“We miss about 240 flights a year due to the fact that the weather minimums are such that we can’t fly,” said Dan Keough, director of emergency transport services at Mercy. “We feel that with this new technology being state-of-the-art and the first of its kind in Iowa, we will recapture at least 20 percent of those weather misses that we currently have now.”

After testing is complete, Mercy plans to use its hospital as the first location to deploy Mercy One but soon after will include landing sites at Clarke County Hospital in Osceola, Mercy Medical Center-Centerville, Monroe County Hospital in Albia as well as a non-hospital based helipad being built in Stuart.

Dan Keough and Dennis Cochran, Mercy One Program Manager, Mercy Medical Center-Des Moines sat down with IHA to discuss the new Mercy One helicopter and the impact it’s likely to have across the health care industry.

Click here to view all the photos taken at the Mercy One media annoucement event.

While the article tries to point out that recent increases in hospital marketing dollars and social media tactics can be attributed to hospitals vying for market position in anticipation of reform changes, certain social media experts in the health care industry have raised a red flag.

Lee Aase, manager of syndication and social media at Mayo Clinic, recently spoke at the IHA Social Media and Health Care conference. Aase was prompted to post on his blog some thoughts on how his quotes were interpreted and what he thinks is the true relationship between health care social media and health reform. Aase defends Mayo Clinic’s social media efforts as not being in reaction to health reform, stating that the hospital’s efforts date back to 2005. He also states that health reform is likely a non-factor in the reason for why hospitals are beginning to embrace social media.

It can be expected that this debate on how social media will be used in the wake of health reform will be carried out for years to come. For now, Lee Aase and the Iowa Hospital Association both feel that it is premature to determine whether or not hospitals have been incorporating social media for the purpose of proactive marketing. It’s more likely that hospitals have been implementing social media in order to stay current on what has become a new era in marketing and communications.

A realistic scenario is to assume that the bright marketing individuals working in Iowa’s hospitals are more interested in testing these waters to see what sort of return on community engagement can be realized as opposed to jumping into a turf war, fighting for impression in a realm that’s still largely undefined.

What are your thoughts? Are your hospitals currently incorporating health reform into your marketing tactics? Discuss in the comments below or on Twitter by using hashtag: #ihahealthreform.

We’ve put together the following video as a thank you to everyone who helped contribute to making the day a great success!

YouTube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZC-5IEyL4k

Lee Aase

For those of you who are not familiar with Lee, he is a pioneer of hospital social media.  When others were breaking social media ground with shovels, Lee fired up a front-end loader and has been plowing the way ever since.  While Lee is understanding about hospitals hesitating on social media, he has little patience for those who suffer from paralysis by over-analysis, as he discussed in this recent interview: 

“Don’t let strategy become an excuse for inaction. Often organizations wait to become involved in social media until they have thought through every imaginable scenario, and that’s fine, to a point. But too frequently they go way beyond due diligence to a social media form of hypochondria or paranoia.”

 Just as important, most social media tools come at virtually no cost:

 “If you spend any money to communicate with employees or customers, why wouldn’t you take advantage of free tools that help you do it better?”

 The IHA Social Media and Health Care Conference is going to be a full-day of excellent presentations from Lee Aase and others who will introduce you to social media, help you understand how it impacts health care and how your hospital can benefit, show you how to measure results and give you the opportunity to hear from hospitals that have stepped boldly into this new frontier. 

Register now while space is still available!

In Iowa, Knoxville Hospital and Clinics was listed among the best hospital blogs.  The blog penned by Todd Linden, CEO of Grinnell Regional Medical Center, is also listed, and so is IHA’s blog. 

As for Nurseblogger…well, we’re not exactly sure who or what this is, although it seems to have something to do with helping nurses earn their bachelor’s degrees.  But they do seem to know health care and good hospital-related blogging when they see it.

One such resource, being provided by HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society), is an upcoming webinar that will teach participants about how M.D. Anderson Cancer Center created its new Web strategy and presence.

Part of the discussion will focus on the transformation M.D. Anderson made from a managing a largely information-oriented Web site to a focus on customer interaction and transactional capabilities.

Webinar Details

August 20, 2009
1-2 p.m. CST

Read more about the webinar plus find registration details on the HIMSS Web site.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify the key drivers, business objectives and business value of a new Web strategy.
2. Describe the process for developing the new strategy and business case.
3. Describe the type of services and technology solutions planned for the revamped Web presence.

Presenters

• Alan Powell, Director, Internet Services, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
• Sue Sutton, RN, PhD, President/CEO, Tower Strategies
• John Foster,Vice President of Business Value Services & Healthcare Business Development, Oracle

Cost

There is no cost to attend this webinar.

• 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.

• University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, Iowa City, is on Twitter
• Veterans Memorial Hospital, Waukon, is on Twitter

The University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics have been using Twitter for some time, but Veterans Memorial Hospital just set up their official account today.

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.