Evaluating YouTube as a Source of Patient Education on the Role of the Hospitalist: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Hospital medicine is a relatively new specialty field, dedicated to the delivery of comprehensive medical care to hospitalized patients. YouTube is one of the most frequently used websites, offering access to a gamut of videos from self-produced to professionally made. OBJECTIVE: The aim of our study was to determine the adequacy of YouTube as an effective means to define and depict the role of hospitalists. METHODS: YouTube was searched on November 17, 2014, using the following search words: “hospitalist,” “hospitalist definition,” “what is the role of a hospitalist,” “define hospitalist,” and “who is a hospitalist.” Videos found only in the first 10 pages of each search were included. Non-English, noneducational, and nonrelevant videos were excluded. A novel 7-point scoring tool was created by the authors based on the definition of a hospitalist adopted by the Society of Hospital Medicine. Three independent reviewers evaluated, scored, and classified the videos into high, intermediate, and low quality based on the average score. RESULTS: A total of 102 videos out of 855 were identified as relevant and included in the analysis. Videos uploaded by academic institutions had the highest mean score. Only 6 videos were classified as high quality, 53 as intermediate quality, and 42 as low quality, with 82.4% (84/102) of the videos scoring an average of 4 or less. CONCLUSIONS: Most videos found in the search of a hospitalist definition are inadequate. Leading medical organizations and academic institutions should consider producing and uploading quality videos to YouTube to help patients and their families better understand the roles and definition of the hospitalist.