Hospitals and social media are considered as a great mix as there are immense opportunities for connecting with the community and the patients and even collaborating with different hospitals and a variety of health systems. There are some medical groups, though, who are wary of the privacy issues and liability that will be opened up by social media. However, people have found a way to enjoy the benefits of social media and address its concerns at the same time. We will discus about the 10 ways hospitals are taking advantage of social media and this is not limited to customer service.
1) Mayo clinic
The Mayo Clinic is revered as an online resource for information related to medicine and it also offers advice and expert services for free. The medical group has tasted tremendous success in social media. It manages its own social media network which makes it easier for the patients to connect with the clinic and they get to know about the different promotion campaigns.
2) Rush university medical center
The Rush university medical center in Chicago directly connects with its patients and readers through blogging. The doctors there share first hand information about their experiences in various places like Dominican Republic and during the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The readers go through these blogs and they are able to follow what is happening in these places. The social media have helped the doctors to share their different stories of trauma and sacrifices.
3) Massachusetts general hospital
The researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital have developed an iPhone app that will help you to find the closest ER anywhere in the United States. The application was promoted extensively through twitter and Facebook and a YouTube video was also created which the bloggers embedded in their stories. The app created by the hospital was made popular through social media only.
4) Scott & White health care
Scott & White first came into the limelight during the Ft. Hood shooting crisis. It started sharing with the different communities the status of the different victims being admitted there. It also offered real time updates on ER access and hospital operation status.
5) Nebraska medical center
Nebraska medical center has an incredible presence on the YouTube. The medical center, in fact, encourages the patients to share their experiences on YouTube or any other social media. The center also makes use of QR codes to introduce their physicians to new and potential patients.
6) University of California San Francisco Benioff children’s hospital
The hospital has not only connected with the patients and community members, they have used the social media to raise more than $1 million for a hospital specially designed for children. They organized a fundraising contest based on social media and in double quick time they managed to go past the initial aim of $100,000.
7) WakeMed health & hospitals
In April 2011, WakeMed Health & Hospitals shared a video which showed a tornado passing through the area. The video immediately went viral in spite of the fact that it is not a medical story. The spokeswoman for the hospital has confirmed that they have found huge success through social media.
8) Texas health resources
Hospitals are using social media to connect to the community and to connect within themselves. At Texas Health Resources the physicians actively engage with each other using social media and also promote electronic health records.
9) Geisinger health system
The Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania successfully recruited physicians with the help of social media. They created a campaign for recruitment of physicians and that paid off. Not only was the campaign successful, it was cost effective too.
10) Henry Ford hospital
Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit live tweeted a brain surgery and in the process they discussed the procedure with close to 2,000 people. Later they uploaded a video of that surgery on YouTube and got great response. They hospital received attention on news channels. The hospital also uses Flickr and news feeds to reach out to patients.
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