and count up the number of times I (@PolicyRx) re-tweeted a user’s comments or links. I repeated the same thing about this time last year to create the . This year (if you are unfamiliar with medicine, the academic year runs July to June and thus I tend to think about these “annual” events in the summer) the methodology has slightly changed from overall re-tweets to number of favorites. It just makes it easier to tally but looking at the people on the list, the methodology seems sound.

Many thanks to Vidya Eswaran, one of the many medical students who is working behind the scene on the Policy Prescriptions® blog, who did the grunt work for this year’s .

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A few new faces made the list this year and we are proud to have them as regular contributors to Policy Prescriptions®. Emergency medicine physicians will recognize Seth Trueger (@MDaware) and family medicine physicians will note Bic-May Nguyen (@bicmay) as contributors to our forum. Although new, they have been the most influential of our Twitter feed in 2013-14. And while you may not realize it, Nguyen has even been tweeting on behalf of us all @PolicyRx.

Some familiar names from The Incidental Economist have populated the list again – Austin Frakt (@afrakt) and Aaron Carroll (@aaronecarroll) – as well as a few who are relatively new to their blog – Adrianna McIntyre  (@onceuponA) and Bill Gardner (@Bill_Gardner). 

Two of our favorite collaborators are new to the list this year. Emergency Medicine News (@emnews) has run several of our health policy literature reviews in their publication providing health policy exposure to tens of thousands of emergency medicine physicians. Kevin Pho (@kevinmd) has featured our work on his site KevinMD many times over the past few years allowing us to reach an even broader physician, patient, and advocate audience.

This year another new entrant to the list came in the form of organized medicine. The Texas Medical Association (@texmed) which represents 47,000 physicians in Texas keeps an eye on health policy not only in the Lone Star State but also DC. You might be pleasantly surprised at the great work they are doing.

Lastly, I wanted to mention a few others who are worth your time (and 140 characters) if you wish to stay abreast of topics in health policy. Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) and Sarah Kliff (@sarahkliff)are two great reporters self-described as “chronically curious” “health care nerd[s]” whose daily writings you must read. The Kaiser Family Foundation (@KaiserFamFound) remains the go to nonpartisan DC think tank for objective data and analysis on health care. And Minerva Romero Arenas (@minervies) is a young surgeon, health services researcher, and foodie with a great gift for writing.

If you pay attention to no one else this year on Twitter, you should pay attention to these individuals and organizations. They will provide you will all the information you need to stay informed about health policy relevant to those fighting the daily battle in the trenches. Don’t want to follow them separately? Follow this single list and you will get all of their tweets.

 

The Health Policy Twitterati List Hall of Fame (3 Years) 

Sarah Kliff & Austin Frakt