Social Media For Health Care — Advice for health care organizations on using social media

White Teeth Help When You Are Being Social

by Albert Maruggi on July 27, 2010

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:42 — 13.3MB)

Social media isn’t for every business but the more businesses implement social strategies the more that maxim may prove incorrect. Metro Dental Care is a dental practice that has several strong reasons for using social media. They are:

A large number, 39, locations across a relatively large geographic metro area.

Twin Cities metro residents actively use local web search in the dental keyword category
Research showed Metro Dental that convenience was a major factor for dental patients aligned with an attribute of their brand.
Dental is slightly less encumbered than other parts of health care from an insurance standpoint.

As you reflect on criteria 1-3 for Metro Dental you see characteristics that are not limited to healthcare at all. They are characteristics of potentially any retail, brick and mortar business. They have a large number of locations, with a significant amount of traffic required to support that business. Volume therefore is a factor. It is a topic where the web is used to inform consumers. I used Insights for Google to compare searches using a variety of key words in the dental health category comparing Chicago to Minneapolis/St. Paul. Across the board Minneapolis/St. Paul ranked higher in use of the web for information about dental than Chicago. It is just another data point that builds the case for being active and social online.

Metro Dental Director of Marketing & Communications, Candee Wolf, said convenience was a major factor for their patients and the market. Metro Dental as made convenience its brand mantra. From the 39 locations to extended office hours in the evenings and weekends, Metro Dental is about as patient friendly as you can get. Convenience is a buzz word for me in this era of communications. It means how can I save customers time?

Wolf said one of the first indications of convenience was a simple way to schedule appointments online. The form they have on line is perfect, simple, drop downs for type of visit, mobile number and email contact options to get back to the patient.

The trigger word convenience when it comes to brand means efficiency and simplicity. Take this concept of convenience further and being mobile also has merit. Being mobile is a condition between the originator of the information, the recipient, and their location. In the case of a health care entity who’s number one brand quality and differentiator is convenience, delivering information to a mobile receipient it is logical tactic. That mobility can be in the form of a Twitter profile, a mobile application or website, a text appointment reminder or other distribution tactics.

Lastly, in health care there are unique factors such as insurance coverage and in-network references that play a major role in customer selection. I some cases these factors may be so strong that it impacts the goals of a social media strategy or whether your organization participates online at all. This is less the case for Metro Dental, but it is not without consideration either. Insurance coverage and referrals do play a role in their ability to garner new customers. This has impacted the goals they established for their social media efforts. Those goals include the amount of conversation about Metro Dental, the quality of those conversations in terms of providing valuable information related to dental health, and is it convenient for those they are engaging online.

Twins, Teeth, and Tickets

Metro Dental has a distinction of being the provider of dental services for the Major League Baseball Minnesota Twins. Kind of a good thing considering they have a new stadium, Target Field, and are in the running for a playoff berth (at the time of this writing : ) ).

Metro Dental is running a social contest using #twiceaday to get people to brush for two minutes twice a day, and tweet about it. Then there is a drawing for Twins tickets. It’s the perfect tie in to A) their unique position of being the Twins’ dental care organization and B) getting people involved in an activity tied to dental health. I must admit brushing twice a day for two minutes is not convenient for me, but the contest was fun and reinforced a number of attributes about Metro Dental.

For those that like numbers this contest generated:

88% increase in Facebook fans from May 1 through July 1. In large part Metro Dental attributes this to the #twiceaday campaign and Facebook advertising (jump from 246 fans on May 1 to 462 fans on July 1–and still rising).
more than 50 tweets using the #twiceaday hash tag and growing it’s a summer long program.
11 blog posts by local mommy bloggers about the #twiceaday campaign in May and June.63 total comments on those 11 blog posts in May and June.

In this podcast Candee Wolf and April Meyer discuss the details of the #twiceaday contest and their observations of social media in this health care setting.

Disclosure: I did win tickets but I credit that to my exceptional daughter who made me brush #twiceaday

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Social Media Major Part of Twin Cities Nurses Contract PR Strategy

by Albert Maruggi on May 24, 2010

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:59 — 25.2MB)

Minnesota Nurses Vote For One Day Strike

Twin Cities Nurses Approve One Day Strike

In the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, hospitals and the Minnesota Nurses Union are in the middle of contract negotiations. The public relations strategies of this contact negotiation have two different perspectives, much the same way that each side has their position on contact talks.

The union has aggressively used social media implementing Facebook, Twitter and a separate blog on the Word Press Minnesota Nurses blog platform in addition to their website. The Twin Cities hospitals formed a coalition of six hospital systems representing about 22 hospitals that has taken a more traditional approach toward its communications.

In this podcast we talk with John Nemo, director of public relations for the Minnesota Nurses Association about their use of social media. We focused solely on the strategy and tactics used during this labor negotiation which is still an ongoing story. This interview was conducted on Friday, May 21 just after the Twin Cities Minnesota nurses voted to approve a one day strike.

The criteria of many healthcare related labor negotiations have common themes including:

a public timeline,
naturally occurring news cycles based on deadlines,
potentially wide impact across the consumer population,
emotional connection to both individuals and communities, and,
the potential angle of generating public sentiment that could impact either the negotiations and/or other entities such as legislators.

I highlight this to give context to the environments where I believe social media can be implemented.

I also have a request to interview the hospital coalition and thought it best to do that as a separate interview and podcast. For the purpose of putting the hospitals’ public presence into perspective I have talked with individuals familiar with the issue. The lack of social media participation on their part perhaps indicates the coalition’s desire not feed the emotional embers which are inherent in most contract negotiations. In the case of management vs. labor the chances of generating as many individuals “liking” a management page is not a fair comparison and therefore may give a perception that has little basis in fact. Are coworkers of nurses going to publicly “Like” management’s position Facebook page even if they agree with that position? Unlikely.

There are however other examples of hospitals taking the contract discussion public to be transparent about the running of a hospital. An example is Paul Levy of CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who spoke out openly when that hospital was in negotiations with the Service Employees International Union SEIU

I hope to explore the Twin Cities hospitals position further. Follow me on Twitter @albertmaruggi for updates on this story. What are your thoughts about taking health care related labor negotiations public?

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Diabetes Innovation Using Crowd Sourcing

April 12, 2010

Diabetes Mine and Amy Tenderich is at it again, pushing the envelope for diabetes patients and in social media. They are in the middle of the their third annual Design Challenge, a recognition program for ideas, prototype, and new products for meeting the needs of diabetes patients.
It’s a fascinating way medical [...]

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Taking The Bull by The Horns

February 19, 2010

Guest Post by Colleen McGuire
A Conversation with Colleen McGuire
When I was 10 years old, my mother was diagnosed with advance stage malignant melanoma. While my parents didn’t disclose the severity of her illness at the time, my grade-school intellect could tell the prognosis was not good.
Almost immediately mom did what she does [...]

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The Serious Phase of Social Media and Health Care

January 17, 2010

At times I have been critical of health care organizations jumping on Twitter or other social media platforms just to check a box on a list or react to a senior manager’s question/suggestion “what are we doing about Facebook and Twitter?” The marketing or PR departments of hospitals took on the assignment to be responsive [...]

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On the Brink of Health Care Reform

December 28, 2009

This candid discussion on the December 27 Meet the Press highlights the budget pressures of the health care reform bills as they are currently crafted in the House and Senate. At the very least, this is a measure to get more of the 40 million uninsured covered. It also attempts to address the unfairness [...]

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← Previous Entries

Advice for health care organizations on using social media

Diabetes Innovation Using Crowd Sourcing

Taking The Bull by The Horns

The Serious Phase of Social Media and Health Care

On the Brink of Health Care Reform

Running a Hospital – Read This An You Want to Work There

Health Populi – Don’t Miss Jane Sarasohn-Kahn

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