| Social Networking Tools: Is Healthcare Ready for Twitter and Facebook |
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| Written by Cynthia Atoji | ||||||||
| Tuesday, 10 November 2009 09:37 | ||||||||
 Who is using Facebook and Twitter in healthcare? And how can these social media tools be plied by hospitals and physicians? While novel online platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and blogs are all the buzz among marketers, only 10 percent of healthcare systems have some type of social media outlet.
Is it because these new channels are seen as too lightweight and could possibly trivialize the serious mission of preventative and curative medicine? Although many healthcare facilities have reservations about “social” media – should a surgeon “tweet” about heart surgery in real time, for example – some experts say that hospitals can advance their communication goals through blogs, and some healthcare groups are using Facebook as a physician recruitment tool. Twitter feed to respond to consumers. One of the latest tweets: “Protect yourself from the H1N1 flu virus--get the facts here.” Use of Web 2.0 tools is also gaining popularity in medical and nursing school curricula as well. How are you using social media? For community building, real-time P.R., brand management? Check out this list of U.S. hospitals that use social networking tools and 140 healthcare uses for Twitter. | ||||||||
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About the Author: Jeff Merron is a full-time freelance editor, journalist, and copywriter who has written for the New York Times Magazine, ESPN.com, Slate, Byte Magazine, Macworld, Consumers Digest, and many other national publications. He's also a regular contributor to IT Business Insider and 108, a baseball magazine. He has a Ph.D. in Mass Communication Research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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