Social Media Strategies & Healthcare PR

Hospitals and Social Media

This week we are going to highlight hospitals with inspiring social media strategies.We are going to highlight hospitals within the United States that have embraced social media and relationship building.

Hospitals and social media are a great mix, offering a wealth of opportunities for connecting with the community, patients, and even collaborating across health systems and between different hospitals. Some medical groups are wary of the liability and privacy issues that social media may open up, but others have found ways to manage these concerns and enjoy the benefits of using social media. Read on, and you’ll learn about 20 inspiring ways hospitals are using social media, from crisis communication to customer service.

Children’s Medical Center Dallas

Living organ donation is an amazing gift and process, and Children’s Medical Center was able to share a special family’s story through Twitter. As a Texas firefighter donated his kidney to his three-year-old son, the Twitterverse was able to follow along with their successful story from start to finish, shared by none other than the mom and wife. With nearly 85,000 people on the waiting list for a kidney, Children’s Medical Center media relations manager Jessica Newell hopes that "twittering from this surgery will help raise awareness for organ donation, as well as living organ donation."

University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

Twitter and social media in general can be a scary thing for hospitals, opening up issues of liability and uncomfortable situations. But at least at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, doctors and professors recognize Twitter as an incredibly valuable tool for learning and training. Dr. Philip L. Glick shares his insight: "[A] lot of the training consists of passing on information, lessons learned, and wisdom to the next generation. Twitter allows us to dramatically scale up our ability to do this. When I post something on Twitter, all the pediatric surgeons, trainees and colleagues in the country and the world can see it instantly." In addition to small updates, University at Buffalo uses social media to share audio and video of procedures, breaking them down into small pieces that offer opportunities for sharing and teaching.

 St. Luke’s Cedar Rapids

Anxious groups of families and friends sit in hospital waiting rooms across the country, hoping to hear updates and news that their loved one is doing well. Some will find out about things as they go along, some simply when procedures are over. The level of information shared largely depends on the capacity and availability of the team of medical professionals at work. With Twitter, the time and energy necessary to share updates with loved ones is significantly decreased, and small, frequent updates can be shared in just moments, creating an opportunity for hospitals to better inform worried waiting rooms as things go along. At St. Luke’s Cedar Rapids, one family was able to enjoy this incredible level of customer service, as their 70-year-old mother Monna Cleary underwent a hysterectomy and uterine prolapse surgery. Cleary had given her OK for the hospital to share a play-by-play of her operation, and hospital spokeswoman Sarah Corizzo shared more than 300 tweets, allowing the family to follow along, and informing the general public. Corizzo answered questions, and fascinated nearly 700 people who followed along with the surgery. Hospital spokeswoman Laura Rainey pointed out that live-tweeting is a "more gentle" way to inform patients and consumers, allowing them to follow what’s going on without shocking visuals. Cleary’s son Joe and his siblings appreciated the opportunity, pointing out that "it made the time go by," and they enjoyed having real-time information and staying informed while in the waiting room.

 Southcoast Health System

Sharing information during a crisis is vital, even when you don’t have a lot of time or resources to do it. So when more than 50 people had to go to hospitals for treatment following a chemical fume exposure at a trash disposal station, Southcoast Hospital turned its Twitter account into a "crisis communication portal," sharing status updates for more than a week. Updates included status on admitted, discharged, and treated patients during the spill, and helpful information and links that kept the public and concerned loved ones constantly updated during the situation.

 Barnes-Jewish Hospital

Hospitals are full of stories that the community is interested in, with people overcoming great odds and going on to live healthier lives. At Barnes-Jewish Hospital, a 23-year-old heart transplant patient Megan Moss attracted lots of local interest, thanks to updates from the Barnes-Jewish Hospital blog, Touching Base.Additionally, Megan’s dad shared constant updates through his own blog. Moss’s story attracted so much attention, that one weekend, she got 75 emails through the hospital’s website with well wishes from friends, family, and strangers alike. Through numerous updates and even a video interview with the hospital’s director of heart transplant, both Moss and Barnes-Jewish got much deserved attention within the community.