Is Your Hospital “Twittering” Yet?

It may be a while before social networking is part of daily life in most hospitals, but the New York Times has reported that some hospitals have begun to use twitter, YouTube, blogs and facebook to attract and educate patients, reach out to donors, gain recognition and recruit physicians. According to the Times, Ed Bennett, Web Strategy Director for the University of Maryland Medical System and independent blogger, says that more than 250 hospitals are using some of the most common social media outlets. Bennett told the Times, “There’s a lot of surprise that hospitals are even doing this — hospitals are extremely conservative.”

There are concerns about privacy issues, but, given increasingly tight budgets, hospitals see the value of online tools as an inexpensive way to market their facilities. Some in the healthcare industry have also turned to online communication as a way to demystify the medical environment, posting twitter updates from the operating room and even — with the patient’s consent — real time video of medical procedures.

Some industry experts caution that the ease of use for some of these social media marketing outlets may make the hospital’s technology seem more advanced than their systems infrastructure actually warrants. However, any public misperception may be offset by the bonus of creating traffic to the hospital, both virtually and in real life.

While public outreach is an important aspect of social media marketing, some healthcare facilities are also finding value in reaching out to internal customers, like employees and even vendors. Want to know what’s going on with a hospital’s administration? See if you can follow them on twitter or check out their facebook company page. Our guess is that it won’t be long before travel nurses can learn a lot about a hospital’s culture and personality just by checking their cell phones.