Case Study: 6 Hospitals Using Social Media to Increase Patient Volume
Social Media is an essential tool to build long-term relationships with patients to increase patient volumes. Don’t think it is possible?
LaunchYourMovement.com showcases 6 case studies of hospitals using social media.
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1. Scripps uses Twitter to turn angry patients into loyal ones. Its basic approach of “try new things, be nice to people and don’t say anything that our legal department would object to‚Äù has yielded “little instances of gratitude that make what we’re doing worthwhile. Raging angry fires put out, people passing around our wellness stories, horrible reviews retracted and replaced with stories of great customer service.‚Äù
2. Norman Regional Health System spends 30 minutes a day on Twitter and Facebook. Through these tools, they’ve built a greater partnership with the press. They’ve had happy patients share their stories. And they’ve worked quickly with frustrated patients to get their issues resolved.
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3. Children’s Medical Center in Dallas tweeted about a kidney transplant from a father to his son. Twittering took place at both UT Southwestern Medical Center (where the kidney was removed from the father) and Children’s. According to data from Children’s (reported by Greystone), the results of this single event were as follows: “By the end of the day, Children’s Twitter followers had increased 370%, 40 interviews were scheduled over the following 9 days and more than 600 stories were garnered with more than 60 million impressions. In addition, 20 people contacted Children’s transplant program to request information about becoming an organ donor.‚Äù
4. At least 7 hospitals have used Twitter during live surgery. Their stories are embedded in these links. Common goals are both buzz building and patient education:
- St. Luke’s in Cedar Rapids (hysterectomy and uterine prolapse surgery). One hospital spokesman said, “A lot of people would like to go into the operating room and see what happens but don’t want all the visuals and stuff.‚Äù
- UNC Hospitals (heart procedure)
- Henry Ford (removal of a cancerous kidney mass). From the article: “Dr Craig Rogers, the lead surgeon in the Henry Ford surgery, said the impetus for his Twittering was to let people know that a tumor can be removed without taking the entire kidney.‚Äù
- Sherman Hospital (robot-assisted laparoscopic hysterectomy). During this surgery, 72 followers asked questions on Twitter, mostly related to the da Vinci® Surgical System.
- OSF St Joseph (brain surgery)
- Sinai Hospital in Baltimore (sleeve gastrectomy)
- Methodist University Hospital in Memphis (brain surgery). This one led to 21,000 YouTube views and 3 requests for appointments.
5. South Coast Health System uses Twitter for real-time crisis communication. After a big chemical spill in the neighborhood, 50 people were taken to local hospitals for treatment. Twitter was the perfect tool to stream live and breaking information about status, media reports and number of patients admitted and released.
6. St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital lets donors and patients tell their story for them. Its Facebook group now has 100,000+ fans.
Increase Patient Volumes By Using Very Specific Symptoms in Messages
Patients and prospective patients do not relate to generalized hospital brand messaging – they just don’t think it applies to them. But a message about a specific ailment or symptom will make them listen and take action.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index  tells us that a vast majority of Americans say they are in good physical health. But they say different things when asked about specific ailments regarding their health.
The point of this post:
Do not be too general in your brand message or consumers will ignore your messages
What we are really getting to here is that even your “brand messaging” needs to be service line or even procedure specific. Consumers will ignore general hospital advertising, but they will take action and contact you if you mention something specifically that is relevant to their current health.
It is tempting to believe you are helping the whole organization when you do branding ads and it’s a very common mistake. But nobody goes to the hospital because of the brand.
Elective procedures happen because either a physician referred the patient (a different topic) or a consumer took action to opt-in to one of your early detection risk assessments or informational events.
So, once again, the more symptom specific you can be- with a clear call-to-action next step – the more likely your advertising and communications will increase patient volume.
Increasing Profitable Patient Volume Without Jeopardizing Your Tax Exempt Status
The Illinois Supreme Court has denied Provena Covenant Medical Center’s appeal to regain its property tax exemption. “The record shows that during the period in question here, Provena did not advertise the availability of charity care,” Justice Lloyd Karmeier wrote for the majority.
Wow. Your advertising can jeopardize your tax status.
Regular readers know I always say that your job is to increase patient volume of high-incidence high-contribution clinical intake. THAT is what pays for the charity care. (read an earlier post about St. Vincent in Manhattan closing.)
The courts are looking at your marketing and advertising. What are they learning about you? Here is what they should be learning while you are also driving high-contribution clinical intake:
- You exist to better the health of your community – this means Prevention, Early Detection, and Wellness information
- You do charity care and advertise it. You can do well by doing good! Cancer DRG’s, for example, Medicaid is a great payer. And your messages to those patients in need will be so targeted that your suburban-employed-with-a-great-payer patients won’t even know you are doing it.
- You routinely have risk assessments for ALL in the community and have medical practitioners available (usually NP’s) to do exams and make appointments – even if you hold them in locations that are advantageous to those with a great payer
All these things serve your mission and make the health system money – both are important. When hospitals send messages to the community just like any other corporate marketer, the community will treat hospitals like any other corporate marketer.
But when you are true to your mission, your marketing should also reflect that. You must always remember, you are using marketing as a way to create financial sustainability AND as a way to benefit the community.
