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It is a Social Media Revolution! Getting ready for healthcare panel discussion.

South Carolina Hospital Association (@SCHospitals) and Carolina Healthcare Public Relations & Marketing Society have put together a Social Media Conference in Columbia, South Carolina; a conference to bring hospitals from North and South Carolina to have a conversation. They call it a Social Media Revolution.

Thought leaders Ed Bennett and Reed Smith will be leading the discussion and providing the platform for hospital discourse to flow freely…the conversation: what does Social Media mean for my hospital. If you want to follow the conversation on Twitter…Click Here or use the hashtag #smrev via Twitter.

I have been asked to lead a panel discussion in the afternoon, so I thought I would spend a few minutes to refine some notes for the discussion.

Here are our panelist:
Dr. David Geier (@DrDavidGeier)
Director of Sports Medicine | MUSC

Ronda Wilson (@GHShospitals)
Director of PR & Marketing | Georgetown Hospital

Andrew Busam (@randolphhosp)
Public Relations Coordinator | Randolph Hospital

Sally Foister (@SallySF & @GHS_org)
Director of Marketing | Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center

Discussion Points:

Marketing
– How did you get started?
– What are your successes?
– How did you get started operationally/organizationally
– How do you manage your outlets?
– How do you find the resources to manage?
– How does SM fit into overall strategy
– Georgetown – Why did you wait “so long” to integrate?
– Dr. Geier – How do you use it under the umbrella of a bigger organization?

HR/Careers
– How is SM being used as a HR/recruitment tool
– How do you manage conversations inside an organization? Or do you?
– Can it be used to recruit nurses?
– How are you using to promote career paths?
– Is recruitment a part of your strategy?

HIPPA/Patient Information

– How do you deal with privacy?
– How do you deal with SM Diagnosing?
– Do you want to be a thought leader online but not physician online?
– How do you use SM to create conversations as a physician?

General
– How can a small bed hospital use SM to engage a community?
– How do you monitor conversations and address audience concerns/complaints?
– How do you manage accounts?
– Who wears the “Company” hat or who keeps it personal?
– What is the strategy from an aesthetic branding perspective?

Health Care C-Suites…have time to blog?

One of the hardest parts of getting health care organizations to engage with blogs, is finding the personnel to actually write the blogs. The idea behind the blog is easy to sell to an organization, even the organization gets excited about the idea of the blog, but it ultimately comes down to servicing the blog. This even transcends social media technologies…once  an organization engages, then it is all about servicing the social media platforms.

This comes down to personnel and fundamental problem beyond staffing, integrating something new in the marketing/pr strategy. Hospitals and health care organizations are typically large organizations with a marketing staff that is already stretched.

Social media strategies have to integrate obtainable goals simple strategies that make time management a feasible part of the current workload. This provides a couple of things, user engagement and simple ROI. Health care marketing professionals have to find some positive result to integrate a new strategy inside the organization and their respective silo.

Executive leadership loves the idea of blogs because it gives them the power to control the message. It is an effective pr engine that allows C-Suite professionals to combat out-of-context quotes in newspapers and other forms of media. It is also provides a tremendous platform for C-Suite professionals to take a stand of health care issues related to health care reform. This issue has brought many CEO’s to the blogger world to protect the market space and the hospital they represent…why, it is a political battle that affects a hospitals’ bottom-line and patient ratings.

“Once step at a time!” – This is what I tell health care marketing directors and C-Suite professionals. If you want to start a social media strategy or a blogging strategy…do not bite off more than you can chew.

Write a mission statement for the strategy and plan out when you will service these social medias. This is purely a time management issue…plan it out! Decide who will service the blog or social media. If the CEO is going to write his/her blog, then set a schedule for them to integrate within the busy schedule. This means, integrate the proper technology to facilitate this action. Make sure IT turns down the firewalls so the CEO and marketing professional can access these sites. Also, if a marketing professional is going to help the CEO or Executive to service the blog, set schedules and goals for posts. Be prepared to step away from the schedule if a topical event comes to the forefront that needs to be addressed by the executive.

Also…create a simple strategy to measure your success. Do this from the beginning. Decide what you are “tracking.” Basically, how many times you update, how many followers, how many hits are generated via links, etc. Set obtainable goals.

With C-Suites in health care tackling the blogging world, look at other executives who are blogging. Check out the length of the posts and frequency of the updates. Also, decide whether you want to allow your audience to respond to your posts. This is crucial, because if you allow those to comment on your posts…you need to make sure respond to each comment. Find other blogs that you can regularly read. This is a part of your time management schedule and it allows you to learn not only the “in’s & out’s” of blogging, but it gets you in the language of blogging.

Social media for health care organizations is a reality, but now it us up to the organization how they not integrate the strategy but service it long term.

Great Health Care CEO Blogs:
Running A Hospital – Paul Levy – President and CEO of Beth Israel
Thornton Kirby’s Blog – President & CEO of South Carolina Hospital Association
William L. Roper, MD, MPH – CEO, University of North Carolina Health Care System

So what do you propose? What is your alternative healthcare reform?

So on Tuesday, March, 23, 2010…President Obama signed into law the new health care reform bill. In the months, days, and hours leading up to this bill becoming a law, there are LOTS of voices in complete opposition to this piece of legislation. There are even people in agreement there is need for reform, but this is not the best piece of legislation to achieve the goal at hand. There are states currently working overtime trying to pass legislation to block this federal law.

So here is the context, I am a thirty-six year old husband who owns a house, small business owner, helping a 23 year old pay her way through college, shopping to afford healthcare. This piece of legislation speaks to me…provides me some sense of hope. But, there are so many that believe this is not the correct path. But I have not heard one time, one suggestion that would be an alternative to this plan. Seriously, for all those who do not like this legislation, who are screaming out loud against this new law, what is your plan? What is your recommendation? What is your alternative?

So…here is your chance to let me know what you would propose. I want to be educated. I want to know what you think is the alternative? The current system is not working…I want reform. What is your reform. I want you to use the comment section to sound off with your alternative. I will approve all who write legitimate ideas, not party bashing ideas…real, legitimate ideas that provide people like me an opportunity for healthcare. I want to see if you can live up to the screaming and articulate a proposed solution. No foul language, no party bashing, no slanderous accusations….a real idea with real vision. Prove it…back it up.

Let’s see what you have!