“Take Two Aspirin And Tweet Me In The Morning”. This is how Dr Jay Parkinson and many other techno savvy physicians’ use social media for interacting with their patients.
Dr. Jay Parkinson, the Brooklyn-based primary care physician who has been referred as the “The Doctor of the Future” and one of the “Top Ten Most Creative People in Healthcare” formed “Hello Health” – the paperless, concierge practice that deploys web-based secure social media network and electronic medical record enabling doctors to communicate, document, and transact with their patients in person and online via email, IM, and video chat, twitter, facebook etc. Welcome to the world of SOCIAL HEALTHCARE
The rise of e-Patients has created many opportunities for engagement for healthcare providers. (E-Patients are defined as those "who are equipped, enabled, empowered and engaged in their health and health care decisions). By integrating e-patients into the healthcare marketing mix, organizations can engage patients, develop their brands or build health care communities and much more, a trend that’s virtually certain to grow.
What is Social Networking?
Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups… people with shared interests, communities etc. Although it is possible to network socially in person (the way it was always done traditionally!) nowadays it is most popular and best known as being an online activity. Social networking websites are a virtual online community of internet users.
Social networking on the internet are empowering, engaging, and educating health care consumers and providers. While consumers use social networks like personal blogging, wikis, video-sharing, and other formats — for emotional support, they also heavily rely on them to manage health conditions.
Social networks represent a brave new world for healthcare. It offers a platform to individuals to communicate quickly, easily, broadly and inexpensively.
What is Social Media?
Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. It’s a blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of value and enriching communication. Think of regular media as a one Way Street where you can read a newspaper or listen to a report on television, but you have very limited ability to give thoughts on the matter. Social media, on the other hand, is a two –way street that gives patients a voice and not only can patients look behind the curtain and see what a physicians think but they can also respond to it. And it turn it helps healthcare organizations making in-depth health and medical news content available directly to patients in order to encourage feedback, dialog and sharing of information and thus creating excitement and raise public awareness for the company
Other than popular social networking sites which are also very active in healthcare arena like Face book, Twitter, LinkedIn, You tube, Flicker etc, here are some of the exclusive Healthcare Social Media sites:- Sermo, iMedExchange, Ozmosis, Medscape, Physician Connect, QuantiaMD, Relax Doc, Social MD, Patients Like Me, The Center for Connected Health, PeerClip, MDJunction, RateMDs, WEGO Health
Healthcare and social media - Growing Use in Healthcare
Can you really shop for by-pass surgery the way you shop for a tie? Will the successful pharma practice of direct to consumer marketing work in other forms of healthcare? How can healthcare delivery practitioners prepare for consumer-driven selection? Marketers, advertisers, and PR professionals across the spectrum of healthcare will be impacted by these questions as social media threat and opportunities come to healthcare.
Social media have revolutionized the healthcare industry and is quickly becoming the preferred resource for individuals seeking healthcare information. Patients turn to social networking groups to find others who are battling the same diseases (for patients preparing for the same type of surgery, following the tweets helps demystify the process and ideally reduces anxiety about upcoming operations.), share advice, recommend doctors, even sending other members a virtual hug, while clinicians connect to share information and learn from each other.
Hospitals all over the world are using social media as a marketing and communications tool to educate, publicize, entertain and otherwise trying to establish themselves as the go-to place for customers in need. With a Face book fan page, patients are regularly updated on the day to day developments, while a YouTube account are used to upload educational videos, similarly Twitter account is used to link to the latest press releases or the use of educational blogs about specific ailments. It’s even further used for scheduling appointments, appointment reminders, practice updates, or public health notifications.
Healthcare organizations also use social media to communicate their mission and vision, describe the services they offer, and some even offering health education on common diseases, what can be done to cope with conditions, and how to maximize the quality of life for the individual who is suffering from the disease.
Some organizations use social media to promote wellness and sponsor online support forums where individuals who are dealing with chronic health issues or catastrophic conditions can find support from others who are having similar experiences. Many organizations use social media to encourage philanthropy. By publicizing their services, promoting patient advocacy, displaying credentials, and describing the tangible and intangible community benefits they provide, organizations can encourage benefactors to invest in their mission.
Some healthcare organizations are beginning to recognize the potential impact of leveraging social media channels to complement recruitment and training efforts. They advertise their available positions and also search social media sites to determine the integrity and trustworthiness of potential hires. Weaving social media into healthcare training initiatives can provide multiple benefits, including:
Giving trainees a forum to ask questions and quickly receive answers
Providing presenters with immediate feedback from trainees
Enabling organizations to complement healthcare marketing efforts by sharing slideshows, video or pictures from training sessions on social sites like YouTube or Flickr.
On the contrary, according to a recent survey from Capstrat - Public Policy Polling survey, 84% of respondents said they would not use social media or instant messaging channels for medical communication if their doctors offered it. Instead, respondents said they prefer to turn to traditional electronic lines of communication, such as email and website interactions, when they need specific health consultations from their own doctor.
The results show that, while social media has a strong and growing role in healthcare communications among peer communities of patients, it is not the communication vehicle of choice when patients want to discuss medical issues with their doctors.
However, this doesn't mean the use of all digital communication is out of the question for patient-provider interaction. Respondents were more favourable toward email and online channels when used for appointment setting, medical record access, and nurse consultation.
Healthcare Marketing – The Social Way
As with all businesses, medical practices face stiff competition and budgetary constraints and must differentiate themselves by portraying value and quality to their prospective clients. With the increasing cost of healthcare and a growing number of available hospitals as options, more than ever, it’s essential for hospitals and health providers to rethink their healthcare marketing mix to include social media.
Given the statistics on healthcare consumers growing reliance on the internet, it should come as no surprise that physicians are beginning to adopt social media. Beyond communicating with patients and potential patients, a number of physicians are using online resources and social networks to collaborate with colleagues, to research potential diagnoses for patients and to enhance their medical knowledge. Social media has emerged as a powerful and effective tool for hospitals and healthcare organizations to stay on top of patients’ mind and maintain contact and relationships with other medical professionals, patients, and the general public.
The network effect of social media can cause “word of mouth” epidemics unlike anything that caregivers have ever seen before. Social media are just the way word of mouth happens in the 21st century. It’s nothing more than word-of-mouth extended into the electronic world. Hospitals and Healthcare units are realizing that word-of-mouth is the most significant driver to influence patients and so social media offers an opportunity to humanize what can be a scary, complex situation.
One of the most famous health-care facilities globally, the 118-year-old Mayo Clinic, is using social media tactics right from its inception. When Dr. Will Mayo and Dr. Charles Mayo built Mayo Clinic through collaboration with the Sisters of St. Francis, it was relatively unusual for patients to survive a hospital stay. Quite often they succumbed not to the underlying ailment but to an infection resulting from surgery. The Mayo brothers and the Franciscan sisters pioneered aseptic surgical techniques which meant that many more patients lived to tell their stories. And when they went home, they spread the word about their experience.
According to Lee Aase, Mayo Clinic's Manager of syndication and social media – “Word of mouth has been a crucial part of building Mayo's brand for more than a hundred year. People come to Mayo, have a good experience, go home and tell others about it. We see social media as the 21st Century version of word of mouth. We're talking to the whole world, potentially."
It is also important for the healthcare industry to have a sizable online presence to ensure that consumers aren’t misled by faulty information, like for Mayo clinic’s it all started initially & partly to keep others from “squatting” on the name and posing as Mayo Clinic. According to Joe Natale, VP-New Media, Johnson & Johnson “J&J monitors the site for adverse events and people who give incorrect medical advice and the expense of monitoring for adverse events runs from $100,000 to $1 million but aside from that anyone can post whatever they want”.
In the days of retail health, the possibilities for healthcare organizations to use social spending sites are limitless. Many healthcare organizations are using social media to engage with patients and consumers. When making your individual case for social media in healthcare marketing, leverage some of the great examples out there:
One organization to embrace Social Media wholeheartedly is the Mayo Clinic, whose Center for Social Media has a stated mission to "lead the social media revolution in healthcare, contributing to health and well being for people everywhere." Mayo has really embraced the idea of connecting with patients and advocate communities via blogs, podcasts, Twitter, and social networking — for instance the Sharing Mayo Clinic blog, which features the voices and stories of Mayo patients, is a wonderful example of how to use a blog to create opportunities to share and foster community. But there are even times when social media delivers unintended and unexpected outcomes that are wholly positive. In 2008 a woman and her mother leaving the Mayo Clinic stopped in the lobby to listen to an elderly couple playing the piano. The woman asked the couple to play another song and took a video of them with her phone. She posted the video to YouTube, where more than 7.5 million people have viewed it. This simple video communicated an image of the Mayo Clinic that no amount of purposeful advertising could have yielded.
Henry Ford Health System broadcasted surgeries and answer clinical questions live via Twitter. Doctors, medical students and curious non-medical personnel followed along as surgeons tweeted short updates on the kidney surgery to remove a cancerous tumour. Sarasota Memorial Hospital live-tweeted a kidney surgery, trading more than 1,900 tweets among followers during the procedure.
Johnson & Johnson acquired Childrenwithdiabetes.com, a community site for parents of kids with diabetes and receives an average traffic of 10,000 unique visitors a day.
These tips, of course, are just a starting point to help healthcare marketers make the case for social media in healthcare marketing and creating better connections with the healthcare community, hospitals and patients.
Although a majority of marketers have embraced online social media and user-generated content efforts, the rise in social networking and health-care blogging has sparked a nascent movement to set standards and guidelines that include conflicts-of-interest disclosure and privacy protection for "open media" in health care.
In an example of people forgetting to apply common sense when using social media, a nurse who lives in a rural area and has a frustrating experience with a patient one day. Coming home she merely intends to blow off steam to friends by venting about the situation on her Facebook page. Although she does not divulge any protected health information, one of her Facebook friends recognizes the patient based on the description and the situation. The friend is related to the patient and shares the nurse's comments. The patient is angry with the organization and accuses it of negligence in protecting her health information. As a result the hospitals have issued reminders for employees about the need for care and attention to standards of behaviour when using social media.
In an another example William Wells arrived at the emergency room at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach on April 9 mortally wounded. The 60-year-old had been stabbed more than a dozen times by a fellow nursing home resident, his throat slashed so savagely he was almost decapitated.
Instead of focusing on treating him, an employee said, St. Mary nurses and other hospital staff did the unthinkable: They snapped photos of the dying man and posted them on Facebook.
The challenge with social media is to take advantage of the opportunity without crossing any important professional and legal boundaries. American Medical Association created a policy about professionalism in the use of social media. Its guidelines include: maintaining standards of confidentiality; using privacy settings to safeguard personal information; and maintaining appropriate boundaries of the patient-physician relationship. In addition, the guidelines suggest that physicians bring any perceived unprofessional content on behalf of their colleagues to their attention and, if the colleagues do not take action, to bring the matter to the appropriate authorities. Lastly, the guidelines advise physicians that their actions online may negatively affect their reputations and medical career.
Conclusion
For marketers in any industry—from manufacturing to real estate to banking, and everything in between—making the business case for social media is very imperative. Corporations globally, from Starbucks to Dell, are using social media to reach customers, although hospitals have always been conservative in marketing to patients. But there is a growing number of healthcare organizations leveraging social media as more than a marketing and communications tool. They embrace social media as an "innovation catalyst" and deploy more collaborative models that foster broader engagement and knowledge sharing among patients, providers and trusted institutions. While the industry has taken a giant leap forward into the brave new social media world, but the reality is we've only scratched the surface of what is yet to come.
An inherent problem with the “buzz” from social media is that there is no way to rank their importance, and so they tend to be handled first‐in‐first‐out, if at all. But the biggest mistake hospitals make is confusing social media with one-way communication tools. Some hospitals have hundreds or thousands of people signed up to follow them on Twitter but only follow back a handful. Or they use Facebook to push out press releases and other information about their organization and to drive traffic back to their own Web site without showing any interest in what others are talking about.
Any advertising that encourages increased resource use and increases the costs of care is inherently in conflict with ethical medical care but social media offers an effective way of promoting your business and supporting any existing marketing activities at no extra cost.
But Social Media should always be a complementary part of marketing mix. In order for a hospital to be effective at Facebook or Twitter, someone needs to be there at all times to respond. But also there’s no one-size-fits-all answer for social media. Not every social media approach is appropriate for every hospital or health care organization. One need to find the right mix that works, more importantly, figuring out how to communicate therapeutically during social media interactions. Just because a hospital is on Facebook doesn't mean that they are building a meaningful Facebook experience for both the hospital and the patient. Whether you are looking to increase patient traffic to your office, enhance your reputation in the community, or just want to supplement your other marketing efforts, in order to realize the maximum benefit from social media marketing, it is important to strike a balance between excitement for the potential it holds as a marketing and information gathering resources versus the potential risks the medium represents given the public nature of the much of the information that is being shared in these online communities. People may say bad things about the facility—true or not—that can damage its reputation. At the same time, people may say very good things that can promote the facility. Learning to highlight the positives and manage the negatives is imperative for any organization embarking on social media.
It's even more challenging is to measure the ROI from Social Media initiatives. While real relationships are a valuable way to measure your social media ROI, measuring the success of a new marketing campaign should include the number of eyeballs, shakes and finger swipes, the number of blogs, articles, tweets and digs, the number of conversions, calls, responses and recommendations.
Social media has become an undeniable force, and its rapid, informal communication style represents both possibility and liability for healthcare organizations. Good policies and training help organizations pursue the benefits and mitigate the risks. Social media, if designed well, managed correctly, and supported by the system, could optimize both patient and provider experiences. But patients and providers need to live together in this space (and be supported by the system) to ensure social media is a cure and not a CURSE.
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