Policies

Healthcare Social Media Policies List

Here is a list of Social Media polices developed by hospitals and other health care related groups. Please send links to publicly posted policies to ed@ebennett.org or add them in the comments below.

Affinity Health System and Ministry Health Care
Social Media Policy and Employee Guidance (DRAFT, but one of the best and most comprehensive)

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Web site terms of use – Section 9 applies to social media

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
CDC Social Media Tools Guidelines & Best Practices

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles
Share Your Story – Use and Access

The Cleveland Clinic
Social Media Policy

Danbury Hospital
Blogging Policy for Employees

Duke University Health System – NEW
Facebook Guidelines

Inland Northwest Health Services – NEW
INHS Employee Social Media Policy

Iowa Hospital Association
Blog Comments Policy

Kaiser Permanente
Employee Social Media Policy

LeBonheur Children’s Medical Center
Blog Comments Policy

Lehigh Valley Health Network
Social Media Guidelines

M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
Blog Policies and Guidelines for the Public

Mayo Clinic
Participation Guidelines for the Public – Basic rules of the road for blogs, etc.
Comments Policy – How the Mayo Clinic handles submitted comments
Guidelines for Employees & Code of Ethics

Ohio State University Medical Center
(including the James Cancer Hosp and OSU College of Medicine):
Social Media philosophy, policy and guidelines

Sutter Health – NEW
Employee Social Networking Polic
Comments Guidelines

University of Maryland Medical Center
Social Media Comments Policy

UNC Health Care
Social Media Terms of Use

Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Social Media Toolkit – Policies, Education, Videos, etc. An excellent resource

Other Resources

Social Media: Embracing the Opportunities, Averting the Risks
A research study presented by Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law – the main focus is Health Care

Social Media Governance
Database of 104 Social Media Policies across all major industries – recommended

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http://www.uwhealth.org Jennifer Walker

The Cleveland Clinic also has 2 public policies on social media:
Social Media Policy
Social Media Employee Policy
http://www.nhcf.org Kristen Oliveri

Jennifer, could you please post the employee policy so it can be accessed by the public? I think it’s on an intranet, the page is not available. Thanks
http://www.uwhealth.org Jennifer Walker

Kristen,
The links I posted are for the Cleveland Clinic (not my employer). I think they are accessible to the public, the links are working for me.
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http://danburyhospital.org Brian Charlonis

Ed, I keep coming back to this list. Thanks again for making this. It’s very helpful! Danbury Hospital/Danbury Health System is keeping ours online here: http://www.danburyhospital.org/About-Us/Policies.aspx

http://ebennett.org Ed Bennett

Brian – thanks for the update. I linked directly to the blogging policy.

http://www.SutterHealth.org Kami Lloyd

Good morning Ed. Sutter Health has a social media networking policy and comments guidelines. You can find both at http://www.sutterhealth.org/employees/. Look in the right-hand column under the bird.

Thanks for keeping this list.
http://www.wfubmc.edu Tyler Haney

Ed, thanks for keeping this list up to date. It is a great resource.
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http://www.spokane.wsu.edu Barb Chamberlain

What a great resource! So glad to have found it. We’re building an academic health sciences center and it will be important for our students, staff and faculty to understand social media and the implications for HIPAA and other aspects of health care, privacy and community.

The regional health IT provider in our area, Inland Northwest Health Systems @INHS, posted their social media policy: http://ow.ly/2i7oo

They tweeted a link to it as their very first post on Twitter, which I thought was a great way to start out.

@BarbChamberlain
Director of Communications and Public Affairs
Washington State University Spokane
http://www.spokane.wsu.edu
@WSUSpokane
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http://www.physicianjobszone.com Dan Caple

Thanks Ed – We keep referring our clients to this list. I suspect this takes alot of hard work and appreciate it. Dan
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http://www.lifespan.org Nancy Cawley Jean

Hi Ed,
Lifespan and its partner hospitals also have a public policy. You can find it here:
http://www.lifespan.org/agreement-sm.htm

As always, THANK YOU for all the work you do that helps so many! I just added a hyperlink to this page into a new blog post for Hospital Impact since it’s such a great resource for tapping into policies that deal with social media. I hope you know how much all your work is appreciated.
Nancy
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http://www.southlakeregional.org Tracy Parish

In addition to these policies, does anyone have one that specifically addresses cell phone use (acceptable use or otherwise)? Any info on whether your organization looked into banning or determining acceptable use would be greatly appreciated.

Tracy
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DGrisham

Has anyone restricted use of social media based on the risk to patient and personnel information from these highly popular but also highly targeted sites?
David

Anonymous

David, Estimates vary, but about 50% of hospitals still block social media
sites, but that number is slowly decreasing. In the past two years I’ve
talked with many healthcare organizations who are opening access, but none
that are closing it.

The patient information risk is a red herring. Those risks still exist with
blocking – staff and patients can access the web from smartphones and other
devices.

David

Patient information risk is not a red herring. Please ask a Cyber Security expert to provide a risk analysis to your organization so that the many benefits of using social networking can be weighed appropriately against the possibility of breach. Your cyber security team needs to be involved to ensure there are appropriate mitigation of vulnerabilities from these sites and/or restrictions on clinical workstations accessing sites with Malware vulnerabilities that have not been mitigated.
Security awareness needs also to be a part of a social networking/media policy.
Anonymous

As the social media strategy “guru” at my company (a large health care system), I am responsible for crafting a position paper in favor of opening access to social media for all employees.
I’ve looked at a lot of these policies, and they will be helpful in crafting policies about responsible use. Thanks for the resources.

Do you have more resources on the arguments for and against opening access?

Thanks!!

Anonymous

A good place to start is this site run by Shel holtz - http://www.stopblocking.org/

http://twitter.com/murmur55 murmur55

Hospitals will block injured and/or disgruntled patients. Social media is just more of the same, only more so…technology is a force multiplier. It is one more avenue for domination, outrageous PR games and battery of the little people. #HCSM is a scam, just like the rest of medicine. Anyone reporting real news will be blocked, isolated and otherwise silenced. This is the American Way: everything is a scam set up by sanctified gang members to benefit a select few.

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http://twitter.com/marciovm marcio von muhlen

Ed, I’m writing a review article on social media use by clinicians, and I saw that the AMA published their policy back in November 2010 (http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/meeting/professionalism-social-media.shtml). Perhaps it should be included here?

-Marcio
Vtalise

Fletcher Allen Health Care in Vermont – Social media policy: http://www.fletcherallen.org/about/news_room/social_media__connect_with_fletcher_allen/
Daniel

Not sure who originally created it, but INHS and the Cleveland Clinic have the same policies.
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