Hippos and Hashtags: Social Media in Health Care Dana Lewis Interactive Marketing

Swedish is a non-profit health system serving the greater Seattle, Washington, USA area. 5 hospitals. 15 primary care clinics. 2 separate emergency departments

2002: diagnosed with diabetes 2008: diagnosed with celiac disease 2009: created #hcsm 2010: joined Swedish 2011: still using social media every day as a patient. My background:

Why does all of this matter? In the United States, 80% of people look for health information online “Social media breaks down the barriers & brings people to the table to have the right conversations in health care.”

5 Who uses social media in health care? Patients –80+% of Americans search online for health info Physicians –86% search online for health information in their practice Organizations 908 Hospitals => 3,087 Hospital Social Networking/Media Sites –448 YouTube Channels –719 Facebook pages –674 Twitter Accounts –431 LinkedIn Accounts –106 Blogs (but not just hospitals)

6 Different types of organizations: Hospitals/health systems Non-profit patient associations Pharmaceutical companies Medical device companies Insurance companies (“payers”) Etc Etc.

7 Why do people use HCSM? (Health Care for Social Media) Patients –Learn about symptoms, diseases/conditions, options –Educate themselves, understand treatments –Support Physicians –Ongoing education –Resources for treating patients (medical research) –Peer-to-peer support –Marketing/promotion Organizations –Connect to patients/consumers/customers & provide resources –Public health information –Virtual “help” desk and patient/customer relations

8 Patients: find/learn about clinical trials

9 Patients: find support, health info

10 What are the legal, regulatory, and ethical implications for social media?

11 The elephant in the room – or rather, the Hippo

12 HIPAA ( Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) Title 1 –regulates the availability and breadth of group health plans and certain individual health insurance policies Title 2 –defines offenses relating to health care and sets civil and criminal penalties for them –creates several programs to control fraud and abuse within the health care system –sets administrative 'simplification' rules

13 Wait - what did HIPAA say about social media? (nothing)

14 Physicians need to start talking to patients. Patients need to think about what they are putting online. Let’s start talking.

Examples from the real world

16 How is Swedish using social media?

17 We do social media with… Patients Family/communities CEO Senior leadership Physicians Nurses Other Swedish employees Community partners

“We don’t do anything different; we just do it differently”

19 Swedish Turns 100 – Flash Mob 245,000+ views

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21 Leveraging existing tools to create community online Created: July 2010 Status: Completed ~10,000 people engaged ~5.5+ million impressions Why it worked: Reached people when needed – at night Resources + =

22 One size does not fit all -Curator of health information, local resources -Swedish news, general patient information, local news & resources -Physician bios, FAQs, hot topics Different communities, different messaging

23 Physicians, nurses, patients – all in one place

24 Physicians can blog on their profile

25 Physicians, nurses, educators, etc:

26 Baby steps: Social media isn’t right for everyone Doctors do better with small steps to get started Don’t reinvent the wheel …so stop talking, start doing it.

27 Engage with us online: Dana Lewis | Questions?