Story County Medical Center, known as @storymedical on Twitter, is a full-service primary care hospital that has served Story County residents since 1951.

The Nevada-based hospital began using several social networking sites in July of this year as a way to help promote the opening of their new facility, Story Medical – South Campus.

One Web site the hospital is using in particular is Twitter, a popular service that allows users to send short messages to one another in a public forum.

Among the messages Story Medical is sending (known as tweets to Twitter users) related to the opening of their new facility and the services the hospital offers, they have also been sending at least one update per day tagged with #dailymedterm.

“As someone who doesn’t have a medical background, I knew that a lot of our patients weren’t familiar with many of the medical terms that physicians use every day. I thought the #dailymedterm would be a fun way to educate people.” – Ashley Moore, Ancillary Services Assistant at Story County Medical Center

This method of tagging tweets is called using a hashtag, which allows other messages using that same tag to be grouped together. When a user does a search for that hashtag on Twitter, #dailymedterm in this case, they have the opportunity to only view updates that include that term.

Although Story Medical started the hashtag, there are no rules that say others cannot participate. In fact, the #dailymedterm hashtag could be an opportunity for other Twitter users to ask questions about medical terms and what they mean. With other users suggesting terms, the process could become even more interactive.

I’ve seen a number of users commenting on how much they enjoy the #dailymedterm and think it is exactly the type of unique approach to Twitter that more organizations should be thinking about.

Congratulations Story Medical! Keep up the good work.

There are several new additions to IHA’s list of Iowa hospitals using social media.

• Mercy Medical Center – Sioux City is on Twitter and Facebook
• Humboldt Hospital has a blog
• Pella Regional Health Center is on Twitter
• Crawford County Memorial Hospital is on Twitter
• Great River Medical Center is on Twitter
• Story County Medical Center is on Twitter

This latest wave brings a flurry of tweets, increasing our totals to 13 hospitals in Iowa using Twitter.

How do you see hospitals being able to use social media?

Are these hospitals doing things right? Could they be doing things better? If your hospital was on Twitter, Facebook or somewhere else, what would you expect of them?

IHA is interested in hearing your thoughts and I will continue updating the list of Iowa hospitals using social media to keep everyone informed.

There are several new additions to IHA’s list of Iowa hospitals using social media.

• Iowa Health – Des Moines, Des Moines, has launched three pages on Facebook:
  • John Stoddard Cancer Center
  • Blank Children’s Hospital
  • Live Well progran
• Knoxville Hospital and Clinics, Knoxville, launched a blog and is on Twitter

Of nine Iowa hospitals implementing some form of social media, Twitter seems to be the dominant tool for getting started. Facebook pages come in at a close second and hospital blogs are third.

What do you want to know about social media?

I will continue updating IHA’s list of Iowa hospitals using social media to keep everyone abreast of hospital efforts, but what else would you like to know about social media?

Part of my responsibility at IHA is to be an educator in marketing web strategy, so I’d love to address any questions or concerns you may have.

According to a recent social media study by Michael Stelzner, an overwhelming majority (88%) of marketers say they are using some form of social media to market their business (Marketing Charts).

Survey respondents report that the top benefit of social media marketing is gaining attention for the business, and with 81% of all marketers indicating that their social media efforts have generated that exposure, those efforts appear to be paying off in a big way.

Improving traffic and growing marketing lists is the second major benefit, according to the study, followed by building new partnerships. The study also found more than half of participants reported that a major benefit of social media marketing is the resultant rise in search engine rankings that often comes with increased efforts.

Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook

The top four social media tools being used by all marketers are Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook, respectively. Twitter holds the top spot prominently with 86% of respondents saying they are using it.

Numbers for Twitter have not penetrated quite so far in the heath care marketing world, but a report from Ed Bennet says that there are 160 hospitals (out of 250 he is tracking) with Twitter accounts. The next most used social media tool  by hospitals is YouTube, then Facebook and blogs.

Bennett is the manager of web strategy at University of Maryland Medical System and maintains the “Hospital Social Network List” on his personal blog.

Iowa hospitals are also engaged in social media, Twitter

To our knowledge there are five hospitals in Iowa using at least one of the social media tools above, and four of whom are using Twitter.

Similar to Bennett’s list, we’ve developed our own for tracking Iowa hospitals using social media. This list can be used as a reference to see what others are doing in the space. If you’re doing this stuff and not on the list, please post in the comments below with links to your initiatives.

You can also follow the Iowa Hospital Association on Twitter as @iowahospital. We post links to relevant Iowa stories, share health care industry resources, communicate with other health care professionals and promote the people, places and achievements of Iowa hospitals.

If you have questions about any of the statistics above or about how your hospital can be leveraging social media in your communication strategy, feel free to send in your questions or add them as comments on this post.

If you’re someone who has heard about a social networking tool called Twitter but have no idea what it is, today is your chance to learn. Over 150 hospitals are currently using Twitter as an additional channel in their communication strategy, plus you’ll find state hospital associations (we are @iowahospital), doctors and other health care professionals using it on a daily basis to share information.

Tweetcamp II

Lee Aase, Manager of Syndication and Social Media for Mayo Clinic, will be hosting a free, hour-long training session today, Thursday, April 23, at 3pm CST.

This session, Tweetcamp II, is the second iteration of this course, based on the immense success of the first Tweetcamp training hosted last week. Read more