Webinar: Providers should more readily adopt social media
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“The most important thing that hospitals can be doing is participating in those communities,” said Ed Bennett, who manages web operations for the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore and also maintains a blog, Found in Cache, on social media resources for healthcare professionals.
“When a person seeks out information about your organization and they feel comfortable doing that in a social network, then your organization needs to be visible in that arena,” he continued.
Bennett was joined for the editorially independent content aggregator’s Jan. 31 webinar by CEO Siemens Healthcare CEO John Glaser, PhD, and Texas Health Resources Senior Vice President and CIO Edward Marx. All three presenters agreed that hospitals without a social media presence should begin building one now.
“It’s really not that difficult,” Bennett said, suggesting that healthcare executives who want to implement a social media strategy start with their organization’s communications or marketing department. “Find someone passionate about social media, set up accounts and begin populating those sites with the news, information and topics you want to promote.”
Despite encouraging healthcare organizations to develop immediate social media presences, the presenters also said that healthcare organizations shouldn't open social media accounts just to get caught up. Glaser suggested that they develop goals and strategies, and Marx recommended that they maintain policies or guidelines for employees to follow when using social media sites.
Bennett added that it only takes limited resources to monitor social networking sites and to respond to activity that occurs there.
While it may be tempting to marginalize social media sites, Glaser said that there is an abundance of evidence showing the power behind social media and he believes that social media’s true power won’t be apparent until it’s been around longer. He also reminded listeners that it was easy to marginalize the automobile in the past.
Bennett suggested that healthcare organizations not think about social media as a tool that will produce a return on investment. “There’s a certain intrinsic value to being available to your customers, and when your customers are interacting on social networks, it makes perfect sense to be there so that they can talk to you.”
The presenters also encouraged healthcare executives not to be discouraged by the potential for negative activity on their organizations’ social media sites. Bennett suggested that organizations use a social media monitoring tool and have a plan in place for rapidly responding to negative feedback.
The communications department for one of the Texas Health Resources’ hospitals automatically receives texts informing them of activity on their social media sites, according to Marx. One time, a patient who’d been waiting too long to see a specialist shared that information on a social networking site. The communications team was able to immediately respond and the patient shared positive feedback during the rest of the visit.
“It’s a lot of fun and it’s not as frightening as you might think it is,” Bennett said.