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What is Healthcare Social Media South Africa (#hcsmSA)?
hcsm is an acronym for Health Care Social Media. hcsm is a global movement of health communities which have been established on Twitter. Virtual communities on social media platforms like Twitter (e.g hashtags) or Facebook (e.g. groups) connect people with common objectives. These collectives can also be used to disseminate education between members, provide access for peer-to-peer support as well as improve the quality of online data because it is generated in clusters.

There are over 30 hcsm geographic communities on Twitter which include Canada hcsmCA, Europe hcsmEU, Africa hcsmAFRICA and the global thread hcsm which has over 32 000 subscribers. A comprehensive list of all the hcsm communities is available on Symplur’s Healthcare Hashtag Project.

hcsmSA moderates a monthly Twitter chat to discuss various health issues in South Africa with a diverse group of stakeholders which include doctors, scientists, startups, entrepreneurs, patient advocates, charities, journalists, IT developers, design companies, marketing companies, pharma, academia, students, nurses, caregivers and policy-makers both locally and globally. We model our topics around the Sustainable Development Goals and record our sessions on a transcript which is made available to the public for research purposes on Symplur. Members use the hashtag after the chats to share quality health-related information relative to South Africa. Read more about geographic healthcare hashtags here.