Hospitals Using Social Media Tools for Marketing: Twittering from the OR? A Bit Much?

What is going on here? In an increasingly competitive world, facing an economic crunch, hospitals are increasingly leaning on new social media marketing opportunities to reach new patients and expand their brand. More than 250 hospitals now use YouTube, Facebook, Twitter or blogs, said Ed Bennett, Web strategy director for the University of Maryland Medical System said in todays NYT article.

Hospitals now have facebook pages. Hospitals are posting video casts of surgeries on Youtube. Docotors are tweeting from operating rooms during procedures. This brings up a serious of endless ethical, privacy and yes, legal questions to say the least. To name a few:

• Are you invading a patient’s privacy?
• What is something goes wrong and a patient’s family finds out via twitter?
• If you show only the good outcomes, is it “false” advertising?
•  Do doctors really need this distraction during surgery?

Apparently, it is working in a number of ways – expected and unexpected. According to the same NYT article, “In one unexpected marketing success, after Methodist advertised a coming brain-surgery Webcast, a man called, volunteering to be the patient. Methodist agreed. “He told Dr. Sills that if he was operating live on the Web, he must be pretty darn good,”

Personally, I am a strong advocate of demystifying healthcare…but I have to wonder if this inst going to far…any thoughts?

Comments

[protein powder]

I am shocked to hear that Hospitals are using the Social media tools for marketing. I think they have no right to use the Media Tools just for increasing the marketing. I think they can do the marketing by the other means also.