Meet the Experts – Bill Ferris

Our next profile is with Bill Ferris of Henry Ford Health System.

Please introduce yourself
My name is Bill Ferris, I’m one of two managers in the Web Services department and I have responsibility for our intranet site as well as our social media efforts. I’ve been at Henry Ford Health System for 12 years but I primarily worked here as an industrial engineer until I went over to the web full time in 2008.

Tell us about your hospital
Henry Ford is an integrated delivery system consisting of 7 hospitals, a health plan, a 1000 member medical group, home health products, hospice, dialysis, pharmacy, pretty much we cover the entire spectrum of healthcare.

The web services department reports to the senior VP of marketing and public relations. We have 10 people in the department that make up about 8 FTE’s and we provide the web support for most areas of the health system.

What got you interested in social media?
I started blogging personally in 2001 and have maintained a blog about the Detroit Tigers for the last 8 years. That hobby/job kept me interested and relatively current on new and evolving web technologies and platforms. I’m also a dabbler so I tend to sign up for whatever the new/hot/free service is.

I first saw it as a great business opportunity when I was struggling with a car dealer. I posted a complaint on Twitter and a couple hours later I had a response from GM asking how they could help. That’s when the light bulb went on for me and I signed up Henry Ford for a Twitter account that same day.

What aspects of Social Media do you focus on for your hospital?
Our first endeavor was Twitter and that was started for the purpose of patient listening and service recovery. Of course we also use these media (YouTube, Facebook, Blogging) as another way to extend the brand/message as well as for patient education opportunities.

Ideally we are able to better connect with our patients and other physicians, that’s kind of the dream, but I don’t think we’re there yet and we’re still feeling our way around.

Is there a particular Social Network that you prefer for your hospital program?
We’ve had the most luck and drawn the most attention from Twitter due mostly to the Twitter surgeries we did. The ease of use and simplicity of the platform is so attractive and it’s a personal favorite of mine. I don’t think we’re doing enough though in terms of conversing. I’d love to do more of that but like many, we’re stretched pretty thin.

What’s your opinion on trying to measure ROI for your social media efforts?
I think it is important so that you know what is effective and what isn’t effective so you can better allocate your internal resources. But I view it as kind of the “Check” part of a PDCA cycle. The nice thing about most social media efforts are that the I is minimal from a capital perspective so you don’t need a full blown ROI study before deciding to do something. Try it, evaluate it, and move forward from there.

Now if I want to justify an increased staff to participate in social media, I do need to show that our efforts are having an impact.

How much staff time do you and your team devote to social media a week?
I do about 15 hours a week right now and I’m pretty much it for many of the endeavors. We do have a couple provider authored blogs where the writer and typically a marketing manager spend a few hours a week doing content. We also have someone who produces podcasts and some of our videos. What I’d really like though is someone to have the bandwidth to really participate in conversations on Twitter and Facebook.

Did you need to “sell’ social media to upper management?
Not at all. There are some skeptics, but most of what we’ve done we’ve done it without having to sell it too much. We’ll try something and then show them the results after the fact. I think I’m pretty lucky in that regard. People ask how we got buy-in from senior leaders to do the Twitter surgeries and my canned response is “we showed them the CNN piece.”

Can you share a success story?
I’ve alluded to it a couple times, but the Twitter surgeries were a huge boon to us. Roughly and conservatively we estimate that it resulted in over 400 media hits and a $500k in ad value which is pretty good since that was the secondary goal. The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive and the doctors enjoyed doing it for the most part.

What advice do you have for Hospitals considering a social media program?
Try it. Start small if you have to, you don’t have to participate in every facet, but start doing something. The cost is minimal and we’re at the point now where people are expecting it .

What changes do you think we’ll see in the future in terms of how hospitals use social media?
I think hospitals will go as far as patients let them. I still struggle with the balance of being available and participatory while not being intrusive. I think the patients’ and their willingness to share and converse in a public electronic format will drive what happens next.