How is your hospital sharing its stories with the national news media? Take a cue from UNC Health Care. Stephanie Crayton, media relations manager at UNC Health Care, dedicated a blog post and created a video about a small boy who survived incredible odds. The story was picked up by “Good Morning America.” Now, 1-year-old Jessiah Jackson, who survived having a metal rod lodged two inches into his head, is being called a “Miracle Baby.”
HMC News is a strong, growing network of healthcare communicators. Let’s take advantage of it. Do you have any burning questions about your role as a healthcare communicator? Please tweet any questions you might have—about social media policies, hospital exec staff, Twitter or Facebook—to @raganreporter. We’ll post your question here (and we can withhold your name, if you like) and help you find an answer.
Have you heard about Mayo Clinic’s Center for Social Media? According to Mayo, it’s a way to “spur broader and deeper engagement in social media by hospitals, medical professionals, and patients to improve health globally.” So, what exactly does this mean? 33 Charts.com says it could potentially help improve health literacy. Find more about it here.—William Ruben
It was the perfect storm of a social media event. A self-proclaimed new media journalist with sleeping problems was recruited by a PR agency to take part in what was billed as “the first ever social media sleep up” for Sleep Medicine Associates of Swedish Medical Center in Seattle. The journalist, Paul Balcerak, agreed to allow live video of him sleeping—yes, sleeping, during a sleep study—to be shown on the Web as doctors commented on what was happening and Swedish’s social media team tweeted about the event using #SleepUp as a hashtag. The result? Lots of buzz on Twitter and lots of media coverage. Read more here. –Tom Hughes
Does your hospital have a blog? It should. Rush University Medical Center can teach you how write a blog that patients will love. Did you know that a blogging is the best way to feed content to your hospital’s Twitter and Facebook sites? You can also use your blog to recruit doctors, nurses, and patients to your hospital. Mark your calendar for Monday, Aug. 30, at 2 p.m., Central Time.
By now, your healthcare organization has its Facebook page up and running and you actively post new and useful content on your wall. Great–the communication is flowing! Or is it flowing only one way? As Jonathan Richman says in Dose of Digital: “Over the past year or so, many pharma and healthcare companies have jumped into social media with many trying their hand at Facebook. Nearly all of these pages have one thing in common. They do not allow comments on the page’s wall.” You know your hospital needs to engage and listen to patients, right? But do your Facebook posts allow for comments and “likes” to help spread the word? If not, your Facebook page may not exist. —Erin Macartney
Paramount Recruitment in Connecticut is looking for a senior medical writer for healthcare communications. This person will be responsible for reporting to the editorial director, while working on a large number of new projects. Thanks to @HlthcarePRjobs on Twitter for this alert.
As you advise physicians on the new world of social media, here’s a blog post you may want to share with them. It’s about setting boundaries with patients, both online and off. Though it may be tempting to become personal friends with a patient, drawing the line at a professional relationship allows the physician to remain objective when evaluating and treating patients, writes Westby Fisher, M.D. “Our job is not to be people's friends, but their doctors—and maintaining a healthy divide between professional and social "friends" can be very difficult at times.” Have your physicians expressed concerns about patients “friending” them on Facebook?—Melissa Tizon
SOCIAL MEDIA IS EXPLODING IN HEALTH CARE COMMUNICATIONS!
You know Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogging and other social media channels have changed forever how health care companies talk to patients, employees and stakeholders.
Don't miss The 2nd Annual Social Media Summit Health care public relations, marketing and internal communications September 27-29, 2010 • Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Fla. REGISTER HERE
You know the tweet. Someone posts a message that's so self-congratulatory or maybe an obnoxious quote and you've had enough. Sorry, pal, you're unfollowed. What kind of tweets make you unfollow someone?
Graduation season is over, which means college grads are either in the workforce or looking for work (or maybe none of the above). What advice do you have for budding communicators in today's harsh hiring landscape?
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