Health IT, Hospitals

Hospital marketers branch out to Yammer and Tumblr to reach patients

Started in 2008 by one of the co-founders of PayPal, Yammer is a behind-the-firewall, institutional version of Facebook and has developed a base of 1,500 healthcare institutions and biotech companies in the U.S. and other countries, according to a Yammer spokeswoman.

The medical industry has developed a certain comfort level with the first generation of social media sites: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. A second wave – including Pinterest and Google+ – offers hospitals, medical device and pharmaceutical companies a new set of tools for building a social media strategy.

Andrew Wetzler is the president of More Visibility, a 12-year-old company that helps companies with search engine optimization and online strategies. He says the medical industry should consider multiple social media tools.

“For example, in a hospital there are so many practices that can develop a following,” he said. “The more credible an institution or pharmaceutical company is perceived in their field, the better that could be.”

He observes that healthcare organizations are still uncertain of how to justify spending money on social media based purely on return on investment. He says companies need to recognize these efforts are ultimately about driving traffic to their websites.

Shane Hoffman, project manager for social media and web services at Christiana Care Health System in Delaware, and Margaret Fontana, interactive media strategist with Meridian Health System in New Jersey, said the social media tools they use are generally intended to give their respective hospitals a more human face in the community.

Yammer. Started in 2008 by one of the co-founders of PayPal, the behind-the-firewall, institutional version of Facebook has developed a base of 1,500 healthcare institutions and biotech companies in the US and other countries, according to a Yammer spokeswoman. Hoffman said Yammer facilitates the discussion of internal business processes, academic discussions, patient cases, with a level of security that it would not have if it were using Facebook for these conversations. Christiana Care has used Yammer for about a year and uses it to facilitate dialogue between its two hospital campuses in Newark and Wilmington and its satellite locations.

Storify. Some hospitals are looking at Storify as a dynamic way to share patient care stories by using Tweets, Facebook posts, photos and videos. It’s possible to search multiple social networks from one place, and drag individual elements into a story. One hospital patient used it to create and share a multimedia account of his surgical procedure.

Tumblr. Christiana Care recently launched a website on Tumblr focusing on patient stories. The hospital system interlinks the Tumblr site with its own website. It frames patient stories based on their experiences at the hospital from donating a kidney to surviving a rare form of cancer, and telling the story behind the event. Launched in 2007, Tumblr had 44.3 million blogs as of February 12.

Flickr. I am used to searching the rich pickings of Flickr for work, but was interested to hear that several hospitals are using the website to make it easier for journalists to access photos of the hospital. It has been surprisingly helpful in broadening hospitals’ profiles. Christiana has used the site to highlight its virtual training and simulation facility, a launch of a Delaware lawmaker’s legislation and community outreach. Hoffman notes that med students in other states have sourced the hospital system’s photo collections for presentations on how to improve patient satisfaction and ethical issues. Meridian also uses Flickr. Launched in 2004, Flickr had 50 million registered users as of June 2011.

Ning. Launched in 2004, Ning is a bit like Facebook for people all interested in a certain topic, such as a band,  a volunteer group, or even a class room. Some Ning sites are private and users must be invited to join. Fontana said Meridian’s Ning site is called Meridian MomTourage and focuses moms in the community. It launched the website about one year ago and has more than 1,000 members. It includes blogs and video presentations from physicians focusing on topics in women’s health.

StumbleUpon. A procrastinators dream, Stumble Upon‘s random approach to article, video and image collection injects some unpredictability into the every day. It bills itself as a discovery engine. Each time the user clicks “stumble,” it generates a new article. Launched in 2001, it has 20 million users as of October 2011. A quick search on health generated a broad range of articles from newspapers, magazines, medical journals and other websites from a seven day diet detox to an article on longevity, to a picture of a medical library. One user’s page focused on reducing healthcare costs. Theoretically, physicians could use the website to improve patient awareness in specific areas like a how-to guide on glucose management or drugs under development for Alzheimer’s disease. It could be particularly useful for patient education and a bit more engaging then a Google search, if less organized.

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