Patient Support Groups on Facebook

Social Media in Healthcare Overview and Current Realities Ed Bennett University of Maryland Medical System e-Patient Connections Philadelphia, PA | September 20, 2011

How Hospitals Use Social Media
Customer Service
Community Outreach
Education
Public Relations
Crisis Communications
Recruitment
Brand Monitoring

Hospital Social Media Types

Rapid Growth: YouTube and Twitter

Hospital Values Social Media Values Risk averse Risk taking Information from authoritative sources Network Reputation Privacy and security regulated Anyone can publish anything Data tightly controlled Information freely distributed Tight intellectual property Use licenses with few restrictions

Special Issues for Healthcare Professionals
HIPAA / PHI
Professional vs. Private presence
Appropriate use
Social Media access on hospital networks
Professional Guidelines / HR policies
Finding answers in the “grey zone”
“ The Placenta Incident”

Patient Support Groups on Facebook
University of Maryland Medical Center currently has four groups:
Post Liver Transplant
Digestive Diseases
Hepatitis C
Trauma Survivors
First group launched in March 2011 – between 10 and 40 members

Requested by our patients
Restricted to our patients
Outgrowth of traditional IRL groups
Managed by the same group leader
Set up and Sanctioned by the UMMC Communications Department

Mix of Closed & Secret Groups
Members must be approved by Moderator
Posts are private to the group
Secret groups are invisible, do not show up in FB search results
Reviewed and approved by UMMS Legal

Results:
Activity level varies by group
Support, knowledge exchange
“ Does this happen to anyone else?”
Mix of health and other topics
Events and projects like a group luncheon

Ed Bennett Director, Web & Communications Technology University of Maryland Medical System Phone: 410-328-0771 Email: ebennett@umm.edu / ed@ebennett.org Web: umm.edu - ebennett.org Twitter: @edbennett Presentation and resource links: http://ebennett.org/ePatientConnections

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Patient Support Groups on Facebook

by Ed Bennett on Sep 20, 2011

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Patient Support Groups on Facebook — Presentation Transcript