1. Plugging in to the Patient
Social Media Trends in Healthcare
By Rita Vest, Vest Advertising, Marketing & PR

2. 12.54% of Hospitals with Websites Use
12.54% of Hospitals with Websites use Social Media
Social Media
351 Use
Social
Media
2,800
Hospital
Websites
6,000 US
Hospitals
Source: EdBennett.org – August 2009

3. Howare they using it? It?
How Are They Using

4. Where Do People Search Online for Health
Information?
Source:
iCrossing-
Wikipedia How America
Searches,
Health &
Wellness
2008
Research Engines
Health Portals
Social Media
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

5. Consumers Are Consulting Commercial Sites
and More for Health Information

6. Mayo Clinic Medical Edge — The Foundation of Their
Strategy
»A team of five internal journalists produced material
with general audience interest:
» Medical Edge TV—short weekly healthcast airing on
more than 100 news stations in the US, Canada and
even as far away as Egypt and the West Indies
»Mayo Clinic Newspaper—a twice weekly, question and
answer newspaper column syndicated nationally
through Tribune Media Services

7. Online Medical Resources Are the Wave of the Future
»$40 billion will be spent in the next 10 years in
telemedicine
»Lowers cost of patient interactions
»Promotes wellness and prevention
»Digitizes medical records
»Increases patient loyalty and satisfaction
»Investing in technology is a smart expenditure
regardless of the outcome of healthcare reform

8. Social Media for Hospitals — More than just Chat...
»Customer service tool
»Crisis communication & opt-in news channel
»Employee recognition/fundraising tool
»Public health information system
»Referring physician interface/database
»Community opportunity for patient sharing and support
»Outreach platform from patients to their families

9. Viral Public Outreach

10. Government Outreach
»Flu.gov receives hundreds of amateur ads—winner
gets $2500 cash. Contest widely reported in
national mainstream news media.
»E-cards—send a viral video card on flu prevention
to your friends
»Online toolkits for schools, universities to
communicate to students
»Extensive how-to information for special populations

11. FDA Peanut Recall Widget
»When the FDA recalled
several brands of peanut
based products, people
went to the Internet first for
details. The FDA recall
widget app got:
»19 million unique visitors for
the main site
»Placement on 20,000
websites

12. CEO Management by Blogging
» Paul Levy, CEO
Beth Israel
Deaconess
Hospital, Boston

13. His Blog is a Channel for Rallying Staff in
Economic Crisis
»700 jobs to be cut, mostly lower staff level
»Announced town hall meetings on his blog
»Town halls explained what needed to be done and
asked the staff for suggestions
»Boston Globe invite to attend an internal meeting

14. CEO Management by Blogging

15. Results: 500 Jobs Saved
»Standing ovations from employees & outpouring of
team support on his blog
»More than 100 messages an hour for days
»Hundreds of suggestions for cost cutting
»Departments and individuals offer to take pay cuts,
giving up overtime, and vacation

16. CEO Management by Blogging

17. Levy’s Lessons in Radical Transparency
»Post every comment, no matter how negative
»Treat all your employees like adults
»Treat all employees as equally important
»Reveal everything—infection rates, outcomes—and
encourage interdepartmental competition

18. Patients Are Amazed when you listen and respond…
Patients are amazed When You Listen and Respond...

19. Patient Education Gets Specific & Visual (Emmi)

20. Emmi to the People
http://www.emmisolutions.com/demo/
»See instructional video for thousands of procedures
»Look up medical terms in their wiki
»Send a personal message to your doctor/surgeon
»Send specific pre-operative instructions to patients
»Can be used for doctors, hospitals, outpatient
centers—monthly bill by size

21. Develop an Audience that wants your p.r.
audience Wants your PR
»Sutter Eden
Medical in
Castro Valley
offers up-to-
the-minute
news of the
construction of
its new facility
…including a
24/7 online
webcam!

22. Nearly1,500 people follow their releases on Twitter
Nearly 1,500 People Follow their Releases on Twitter

23. Extend Your Communications Resources in Crisis
» Sutter Eden
Medical used its
news blog to
confront a
nurse’s strike
head on. They
even took the
extremely bold
step of
embedding a
link to the full
text of the
nurse’s lawsuit
document
online.

24. SocialMedia is the hero
Social Media is the Hero
»Brings vital information to the
public quickly in an emergency
»Allows the public to pass along
correct information to their friends
»Makes the information accessible
by mobile phone
Emory University
Hospital—icons on their
home page
»Clears the phone lines for only the
most important calls

25. Help Patients Reach Out to Their Families
and Loved Ones
»University of
Wisconsin
Healthcare
(UWHealth.org)
allows well-
wishers of
patients to
create a free
card online. It
is then printed
out and
delivered to
the patient in
his or her room.

26. Customized Care Pages Take the Stress Out of Family
Updates
»Patients at
UW Health
can create a
custom
update
website with
photos/
video and
Facebook-
style wall

27. Increase Foundation Giving

28. Integris Health Guardian Angel Program
»When a patient has a good experience with a hospital
employee, they can go to this website to write up their
story
»They can make a donation to the Integris Health
Foundation in the employee’s name
»The employee who is honored gets a Guardian Angel
pin to wear on his or her uniform
»Patients see these pins, ask, and the whole cycle starts
again

29. Use Social Media to Create Niche Patient
Communities

30. Georgetown Bariatrics Online Patient Services
»Password-protected patient community allows them to
exchange tips with each other and offer support—a key
for the long-term health of these patients
»Sign up for educational sessions online, read latest
research and national news in bariatrics
»Ask questions of staff online
»E-commerce for patients to buy special food, vitamins
and other products just for bariatric patients
»Download all new patient forms

31. Georgetown Bariatrics Proves You Don’t Have to
Be a Healthcare Giant to Be Big in Social Media
»In addition to a
qualification test,
Georgetown
offers this self test,
which allows
potential patients
to enter their
information, and
see how being
obese raises their
daily expenses.

32. Use Online Tactics to Reach Out to Referring
Physicians
»MD Anderson
Center has
online research
publication for
physicians about
breakthroughs in
cancer
treatment.

33. Going the Extra Mile for Physician Accessibility
» my.MDAnderson.com
portal allows
physicians to book
appointments,
exchange files, hear
dictated notes on their
patient from MD
Anderson Docs, and
access clinical trial info

34. MDAnderson Online Professional Resources

35. MD Anderson’s Amazing Array of Online Physician
Support…
»Calculators to predict the response of patients to
chemotherapy and probable survival rates
»Database of information on complementary and
alternative medicine and their effects on cancer
»Second opinion service on tissue samples
»Physicians network to provide MDAnderson branded
cancer care nationwide
»Online Oncology toolkit

36. MD Anderson Online Oncology Toolkit

37. MD Anderson Online Oncology Toolkit
»Offers iTunes University for referring physicians,
with extensive, long format podcasts from MD
Anderson’s cancer experts
»Free online training programs for referring
physician’s staff
»Downloads of handout materials from every
major medical conference regarding cancer
»MD Anderson faculty speaker’s bureau

38. Releases on Studies and Breakthroughs Aimed
Directly at Medical Audience

39. Use Online Tools to Differentiate Your Brand

40. Vest Advertising/Dr. Shep
»Goal to build Dr. Schrepferman as a national hub
for vasectomy reversal
»Video of his micro-surgery
»Online message from Dr. Shep
»Book travel for surgery through his online
concierge
»Conducts free online consultations with patients
through Skype

41. Mayo Clinic—A Lesson In How It’s Done

42. Mayo Clinic Medical Edge—The Foundation of their
Strategy
»A team of five internal journalists produced material with
general audience interest:
»Medical Edge TV—short weekly healthcast airing on more
than 100 news stations in the US, Canada and even as far
away as Egpyt and the West Indies
»Mayo Clinic Newspaper—a twice weekly, question and
answer newspaper column syndicated nationally through
Tribune Media Services

43. Mayo Clinic Medical Edge
»Medical Edge Radio—Daily 60 second health
broadcast going to nearly 200 radio stations daily in the
US, Canada, and even as far away as Australia
»Created advertising/syndicated outposts on popular
sites with sharing platforms. All roads point back to
Mayo Clinic’s website properties.

44. Program Builds with iTunes
»Mayo
expanded its
program with
more detailed
podcasts,
available on
RSS, in bone
health, cancer,
children’s,
men’s and
women’s health

45. Simple Flip Camera Videos Used to Create Mayo
Clinic YouTube Channel

46. Low Investment=Big Results
»Videos range from repurposed “Medical Edge” TV
segments to spontaneous physician interviews, patient
stories, and more
»444 videos now on the channel (9/09) most ranging in
viewers around 4.4 million viewers each
»In spite of the huge volume of uploads, there are 712 RSS
subscribers to the YouTube channel

47. Mayo Clinic on Twitter
»Mayo tweets
link to its existing
online news
stories and
posts. More
than 1,400
people follow
them here.

48. Mayo Clinic News Blog
»WordPress
format makes
news quick to
upload
»Journalists can
enter interview
requests online
»Embargoed
posts are
password
protected

49. Sharing Mayo Clinic
»Patient Blog
allows grateful
patients to
upload their
experiences
»Submission
guidelines warn
patients of risk of
public disclosure

50. Mayo Clinic on Facebook
»8,981 fans follow
Mayo on
Facebook
»Patient stories,
general health
discussions
»Medical
questions are
always answered
by a request to
contact your
physician

51. Who Else is Getting Big Results?
»Duke Health got nearly 5.5 billion unique views for its
online videos
»Henry Ford Health saw a 9.5 percent increase in
registrations after it started offering live surgical Twitter
casts
»National Library of Medicine sees so much chatter
about health online, they are starting to do a semantic
language analysis of Twitter to identify emerging
public health concerns

52. How do we measure this?
»Google Analytics—gives you a very good picture of
the numbers of viewers on your site, when viewership
spikes, and what pages interest them the most. You
can also run the numbers for your competition!
»Online polls give you instant visitor feedback
»# of RSS feed subscribers, # of Facebook fans
»Online advertising helps support your site, and you
can count visitors who click through, especially when
you use a landing page

53. Measurement Tactics
»# of views on videos, # of downloads for podcasts
»Google alerts to show who else is discussing you
»Offsite analysis free tools—Quantcast, Compete, and
Alexa
»Paid services such as Radian6
»Increases in new patients, procedures done, or inquiries

54. How to start?
»Identify management’s priority areas and audiences
»Start small with one initiative to one audience, or
something simple like a news blog
»Measure carefully
»Get help from agencies and freelancers for overflow,
professional editing and initial planning
»Develop internal resources

55. Thanks for joining us today!
» Rita Vest, President
»Vest Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations
Louisville, KY
»502-267-5335
»ritav@vestadvertising.com

56. Websites Worth Visiting
»http://www.mayoclinic.com/
»http://www.youtube.com/user/InnovisHealthChannel
»http://www.dukehealth.org/
»http://www.georgetownbariatrics.com
»https://my.mdanderson.org/
»http://www.flu.gov/
»http://ebennett.org/
»http://edenmedcenter.org/