For the most part and in my opinion, hospitals don't don't do a very job of marketing themselves. This is not surprising given that most of them are non-profit and most such organizations do not seem to be proficient in this area. However, the use of social media for marketing is free of cost and relatively simple to engage for this purpose. According to a recent study, even here most hospitals don't always get their message out (see: Study: Hospitals' Facebook use is poor). Below is an excerpt from the article:
U.S. hospitals are not taking advantage of the opportunities Facebook creates to better engage patients, build healthcare communities or develop their hospital brands, according to a new study....According to the study, only a few hospitals across the the country are really using social media to their advantage, and are doing it very well. But the majority, however, [are] not, the study indicates. "It appears that hospitals either have yet to grasp the role of Facebook with respect to connecting with patients, or have not yet invested in the medium to be able to use it as a viable marketing communications and healthcare or community development tool," said ,,,[a] co-author of the study. The study looks at various types of relevant Facebook activities and tactics for 120 hospitals of various sizes and affiliations across the country. It includes an analysis of the size of network, frequency and types of posts, and the use of the integration tools available on Facebook, among other measures....On hospital pages where there is a high degree of interaction between the hospital and members, the study found that patients, family members, friends and members of the community used the hospital's Facebook presence to share experiences, laud, connect, and recommend hospital services, and in some cases praise certain physicians. Children's hospitals appear to be clear leaders in the use of Facebook. Children's hospitals in this study have Facebook mass, meaning the hospitals studied seemed to be very engaged in Facebook. Their networks – the number of people on their pages – are larger than most hospitals in the study and their activities appear to be more robust, engaging and relevant.
If I were the CEO of a hospital, particularly one of high prestige, I would market it, particularly on Twitter and Facebook, on the basis of quality measures but of a particular kind. It's very easy to find hospital marketing campaigns that trumpet quality measures such as the wait-time in the emergency department or soft values such as "we care." I see billboards and TV ads of this type all of the time. However, how about offering to healthcare consumers data-driven measures such as the percentage of successful outcomes for complex surgical procedures? How about survival rates for various types of cancer?
I know, I know! I am sure that hospitals are being advised not to use terms like survival or mortality rates n billboard advertising displays along the interstate highways. Hospital executives may also respond that such data are too complex for consumers to understand. Such a "quality metric" campaign could backfire and scare potential patients away. However, I have a feeling that web sites such as Twitter and Facebook could be used as channels in which it would be possible to present complex data to consumers who don't need to be pandered to with cheesy advertising messages. If you were a newly diagnosed cancer patient, what type of physician and hospital would you be looking for -- those that make use of the most scientifically advanced techniques that will lead to the greatest chance of survival? Correct? And were would you go to find such data? It would be difficult to find them currently on the web by physician by hospital.
Great point Bruce. We (Aperio) are a technology vendor but are starting to find helping our customers with marketing to their customers is as important as helping with workflow. There are layers to this too; pathologists market to oncologists, clinicians market to hospitals, healthcare institutions market to patients.
Posted by: Ole Eichhorn | March 28, 2011 at 10:40 AM