Patient Multimedia Engagement Project
Exploring how MSF operations can interact with communities through social media
Global internet usage increased by 1,266 percent between 2000 and 2020. Every day over the past five years, an average of 640,000 people went online for the first time, according to Our World in Data. Improved internet access globally has accelerated a rapid and vast adoption of social media, changing everything from how people organize to how we access information. There are now close to 4 billion social media users around the world.
Social media can supplement existing operational elements in the medical humanitarian space, or create entirely new communication pathways, helping field staff reach patients where they are and provide the right health information at the right time. They can also constitute a direct line through which community members can communicate with MSF healthcare professionals.
Over the course of two years (2019-2021), the Patient Multimedia Engagement (PME) project led by Anne Jansen, funded by MSF’s Transformational Investment Capacity (TIC) and supported by the MSF Sweden Innovation Unit (SIU), has explored how MSF operations can interact with communities through digital and social media.
This article provides a brief summary of the project's findings and outcomes, including a practical hands-on toolkit.
Let’s start with the why
The PME project was initially developed in line with the resounding MSF strategic priority to ensure that the organization’s decisions are informed by real dialogues with communities. For a quick overview of the project, check out this 3-minute summary video.
As of January 2021, there were 4.66 billion active internet users worldwide - 59.5 percent of the global population, according to Datareportal’s Global Overview report 2021. Regional analyses still show a wide variation in active social media penetration in different regions (illustrating what is often referred to as a ‘digital divide’). Yet, there are strong signs that access to the internet and social networks is steadily increasing in many communities where MSF provides its services. Subsequently, the PME project was designed to meet a growing need to explore how MSF operations can leverage this trend to initiate online dialogues with the people we work for.
Mapping by the PME team identified a large number of advantages for MSF field staff to use social media to reach communities, including the chance to:
Gain a better understanding of people’s lives and needs and build stronger relationships with communities,
Target messages to specific audiences (e.g., via Facebook ads targeted to people of a certain demographic),
Combat misinformation and disinformation in the same channels which it is spread
Encourage two-way communication, allowing patients and community members to reach out to us.
Additionally, the PME team aimed to explore the advantage and feasibility of weaving social media activities into MSF’s daily operations.
Pilots in Mexico and Colombia
The project was piloted in two locations in 2020, Mexico and Colombia. Appreciating that digital and social media usage is highly context-dependent as different social networks hold different meanings and purposes for people across cultures, the project team worked closely with local communities to let their social media preferences and habits guide the development of the pilots.
To adjust and develop the PME toolkit to the local context and help drive the pilots on the ground, two people were hired locally, Erika Chávez in Colombia and Mélanie Paboeuf in Mexico.
Colombia - PME for COVID-19 Insights and Mental Health Support
The PME pilot in Colombia had two main objectives:
Promoting health in the community by providing information (and combat disinformation) about COVID-19
Increasing the number of patients who call MSF’s hotline for mental health support
The first objective targeted the general public, while the latter focused on survivors of sexual violence and other situations of violence.
For more information about the PME pilot in Colombia, check out this 3.5-minute summary video.
Mexico - PME for IPC Training and More
The PME pilot in Mexico had three main objectives with similarities to the Columbia investigation:
Promoting health in the community by providing information (and combat disinformation) about COVID-19
Increasing the number of patients who call MSF’s hotline for mental health support
Training frontline workers on COVID-19 infection prevention and control (IPC) measures
The two first objectives targeted the general public and survivors of sexual violence and other situations of violence, respectively. The third objective was tailored towards local medical staff.
For more information about the PME pilot in Mexico, check out this 4-minute summary video.
In Colombia, WhatsApp groups were set up to facilitate healthcare and health promotion conversations with community members, and Facebook campaigns were launched to raise awareness about these services in both Mexico and Colombia. In Mexico, a mental support hotline was further developed to support migrant populations on the move who may need MSF support and a WhatsApp number was set up in addition to the toll-free hotline.
How social media helps humanitarian health projects reach their operational goals
Digital and social media are new but natural complements to existing MSF activities to reach and engage communities, but they are not meant to replace other communication channels.
One key learning of the PME project was that projects involving digital and social media often span many disciplines, which makes establishing clear roles and responsibilities critical for successful implementation.
Additional main findings and conclusions from the PME pilot studies include:
Digital and social media can contribute to operational activities
Digital and social media can help MSF initiate dialogues with patients and vice versa.
Digital and social media have huge potential, the PME project has only scratched the surface of what can be done.
The last point above is one of many reasons why MSF is devoted to exploring new media and novel use cases for existing digital platforms, striving to improve our communication with patients as we learn more about how we can initiate and maintain dialogues with the communities where we work.
The Patient Multimedia Engagement Toolkit
One very tangible outcome of the PME project is the PME toolkit, which provides MSF field teams hands-on guidance for leveraging different digital media channels to build up reciprocal relationships with local communities.
Because there is no one-size-fits-all solution for developing efficient online interventions, the toolkit has been designed to guide users through the process of understanding what tools and processes are best suited to their context, operational goals, and target audience. Further, the toolkit highlights that many online media activities can be carried out at different scales and during various timeframes, from short-term projects to continuous efforts as permanent parts of MSF operations.
The PME toolkit includes a 5-step guide to design and implement digital media interventions in humanitarian health operations:
Framing the scope
Understanding your audience
Identifying the most adequate solution
Planning operations
Content creation and implementation
The toolkit includes a series of editable templates as well as both an interactive online version of and a downloadable pdf version of the toolkit, available to everyone in the MSF movement – check it out.
If you are curious to learn more about how telecommunication tools can be used to deliver health information and healthcare, have a look at this recent article about the MSF Sweden Innovation Unit’s work with developing the MSF Telehealth Toolkit. The Toolkit is currently only available within the MSF movement. If you are interested in the Toolkit from outside the movement, please email siu@stockholm.msf.org to learn more.