GlobalData research has found the top influencers in healthcare based on their performance and engagement online. Using research from GlobalData’s Influencer platform, Hospital Management has named the most influential people in healthcare on Twitter during Q3 2020.

Biggest influencers in healthcare: The top ten in Q3 2020

1. Dale Needham (@DrDaleNeedham)

Dr Dale Needham is the medical director of critical care physical medicine and rehabilitation programme and the professor of medicine at John Hopkins University, Maryland. He specialises in areas such as pulmonary and critical care medicine, physical medicine and rehabilitation, delirium, and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

Dr Needham is also the principal investigator of National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants. His research interests include areas of sedation, improving mental, physical and cognitive outcomes in ICU patients, and early rehabilitation.

Twitter followers: 9,595

GlobalData influencer score: 100

2. John Nosta (@JohnNosta)

John Nosta is a technology theorist and the president of NostaLab, a healthcare innovation think tank that seeks to transform medicine, health, and wellness with technology. He specialises in areas such as medicine, innovation and science.

Nosta is also one of the founding members of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) digital health roster of experts and serves on Google’s health advisory board. He contributes to publications such as the Fortune Magazine and Psychology Today and hosts the technology podcast – Technology Quotient (TQ).

Twitter followers: 63,551

GlobalData influencer score: 99

3. Irma Rastegayeva (@IrmaRaste)

Irma Rastegayeva is a healthcare technologist specialising in areas such as strategic partnerships, product development, patient advocacy, and solutions engineering. She is the co-founder and chief innovation analyst of eVira Health, a marketing and advertising firm.

Rastegayeva is also the director of digital storytelling of Vanguard.Health, a management consulting company. She is a member board of directors at the American College of Healthcare Trustees, and a fellow faculty at the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.

Twitter followers: 14,474

GlobalData influencer score: 98

4. Tyson Lester (@TysonLester)

Tyson Lester is a licensed insurance professional currently serving as the president of Policy Advantage Insurance Services, a medical benefits brokerage. He specialises in areas such as hospital and physician contracting, disease management, performance-based incentives, compensation, and quality management.

Lester’s qualified lines of authority are accident and health insurance producer and life-only insurance producer. He previously worked as an agent for Aflac, an insurance company.

Twitter followers: 87,935

GlobalData influencer score: 93

5. Ash Paul (@pash22)

Ash Paul is a healthcare specialist currently working as a medical director at the East of England (EoE) Specialised Commissioning Group, part of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). His areas of interest include evidence-based health services and health policies.

Paul previously worked as a medical director of NHS Bedfordshire, a government agency that is responsible for the commissioning of healthcare services and care to the local population.

Twitter followers: 26,411

GlobalData influencer score: 86

6. Sherry Reynolds (@Cascadia)

Sherry Reynolds is a patient advocate and eHealth strategy expert. She is the executive director of Centre 4 Health Innovation, a non-profit research organisation, where she mentors and advises healthcare start-ups to co-design with patients’ needs.

She is the founder of Alliance4Health, a consulting firm focused on patient design and informatics. She is also the founding member of Consumer Advisory Group at the Puget Sound Health Alliance, a health alliance formed by patients, hospitals, doctors and others.

Twitter followers: 23,010

GlobalData influencer score: 86

7. Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt)

Andy Slavitt is a healthcare advocate and a former acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services between 2015 and 2017. He founded United States of Care, a non-partisan organisation and Town Hall Ventures, an information technology and services company.

Slavitt has decades of experience in healthcare, technology and business. He is a member of the Future of Health Care initiative and a senior advisor to the Bipartisan Policy Centre, a think tank.

Twitter followers: 617,200

GlobalData influencer score: 83

8. Gavin Preston (@GavinPrestonMD)

Gavin Preston is a retired physician and a cancer survivor. He has also authored the book – The Managed Care Blues: A Doctor’s Journey through a Broken Health Care System.

Preston describes the transition of an era of compassion to that of corporate greed in current American healthcare system. He writes about the solutions that can fix the system, and the absence of some critical solutions from America’s 2010 health care reform act.

Twitter followers: 74,268

GlobalData influencer score: 81

9. Tom Varghese (@TomVargheseJr)

Tom Varghese is a physician and a thoracic surgeon. He is the executive medical director, chief value officer, and head of general thoracis surgery at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. He is also the programme director, cardiothoracic surgery fellowship and associate professor at the department of surgery of the University of Utah School of Medicine.

Dr Varghese specialises in minimally invasive applications, and malignant diseases of the chest wall, lungs, oesophagus and mediastinum.

Twitter followers: 21,655

GlobalData influencer score: 81

10. Charles Gaba (@charles_gaba)

Charles Gaba is a healthcare specialist who launched the ACASignups.net that uses crowdsourcing to track real time enrolment data. The platform covers all areas related to the US healthcare system and its policies, ranging from Medicaid expansion, annual premium rate changes. It also highlights the advantages and disadvantages of moving towards a single payer healthcare among others.

Twitter followers: 41,571

GlobalData influencer score: 81

Methodology

GlobalData’s influencer identification framework identifies influencers based on relevance; size of network, connections and followers; engagement levels with their content and analysis and input from sector experts. Influencers are then evaluated on a series of specific topic-related keywords used over the period and weighted by engagement metrics.