Are you Twittering, getting friends on Facebook, and YouTube?
Are you Twittering, getting friends on Facebook, and YouTube?
Social media embraced as marketing, educational, and recruitment tools
How would you like to get more than 9,000 people to view a procedure at your facility? Methodist University Hospital in Memphis recently accomplished this feat during the live webcast of a surgical procedure. The broadcast paid off with 20 requests for more information and three requests for appointments.
"We have found that most patients are quite willing to participate in events that will help educate others with their medical condition," says Ruth Ann Hale, APR, director of media and community relations at Methodist University.
Many surgery providers and others are responding to economic pressures and competition by using social media, according to a recent article in The New York Times.1 Facilities use Twitter, YouTube, and patient blogs to market to and educate patients, recruit staff, and even obtain donations, the article says.
At Scripps Health, which manages four hospitals in San Diego, web technology director Marc Needham searches Twitter every workday for mentions of the health system, and he responds to many of them via "tweets." As a result of these Twitter saved searches, he has "seen dozens of people talking about their surgical and clinical experiences with Scripps," he reports.
He says the "unofficial" social media policy is to attempt new things, be nice, and don't say anything that the health system's legal department would object to. "As such, I generally steer well clear of anything clinical in nature," Needham says. "The only times that I ever reach out to people through social media channels are when I feel like it would be an appropriate use of the Scripps brand and when it can improve that person's situation in some marked way. Those situations, thus far, have generally related to finding a new physician, billing questions, and the odd question about facilities."
In fact, more than 250 hospitals and an unknown number of surgery centers use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or blogs, according to Ed Bennett, web strategy director for the University of Maryland Medical System in Baltimore. (Editor's note: See partial list at ebennett.org/hsnl/now.)
Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinic, Kansas City, MO, uses Facebook to announce upcoming events, place photos, and post published articles. Additionally, it uses YouTube to post television commercials. "The advantage is that it gets the Children's Mercy brand out there," says Jessica Salazar, manager of media relations. Children's Mercy also uses YouTube as an outlet for in-house physician interviews in which it provides a one- to two-minute monologue on a specific topic, Salazar says. Additionally, the YouTube site includes employee testimonials, she says.
Don't overlook these caveats
Despite the plusses, there are some negative aspects to online exposure, say social media experts interviewed by Same-Day Surgery. There's the potential for viruses and other malicious software (malware). Also, some health care managers report "shocking" tweets that fall into the TMI (too much information) category, such as "Sexy nurse just shaved my ______. Ready for surgery!"
Needham says, "A more pressing concern of mine than Twitter is what people post up on review sites such as Yelp.com." Former patients have posted some scathing and completely inappropriate items on those sites, he says, while other facilities report that incorrect information about their facilities have been put online. "People are posting incredibly graphic descriptions of their experiences in our facilities," Needham says. "They're that much more wont to share the negative experiences, and that presents a serious brand management issue for us — and every other health care [organization] in the country."
Also, the search indexes on those web sites are more efficient than Twitter's, Needham adds. Once information is posted online, it's there forever, sources point out. Needham's health system is considering adding a customer service position to focus on online channels, he says.
Same-Day Surgery reviewed Yelp comments regarding health care providers across the country and found these:
How can I let people who are so utterly incompetent be the people I entrust my health and life to? . . . They are the type of incompetents that would call you to schedule a visit to discuss your high cholesterol levels the day after you were buried.
Dried blood on stainless steel instrument tables in my room. Yes, dried blood. Human fluids on the floors of vacant rooms as well as on the waiting room furnishings. Seriously, OSHA, CDC, and HHS would have way too much fun with this place. Instruments handled by staff WITHOUT GLOVED HANDS. You can bet your sweet little ______ that I had them resterilize and glove up before probing me with ANYTHING.
In a perfect world, providers would have the resources to reach out to each potentially wronged patient to make sure action is taken to correct the negative parts of their experience and to ensure they never happen again, Needham says. "As an organization, we provide incredible high-quality care for almost universally grateful patients," he says. "The vocal minority of dissatisfied customers leave a very visible smear across search results that a potential new patient might be running across." [For a free subscription to the weekly alert, click here.]
Reference
- Belluck P. Webcast your brain surgery? Hospitals see marketing tool. The New York Times; May 24, 2009. Accessed at www.nytimes.com/2009.
Consider these 5 tips for social media To ensure that your presence on social media is as effective as possible, consider these suggestions: • Make sure patients whose procedures will be broadcast are fully educated. Methodist University Hospital in Memphis has Webcast and Twittered during surgery. Ruth Ann Hale, APR, director of media and community relations, says, "Every patient that participates in a public webcast is carefully chosen and have full awareness of the scope of the event that they are participating in. Our organization, from our board of directors to our physicians, is vehement protectors of patient privacy, and this type of event would not take place unless we had taken every possible step to ensure that the patients were fully engaged and positively on board." • Show the positive and negative aspects of surgery. E. Haavi Morreim, an ethicist at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, was quoted in a recent article in The New York Times as saying that showing the positive aspects of surgery, while ignoring the negative, can result in patients who are "misinformed or with excessively optimistic expectations."1 • If Twittering or broadcasting, have a plan in place in the event something goes wrong during surgery. In addition to obtaining the appropriate patient consents, have a backup plan, say experts interviewed by Same-Day Surgery. Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinic, Kansas City, MO, "had a plan in place if something went wrong in OR" that involved a stop to the tweeting, says Jessica Salazar, manager of media relations. Methodist University Hospital in Memphis has recorded an identical surgery to the one being webcast so the camera can cut away from the procedure, if needed.1 • Encourage satisfied staff and patients to post positive comments online. On one web site with negative comments against a hospital, including verbal attacks on the homeless patients, a doctor identified himself and explained the facility's mission to care for the less fortunate. He explained the high caliber of the staff and added that they have "way more heart than anywhere else in the city." He added: "If you want outstanding medical care, you won't find it better anywhere else." He added the he and several members of his family had undergone surgeries at the facility. Such comments can go a long way toward addressing negativity, sources say. • If you don't have the time to explore use of social media, hire someone. Genesis Health System in Davenport, IA, hired a web site vendor, Geonetric (www.geonetric.com) to set up Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts, says Marcie Fleischman, coordinator of electronic communications at Genesis Health. The health system also set up a patient blog web site. "There were not any specific costs for us to set up our blog as it was a 'module' in the content management software from our web site vendor," Fleischman says. "Our other social media outlets are all free." Reference
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Examples of using social media • At Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinic, Kansas City, MO, one physician performed surgery on a child from Mongolia while another physician updated the facility's Twitter site for viewers, which included family and friends abroad and the child's mother in the waiting room. "She said before the doctor came out to say everything was OK, she knew five minutes ago everything was OK," says Jessica Salazar, manager of media relations. • At Children's Mercy Hospital and Clinic in Kansas City, MO, had a seventh-grade patient undergoing a laparoscopic procedure. Her mother twittered about the surgery pre-operative experience, the wait during surgery, and the postoperative time. • Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit uses Twitter from the operating room. In one procedure, three surgeons participated. Two were scrubbed in at a time, while a third Twittered. • Genesis Health in Davenport, IA, has bariatric surgical patients, as well as pregnant patients, blog about their experiences at www1.genesishealth.com/weblogs. |
OR tweets aren't sweet, some commenters say Public debates pros, cons of Twittering While some managers tout the benefits of having someone on the staff Twitter during surgical procedures, the public has mixed ideas. Consider these comments posted with a recent article in The New York Times about OR Twittering:1 • Twittering from the OR brings to mind the California railroad engineer who was texting just before his train crashed. Sorry, guys, this is just plain dumb! — JM • This is, if you'll excuse me, a no-brainer. If I ever need surgery, brain or otherwise, I will definitely ask if anyone will be Twittering my operation. If they say yes then I'll find another doctor/hospital. I know it's a quaint notion but I feel that everyone in the room should be concentrating on keeping me alive and healthy, not Twittering: "I just opened up the skull!" — hank • Some things are mundane, others are not. . . . The nonmundane was when I had to have a needle breast biopsy. The hospital had video of exactly what would happen. I watched beforehand and felt calmer going in. It turned that the doctor performing the biopsy was the same one as on the video. — issy • Every day I drive past . . . the main medical center where I live . . . For the last year, there have been large signs covering the skywalk between the hospital and clinic encouraging people to log on to the website to watch a live 'lap band procedure' or knee surgery or cyberknife procedure. While I find it fascinating, and I wouldn't mind reading about it, believe me, I don't need the ENTIRE tour. — Jonathan • I read the sample Twitter feed posted by the article. My reaction was immediate and visceral. There were words but there was no humanity. It took something, brain surgery, that is both complex and wondrous and made it seem like preparing an omelet. It was dry and soul-deadening. It convinced me that Twitter is worse than useless. By removing all feelings it coarsens our existence. — hugh • Perhaps one commenter, concerned about his privacy, said it best in a calypso song he composed about gastroenterology: When I get my gastro gift this year My tube's insides will be unfurled—! And HIPAA assures that MY tube won't be posted –On YouTube 'round the world! Reference
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