Since the dawn of social media, employers of all types—including hospitals—have struggled with using it. Given that hospitals care for particularly sensitive data, and that one thoughtless tweet or Facebook post could expose that hospital to serious liabilities, it’s not surprising that as of mid-2013, only 26% of hospitals were using social media.
But it’s becoming imperative that hospitals reach out via social media both to attract and retain patients. In a recent Spark Report survey, 41% of respondents said that social media would affect their choice of a specific doctor, hospital or medical facility. Organizations like the Mayo Clinic are already leveraging successful social media strategies to better serve patient needs.
To build a strong social media presence, staff members and clinicians need to know a certain amount about social media and be coached carefully on how to add value to the hospital without exposing it to a lawsuit or community disapproval. Otherwise, providers will have loose cannons roaming around the networks, something everybody fears.
Here are five approaches hospitals can take to ramp up their social media involvement with patients in a smart and engaged manner:
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Address patients directly: When hospitals use social media, it's often communicate to their colleagues. In fact, a study from last year concluded that only 18% of hospitals actively manage their Facebook pages for public consumption. The rest of the posts focus on employee-targeted content such as employee activities, awards and benefits, researchers found. Using social media solely as an in-house communication system is a significant wasted opportunity, however. Speaking to patients can be of enormous value and can greatly impact their perceptions of your institution—especially 18 to 24 year olds, the rising digital generation known as millennials, who are twice as likely to use social media for health-related discussions that 45 to 54 year olds.
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Solicit patient feedback: While it's not a large number yet, some hospitals are using Facebook and Twitter to recruit patients and their families as advisers, asking their opinions on planned improvements in care, new services and even facility names, FierceHealthcare notes. Hospitals should actively recruit patients to participate in social media discussion. Chat-geared environments like Twitter and Facebook provide an open forum that encourages patients to speak honestly about their needs.
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Spend money on smart strategies: If you want social media to connect you with your patients, you will need to invest in social media resources, including dedicated social media managers, (admittedly, sometimes at a price of $100,000 or more per year), a beefed up presence on virtually every network, original content that meets patient needs, and incentives for physicians to take part in online discussions. If your institution has loaded all social media responsibility on the marketing department, you simply aren't going to get the results you hope for, as marketing departments usually have their hands full already with other critical initiatives.
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Consider mobile social media: In developing a complementary app that serves patients, you are taking the critical step of finding them where they live and catering to their needs. After all, 56% of Americans say they own a smartphone. There's endless possibilities for creating useful social apps for patients, ranging from portals to the hospital, directories of physicians, access to lab results, ability to book physician appointments on the phone, and even (especially) telemedicine. If these all tie in nicely to your core online services, you've created a bond that's convenient, personal, and integrated with social media.
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Create a sophisticated blog: Too often, hospital blogs more or less collect the runoff from the marketing department, package it and slap it on the blog. That often ends up being boilerplate health advice, PR release-based hospital news and staff announcements. A glance at analytics data, however, should demonstrate that very few patients will connect with you over these blog entries. Instead, create a blog which initiates and sustains a dialogue with patients, on subjects that a broad cross-section of the community will find interesting. For example, a blog item announcing plans for new building might turn readers off, but the same item could work if the item contained good examples of how it will affect the patient. If need be, hire an expert who can write such a blog, and see to it that they post regularly, at least 2 to 3 times a week.
These are just a few ideas to consider when planning or rebooting your social media strategy. Only you know what you community needs, and every hospital will have unique approaches to test. But if social media is low on the totem pole when it comes to communication strategies, consider the new wave of always-on millennials just coming into adulthood that is on the march. They will take it seriously.