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.

• 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.

• 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.

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.

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.

Tweetcamp II will cover some of the same material as Tweetcamp I, but will have expanded examples of practical applications and case studies, particularly related to health care.

This course was primarily drawn up for Mayo Clinic employees, but will also be available via live webcast due to the number of interested participants. ABC’s Good Morning America ran a video story after the first training titled, “Why Doctors are Tweeting During Surgery,” which also profiles Twitter’s use in hospitals across the U.S.

How to Attend Today’s Training

1. Leave a comment on the original Tweetcamp II post with your name and organizational affiliation. Your email address will not be published, but is simply needed to verify your submission.
2. Follow Lee’s “3 Steps to Preparing for Tweetcamp II“:
   • Sign up for a Twitter account. If you need assistance, go through Twitter 102: Creating an Account.
   • Log into the #tweetcamp2 “room” in TweetChat using your Twitter username. Post a message announcing your plans to attend Tweetcamp II and include the following link: http://bit.ly/q9hgu
   • Watch the Mayo Clinic Music Fun video on Sharing Mayo Clinic.
3. Access the live webcast beginning at 2:55 pm CST to follow along with Lee’s presentation.

Following these steps will help you understand some of the power of Twitter. Tweetcamp II will give you even more hands-on experience, plus case studies for how it is already being used in health care.

Once the session is completed, don’t forget that you can follow the Iowa Hospital Association on Twitter as @iowahospital.

Update: the slides for today’s presentation are below.

Being the only hospital 100% open in Fargo has led to the need for quick decision-making in regards to the dissemination of information, especially while they’ve still got an entire hospital to run.

The Decision to Let Someone Else Handle Communications

To best handle their crisis situation, Innovis called upon the help of Russell Herder, an agency based in Minneapolis, to get their messages out to the public. Carol Russell, the firm’s CEO, has managed the social media program put in place for Innovis since the crisis began.

Carol and her team have developed an extensive network of traditional and social media outlets that allow them to transmit critical announcements from Innovis as they happen.

The Innovis Health blog is used to keep the public up-to-date on service access and to communicate with families throughout the region, while the hospital’s Twitter account (@innovishealth) is being used to provide real-time announcements to cell phones and computers, however users should decide to receive them.

If you visit the main Innovis Health website, there is a large callout front-and-center driving users looking for critical announcements to visit the blog. Down the right-hand column of the blog are near instantaneous updates from the hospitals Twitter feed, keeping visitors constantly updated on the situation.

The hospital Twitter account has 272 followers, including the American Red Cross, the West Fargo Pioneer, FEMA and Minnesota Public Radio, which goes to show that relevant parties are paying attention to Innovis’ updates.

Most intriguing to me is the fact that all of these crisis communications are being generated by a team located an entire state away.

“[T]hese tools make it easy for us to manage communications remotely. We’re based in Minneapolis and our client is in Fargo, but we’re able to fully assist them and not be in the way,” Carol mentions. “By creating this blog we are able to take control of the message. We don’t need to rely on the ability to reach preoccupied local media to publish updates, and there are no concerns about the message getting garbled.”

Using Social Media to Enhance Communication

According to Kris Olson, vice president of marketing, quality and physician services at Innovis Health, using social media to enhance communication with the public is a natural extension of the organization’s service commitment.

“In difficult times such as this, it takes extraordinary cooperation and professionalism on the part of our team. But open, ongoing communication with our greater community is also essential. Babies are being born. Evacuation helicopters are landing on our helipad. Regional and national service organizations have relocated their services to our facility. This is a continuously evolving situation and we need to reach out any way we can.”

When you frame it like that, it makes it hard for anyone to argue over the value of social media. The important lesson to be realized is that these tools are continuing to grow in popularity amongst the public and that not utilizing them is doing a disservice to the level of connectedness a hospital can provide.

Also important to note is Olson’s comment that “using social media to enhance communication … is a natural extension of the organization’s service commitment.” These tools are part of a new hospital marketing and communications toolbelt which many simply haven’t taken the time to try on.

Hospitals Still Slow to Adopt

According to Ed Bennett, manager of web strategy at University of Maryland Medical System, hospital use of social networking tools has been a relatively recent phenomenon, though the tools have been available for years. Bennet’s continually growing Hospital Social Network List, which documents hospitals using such communication, identifies 117 hospitals nationwide on Twitter and 22 with blogs.

Of the 5,708 registered hospitals in the US (source: American Hospital Association), that still leaves plenty of room for health care communications to catch up.

Does your crisis communications plan include using social media? Have you already implemented tools like this as part of your ongoing communications? What questions do you have about how these tools can impact your ability to deliver a message?

However, long before you could follow The Ellen Show or Ashton Kutcher on Twitter, U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley was posting (also called “tweeting”) with the service while at events in Iowa (see Grassley’s first tweet from November 26, 2007).

Tweets from the Senator encompass what he is up to during the day and read as if he was holding a conversation one-on-one with his audience.

Whether it be “Ran in 45degree weather Tues morn. On way frigid iowa. Don’t LOL. TTYL” or “Just finishd hour long meeting in Rep caucus w Obama. He was recd well. Good discusion on stimulus and recession,” Grassley uses the 140-character platform to inform his 4,900+ followers about current issues, upcoming appearances and his role as a representative of the state of Iowa.

In February 2009 Grassley made Politico.com’s list of “10 most influential D.C. Twitterers,” which is impressive considering the number of legislators now joining the flock in D.C. tweeting with their constituents.

Tweet Congress Tracks Legislators on Twitter

The number of Congress members using Twitter has grown so much that a website called Tweet Congress launched to help citizens track which of their legislators were on Twitter (and enables users to petition those who’ve not yet made the jump).

Of the seven legislators serving the state of Iowa, just three are active on Twitter, with Grassley greatly overshadowing the others in terms of followers, number of messages posted and time using the service.

Iowa Legislators on Twitter

• Sen. Charles Grassley joined Twitter in November 2007 and has posted the majority of his 130 updates via text message. Follow @chuckgrassley for updates.
• Rep. Thomas Latham joined Twitter in November 2007, but has only posted 15 updates since then. He is becoming more active in recent months. Follow @tomlatham for updates.
• Rep. Leonard Boswell joined Twitter in March 2009 and is excited about it. Follow @leonardboswell for updates.

Iowa Legislators NOT on Twitter

• Sen. Thomas Harkin isn’t on Twitter. Sign the TweetCongress petition asking him to join.
• Rep. Bruce Braley isn’t on Twitter. Sign the TweetCongress petition asking him to join.
• Rep. Steve King isn’t on Twitter. Sign the TweetCongress petition asking him to join.
• Rep. Dave Loebsack isn’t on Twitter. Sign the TweetCongress petition asking him to join.

Follow the Iowa Hospital Association on Twitter

As IHA continues to stay on top of developing trends, we’ve also launched a Twitter account of our own (@iowahospital) to keep interested parties aware of relevant information and announcements.

You can visit our Twitter profile and read the latest updates, or create an account on Twitter and subscribe to our updates by clicking the “Follow” button on our Twitter profile.