Health care officials adapting to social media
More and more, each medium is being used by businesses or corporations, looking for a way to reach out to potential consumers or customers. The technology also is being adopted by health care — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes of Health are all on Twitter, for example.
Local health care systems also are taking advantage of social media, setting up new ways to connect with patients and communities across the Metroplex. While using social media — which updates instantly, stays online for the public to view and is never truly anonymous, since computers can be tracked — is a powerful tool for those in health care to spread information, it is also a tool that should be used carefully to ensure patient health, safety and confidentiality are protected.
The Baylor Health Care System, based in Dallas with several hospitals in Tarrant County, including Baylor All Saints Medical Center at Fort Worth, and Texas Health Resources, headquartered in Arlington and with many locations throughout the area, including Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth and Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital, have made concerted efforts to reach out to North Texans through various social media sites. Both have Twitter feeds, Facebook pages and YouTube channels overseen by system public relations and marketing professionals.
The Tarrant County Medical Society also is on Twitter and Facebook, reaching out to its more than 3,000-person membership. The Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine at the UNT Health Science Center also is seeing students who are comfortable with and regularly use social media, although all are mindful of not discussing patients or specific cases, said Dr. Don Peska, dean of TCOM.
Peska said some in health care view social media skeptically, afraid it makes it too easy for health care professionals to discuss inappropriate information on a public platform. The health care industry is discussing social media, but adoption by organized systems or reliable professionals is slower than in some other industries.
“The crux of conversation has been about abuse, and for the most part it’s still a novelty,” he said.
While a great deal of debate has centered on misuse, Peska said there hasn’t been any incidents of misuse among the faculty or students at TCOM. Students are instilled with a strong sense of patient confidentiality, ethics and professionalism from the start of their medical education, he said, and other health care professionals are equally mindful of social media’s widespread impact and the need to think through content before posting it online.
At Texas Health Fort Worth, the hospital blog is overseen by Whitney Jodry, senior media relations and public information officer for that hospital as well as Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Azle. Jodry doesn’t write most of the blog content herself, though; it’s the health care professionals themselves who talk about issues. She has a rotating group of nurses, physicians and other professionals who write short posts that Jodry edits and posts.
“People are curious about what really happens in a hospital,” she said.
Megan Brooks, senior public relations specialist for Texas Health Arlington Memorial and Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest Fort Worth, keeps two blogs, one for each hospital, and she writes most of the content herself. She said the blogs gave her a chance to use an informal voice to share interesting stories about employees and patients.
“In the social media world, you’ll get called out very quickly if you don’t seem authentic,” Brooks said.
And just because she is a public relations professional doesn’t mean she’s trying to push a product or agenda, Brooks said. Jodry and staff at Baylor Health Care echoed the sentiment, and all said they tried to be selective about the information sent out and not bombard people online with updates or links.
“We don’t want to invade or interrupt the conversations they’re having online,” said Ashley Howland, senior marketing and public relations consultant in the media relations department for Baylor Health Care System.
Baylor, like Texas Health, tries to act as a trusted source for reliable, understandable health care information online, said Nikki Mitchell, director of media relations for Baylor Health Care System. The public relations officials in both systems said the ability to immediately reply to questions or comments through social media gives the platforms a new role as a customer service avenue.
Mitchell said using social media frequently in health care also comes with the responsibility to use it as any other means of communication: be useful, be relevant, be correct and relate back to the brand.
“All the same rules apply, no matter what media you’re talking to or what media world you’re in,” she said.
Baylor is developing a social media policy it expects to use in the near future, and Texas Health also has a policy in place for employees, said Wendell Watson, director of public relations for Texas Health Resources. Since it’s easy to search for topics or phrases online, anyone can run across anything posted by anyone else.
“It’s not an attempt to tell people how to handle their personal communications, but we want to make everyone aware, if you speak about anything related to the organization then you automatically become associated, whether it’s official or not,” he said.
Angie Burton, director of public relations for the Tarrant County Medical Society, uses social media as a way to reach the TCMS members as well as monitor information from other groups, like the Texas Medical Association. Information spreads—and changes—so quickly that keeping up online is often the easiest way to track everything, she said, but the society’s use of social media lets members choose how involved they want to be.
A physician can check the TCMS Twitter feed once a day, once a week or not at all, Burton said, or even change settings so that every post by the society gets sent to a Blackberry or phone. While many physicians still haven’t incorporated social media into their professional lives, she said, the local support for the society’s efforts has been encouraging.
“Any reaction I’ve heard has been, ‘Oh, good, what’s your handle, what’s your username?’” she said.
