Hôpital & transformations | Équipes, parcours & numérique — Pharmageek

One of the biggest struggles for hospital marketers is finding ways to engage patients on a long-term basis. Multi-media resources that utilize video, photographs, and social interaction are an excellent way to provide patients ...

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One expert explains that, to face the future, the health care industry must do more than simply update the hospitals of the present. (@DeborahDiSanzo on the #future of hospitals.

Health care organizations are late adopters of social media; as recently as 2009, a Brooklyn-based physician told the magazine Health Affairs that the medical profession "is fundamentally flawed relative to how today's world communicates and functions. ... It needs to be Facebook-ed (and) wiki-ed."

But now providers have joined the hospitality, entertainment and retail industries in using Facebook, along with Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and more to connect with their customers.

The goal of social media efforts is "to engage our community members in meaningful, two-way conversations and in doing so build brand awareness and customer loyalty," said Jenn Dearborn, Web manager for Concord Hospital in New Hampshire. She handles the hospital's social media content and strategy and the hospital's internal and external websites.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, also in New Hampshire, has had a full-time social media coordinator for the past year.

"It's hard work. This person is supposed to gauge the landscape, taking in, monitoring, listening to the conversation and looking beyond what people are saying on our pages to what people are saying about other providers, and what are they saying in the wellness space about how they can stay out of the hospital," said Roddy Young, Dartmouth-Hitchcock's vice president for communications and marketing.

His department is committed to maintaining its presence on social media because that's where people are and it's what they expect, he said.

"The way people consume music, media and movies, how they shop, how they access higher learning, it's all changed in unbelievable ways ... Someone who is 28 and lives life in the digital space, they want their health care experience to conform to the way they interact with other companies. We're trying to do the right thing to serve the wants and needs of the consumer and the demands of the consumer to have it served up at home, in real time, on their time."

For example, just last week, a patient wrote a Facebook post saying her dermatologist is "far from thorough," and asked for a number to call for a second opinion. The page moderator posted back less than 20 minutes later with a phone number for the dermatology department in Lebanon.

Two minutes after that, the patient posted a note of thanks.

Social media interactions aren't always so rosy.

In June, a Facebook user posted about his disappointment that most of the beverage options at the cafeteria are diet products, claiming the diet ingredient aspartame causes cancer and migraines. The next afternoon, the moderator posted a reply from a staff dietician. She noted that the cafeteria stocks naturally sugar-free options, and that the jury's still out on aspartame.

The good news, socially-speaking? Two other posters chimed in and had a conversation about what does and doesn't trigger their migraines.

No organization is going to hear only praise once it connects to the social-media hive, and there's no point trying to sweep digital complaints under the rug, said Brian DeKoning, director of social strategy for digital agency Raka.

"Really, any organization is going to hear complaints, whether they're on social media or not," DeKoning said. "Social media gives an organization an opportunity to respond quickly and be part of the conversation, rather than not know there are negative comments happening. For any organization, it's a benefit to be part of the conversation sooner rather than later."

One of the biggest challenges for health care organizations is the patience it takes to build a following on networks like Twitter.

"We have a lot of savvy people here, but the aggregation, the numbers you'd get in a market like Boston, that just isn't here," said Young. "We post, but we haven't hit resonance, but we're not going to stop."

That's good, DeKoning said.

Twitter, with its 140-character limit on posts, is an especially good way for health care organizations to interact with people, he said.

"It breaks down the barriers their traditional communications have to adhere to. If you've ever read a press release from a hospital, it's very formal and concerned with legality. Usually it's been edited by five different people. Twitter breaks that down and allows people to one-to-one communications, if the organization allows it.

"And the audience is there. Or, the audience will be there sooner or later."

By now you’ve read the often-quoted statistics from YouGov; 57 % of consumers have noted a social media connection with a hospital was likely to have a strong impact on their decision to seek out treatment at that facility. And a whopping 81% saw a social media presence as indicative of being “cutting edge.”

You’ve also no doubt read that 80% of internet users have looked up health information online.  From these well-circulated numbers we know that patients are online and they expect, nay, they want your hospital to be online as well.
In response to these numbers, you’ve established your Facebook page, set up your Twitter account, rolled out a YouTube channel and joined the increasing number ofhospitals jumping into Google Plus.  You’ve bought into the theory, now it’s time to focus on the practice.

Let’s look at five ways your hospital can begin making effective use of social media engagement.

1.  Prevention

Make use of your Google Plus/Facebook/Twitter feeds to share general health and wellness information with your local community.  Many hospitals are now sharing timely health & safety tips regarding staying safe during the holidays.  Here are three examples of the types of content being shared just in the past few days on Google Plus from some of the official Hospital accounts I follow .  National Library of Medicine   The CDC  Botsford Hospital

2. Reducing Patient Anxiety

Let’s face it, not many of us become awash with anticipation over our next trip to the hospital.  Social media channels give your facility an opportunity to help put patients more at ease before they set foot between your walls.  Dr. Howard Luks mentions in this interview  that patients who’ve stopped by his website are more comfortable when they arrive at his office, having gotten a feel for their doctor via his YouTube posts.   Your hospital’s YouTube Channel and/or hospital blog could give your patients a chance to see some of your own health professionals, putting a (hopefully welcoming) face to your facility and offering a preview of what to expect when they arrive in person.

3. Communicate Wait Times

Though not a widespread practice at the moment, some healthcare facilities have begun using social media platforms such as Twitter to keep their community updated on wait times.  They find it helpful to inform the public of what to expect before they get to the hospital and see this practice as a means of showing the community they take communication with their patients seriously.

4.  Emergency Response

We’ve already written about this topic in the past, so feel free to check out our platform blog post for a handful of tips on using social media to help respond to and prepare for emergencies.  Though Social channels could not replace current emergency response approaches, it could be used to help bolster current emergency response strategies.  For supplemental reading on this subject, have a look at the role social media played during the H1N1 situation from 2009.

5. Educating and Informing

This is a broad topic so let’s focus on one  of the newer aspects of patient and community education.  One of the hotter trends in hospital engagement is bringing your social media channels into the Operating Room.  Seeking to attract buzz as well as educate their patients by offering them a peek behind the curtain so to speak, hospitals are using Twitter in the OR and educating their community by answering questions during the procedures .

ocial media has become a part of our daily lives. We post on Facebook, share our thoughts in less than 140 characters on Twitter, update Google+, Instagram our latest pictures and post videos on YouTube.  With the constant sharing of information and time spent on social media channels, the question “should organizations allow or block access to social media sites from the work computers connected to the corporate network?” is often asked.

To get a better understanding of social media access within hospitals, we asked 640 Health Care Professionals in our Crowd the following question: “Does your hospital allow or block access to social media sties from work computers connected to the corporate network?”

Their results were split: social media access is blocked for 59% of the health care professionals that we asked, while 41% of the group is allowed access to social media channels on work computers connected to their corporate network. 

To give you a better sense of who answered, I’m going to break it down further:

Hospital Administrators: 50 administrators responded that access is blocked to social media sites for 66% of them, while social media access is allowed for 34% of them.

Physicians: of the 407 Physicians that we asked, 55% told us that social media access is blocked, while it is allowed for 45% of the physicians.

Nurses: of the 99 Nurses that we asked, social media access is blocked for 63%, while 36% are allowed access.

Nurse Practitioners: of the 84 that we asked 71% report that social media access is blocked on their work computers on the corporate network, while 29% are allowed access.

In all cases, more than half of each demographic is blocked from social media access on work computers connected to the corporate network. Physicians are granted the most access, while Nurse Practitioners have the least.