A hospital demonstrated a commitment to innovation and patient education by live Twittering a surgical procedure direct from the operating room using HootSuite and Ow.ly. This campaign included some unique challenges including ensuring patient comfort, uploading surgical photos in realtime and choosing a useful #hastag. This case study prepared with High Point Regional Hospital in North Carolina (USA) explains the objectives behind the campaign and reasons why they chose HootSuite for the broadcast. Additionally, the report outlines social media tactics used for connecting potential patients and medical staff for a conversation about health. Thanks to Interactive Media Specialist Kelley O'Brien.

1. HootSuite in the Operating Suite:
1 Situation
A hospital demonstrates a
When an opportunity to broadcast a surgery arose, High Point
Regional Health System decided to use a social media tools commitment to innovation and
to share the surgery with potential patients. patient education by live
According to Kelley O'Brien, Interactive Media Specialist at Twittering a surgical procedure
High Point Regional , "We had discussed some other live
direct from the operating room
options, but decided to proceed with carrying the surgery live
via Twitter using HootSuite." using HootSuite and Ow.ly.
The campaign presented unique challenges including
sterilizing laptops and Ethernet cables, as well as sharing
useful information while ensuring the patient's comfort
during an important surgery.
2 Objective
High Point wanted to showcase their state-of-the-technology
"da Vinci Si" surgical equipment to a target audience of
potential patients.
Additionally, they sought to experiment with the possibilities
of new media as a patient education and outreach tool and
demonstrate the hospital’s progressive-ness inside and outside
the operating room.
3 Why HootSuite?
High Point chose HootSuite as the primary campaign tool for
the ability to quickly post multi-media and short links from "Tweeting the surgery with HootSuite
within the dashboard as well as the built-in reporting capabilities. demonstrated the health system’s
progressiveness inside and outside the
operating room."
High Point Regional Hospital is a part of a not-for-profit, community-based group Kelley O'Brien, Interactive Media Specialist,
offering a wide variety of inpatient and outpatient care. High Point Regional Health System
highpointregional.com ow.ly/user/HPRHS
twitter.com/hprhs youtube.com/HighPointRegional 1/2

2. in the Hospital
Campaign Tactics In the Operating Room
O'Brein actively provided play-by-play of the delicate To accommodate the extra personnel, the surgery was
prostate removal surgery starting with the preparation and performed in the hospital's largest surgical suite. Kelley
included medical-related facts. Her resulting 44 updates O'Brien (@kelleyob), worked from a laptop on a sanitized
featured photos shared on Ow.ly/HPRS which showed both metal desk behind the surgical robot's monitors allowing
the operating room and the internal organs as viewed for the best view of the surgery and easy communication
through the robot's viewing screens. with the team.
Measuring Results
Despite a short lead-up time to the campaign, there was
dozens of participants in the conversation and during the
approximately 2 hour procedure, the hospital gained 28
additional followers.
@HPRHS: Photo of Dr. Local newspaper,"The News and Record" covered the event
#HPRHSLIVE Here's a Hall positioning robot in "Follow a local surgery live via Twitter" http://ow.ly/26s2s
snapshot of the staff #HPRHSLIVE
preparing for surgery Fact: There are and included the patient's motivations:
http://ow.ly/i/16El
thousands of nerves
http://ow.ly/i/16AZ
on each side of the
prostate #HPRHSLIVE The attention doesn’t faze patient Philip Vincent too
much. He hopes the spotlight will promote both the
need for prostate cancer screening and the options
To encourage participation in the conversation, the hospital available to men who contract the disease. If following
used a hashtag #HPRHSLive which allowed easy tracking the tweets convinces one man to get tested who turns out
for campaign archiving plus is generic enough to be reused to have the disease, “then that’s worth it,” Vincent said.
on future campaigns.
These 40+ RTs and mentions resulted in valuable positive
What’s Next?
brand sentiment.
The hospital is planning more social media driven
From @easbrooke: High Point
campaigns including live workshops to, “start relating to
Regional @ HPRHS is tweeting patients in new ways” (O’Brien). These Twitter-centric
From @donnie_T: Fascinating.
High Point Regional Health
a surgery. Are you following? campaigns are supported by other social channels including
#HPRHSLIVE
Systems using Twitter to provide (unexpectedly humorous) videos about serious issues like
live play by play of a surgery.
about stroke awareness, on Youtube.
Follow #HPRHLive
Their participation resulted in a narrative with the surgeon More HootSuite:
Craig Hall, M.D. who answered medical-specific questions
sent by the online audience. You may find more info sheets and case studies in
our library at blog.hootsuite.com/library
@ HPRHS: Image of removing the You can also find more information about HootSuite
bladder, which will be reattached on our website hootsuite.com and/or you can follow us
after the prostate @ HPRHS: Dr. Hall "The patient's
is removed #HPRHSLIVE on Twitter @hootsuite
prostate is twice the normal size"
http://ow.ly/i/16GW
#HPRHSLIVE
2/2