MESH IO Researcher Alex Chan presents at the USC Keck Innovations in Medical Education Conference

Congratulations to Alex Chan, medical student and MESH IO researcher, for his first-author oral abstract entitled “Characterization of readership statistics of an open access medical news site during COVID-19”.

This paper was presented at the 18th Annual Innovations in Medical Education Conference on February 18-19, 2021, at USC Keck (San Diego). This study demonstrates the valuable role open-access medical literature continues to play during the COVID pandemic, including measuring volume of readership, bounce rates, and engagement of COVID vs non-COVID articles on an open access news platform, 2 Minute Medicine. Key result showed that COVID-19 articles had significantly more views than other articles, non-COVID-19 articles had more actions  than COVID-19 articles. On a likert scale of 1 (Strongly disagree) to 5 (Strongly agree), survey data from 130 responses revealed that readers preferred staying up to date with COVID-19 literature using open access sources than direct journal access as opposed to journal websites.

Coauthors included Constance Wu (Harvard), Andrew Cheung MD MBA (McMaster), and Marc Succi MD (Mass General/Harvard).

“This operational analysis of readership statistics tells us that open-access medical news, particularly peer-reviewed news by healthcare physicians, has and continues to play an integral role as a key source of information for the medical community and the public surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. It is critical that we identify and amplify reliable sources of news amidst COVID misinformation, especially as vaccines are distributed”  said Marc Succi, MD, senior and corresponding author of the study and Principal Investigator of the MESH IO lab.

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About MESH IO

The Medically Engineered Solutions in Healthcare Innovation in Operations Research Center (MESH IO) is a unique inter-disciplinary research center across Mass General Brigham, Harvard Medical and Harvard Business School comprised of specialty leaders, including physicians and executives, in innovation and operations in healthcare. This creative marriage of both innovation and operations researchers is dedicated to investigating key aspects of business in healthcare through original research and thought-leading papers for the medical community. The group is comprised of faculty and executives from different specialties, including medicine, radiology, emergency medicine, surgery and more.

For more information, contact: meshincubator@partners.org