Journal of Education and Health Promotion

#FOAMems: Engaging paramedics with free, online open‑access education

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

. Paige Mason 1
. Alan M Batt 2

1 1 Fanshawe College, London, Ottawa Paramedic Service, Ontario, Canada

2 1 Fanshawe College, London Monash University, Melbourne, CQUniversity, Queensland, Australia

Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIM: Twitter® use among paramedics and other prehospital care clinicians is
on the rise and is increasingly being used as a platform for continuing education and international
collaboration. In 2014, the hashtag #FOAMems was registered. It is used for the sharing of emergency
medical services, paramedicine, and prehospital care‑related content. It is a component of the ‘free
open‑access meducation’ (FOAM) movement. The aim of this study was to characterize and evaluate
the content of #FOAMems tweets since registration.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: An analytical report for #FOAMems was generated on symplur.com
from February 4, 2014, to April 30, 2017. A transcript of all #FOAMems tweets for a randomly selected
1 month period (October 2015) was generated, and quantitative content analysis was performed by
two reviewers. Tweets were categorized according to source (original tweet/retweet) and whether
referenced. The top 92 tweeters were analyzed for professional identity.
RESULTS: During the study period, there were over 99,000 tweets containing #FOAMems, by
over 9,200 participants. These resulted in almost 144 million impressions. Of the top 92 tweeters,
50 were paramedics (54%). Tweets were mainly related to cardiac (23%), leadership (19%), and
trauma (14%). The 1‑month period resulted in 649 original tweets, with 2110 retweets; 1070 of these
were referenced.
CONCLUSION: Paramedics are engaging with both clinical and nonclinical content on Twitter® using
#FOAMems. Social media resources are widely shared, which is in line with the FOAM movement’s
philosophy. However, opportunities exist for paramedics to share further diverse resources supported
by referenced material.

Keywords

Education
online
paramedic
social media
twitter
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Journal of Education and Health Promotion
Volume 8, Issue 3
March 2018
Pages 1-5

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