Not too many updates this week, most came from Tom Stitt. Thanks Tom!

For the past month, I’ve been relying on submissions from folks like Tom,  Reed Smith, and others in my network. I’m grateful for their assistance.

In a few weeks I’ll do a more in-depth survey of Facebook and Youtube, and see if any new accounts have been added.

Here are the current numbers:

216 Hospitals total
126 YouTube Channels
83 Facebook pages
132 Twitter Accounts
23 Blogs

New this week:

Allina Hospitals, Minneapolis, MN on Facebook

Blair E. Batson Childrens Hospital, Jackson, MS on Twitter

Childrens Hospital in LA, Los Angeles, CA on Twitter

Dayton Children’s Hospital, Dayton H, on Twitter

St. Joseph Hospital, Chicago, IL on Twitter

There are many ways that social media tools can benefit a hospital. We’ve discussed several of them on this blog, but there’s a powerful use that sometimes gets overlooked – Crisis Communications

Innovis Health in Fargo, North Dakota is in the middle of a such crisis right now. For the past week Fargo has been threatened by flooding from the Red River. Water levels reached historic 40’+ levels, and large areas of the city are still affected.  For several days, Innovis was the only hospital fully open in Fargo and remains the site for Blackhawk helicopter evacuation landings, the Red Cross, a VA satellite office and more.

A US Coastguard helicopter arrives at Innovis Health, Fargo, bearing an evacuee.

Carol Russell manages the social media program for Innovis. She is the CEO of Russell Herder, a firm based in Minneapolis, and – along with her partner Brian Herder and two senior staff – has handled outreach communications for Innovis since the crisis started. The team has worked 24/7, gathering information from Innovis staff, writing the blog updates at innovishealth.wordpress.com and handling the Twitter feed, @innovishealth. In addition, they release critical announcements to an extensive traditional and social media networks.

I spoke to Carol about the impact of these tools in an emergency situation. Here’s what she had to say:

“The crisis has clearly proved the value of Social Media in several areas.

First, it decreased demand from the media. Hospital phone lines need to remain open for emergency and family calls, and the blog cut down on many calls from local and national media. We point them to the blog with the promise that all announcements will be posted immediately.

Next, these tools make it easy for us to manage communications remotely. We’re based in Minneapolis and our client is in Fargo, but we’re able to fully assist them and not be in the way.

In addition, by creating this blog we are able to take control of the message. We don’t need to rely on the ability to reach preoccupied local media to publish updates, and there are no concerns about the message getting garbled.

Finally, these tools can be quickly implemented. We created the blog and had it live with the first update in one hour. When messages about service access and patient safety need to get out, it’s absolutely critical to establish a communication channel immediately.”

None of this would matter if no one read the updates, but that’s not the case. Since the blog went up on March 27, over 5,000 people have gone to it for news and updates. The Twitter feed has over 255 followers, and many are passing these updates along to others. In addition, there have been over 1,100 views by reporters of news releases pitched via social media distribution.  While the current crisis is far from over, thanks to a major blizzard that exacerbated the situation yesterday, the situation seems to have stabilized somewhat. But even after the flood waters subside, it’s clear that these newly established communication channels will continue to have value for Innovis Health.

Every hospital has a crisis communications plan. Does yours include social media as a tool?

On March 3′rd I asked the question: “I currently track  187 hospitals using Social Media tools – when will we go past 200?”

The prolific blogger and Twitter user, Ves Dimov predicted that number would reached by the end of March. It was a safe bet, the submissions have come in at a steady pace over the past two weeks. Here’s the current count:

• 206 Hospitals total
• 124 YouTube Channels
• 82 Facebook pages
• 117 Twitter Accounts
• 22 Blogs

FYI the 200′th Hospital was  Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, IL with their Twitter account.

As you can see from the update list below, most of the growth continues to be with Twitter. At this pace, it should become the most popular social media tool by early April.

What’s Next?

I’d like to hear from you. What do you want me to cover on the blog and on the list? Would anyone be interested in a guest post? or interview? Let me know.

This weeks updates to the Hospital List:

Banner Heart  Hospital, Mesa, AZ, on Twitter

Banner Gateway, Gilbert AZ, on Twitter

Banner Baywood, Mesa, AZ, on Twitter

Banner Thunderbird, Glendale, AZ on Twitter

Community Medical Center on YouTube and several Blogs

Huntington Hospital, Pasadena, CA on Twitter

Lehigh Valley Hospital Allentown, PA is on YouTube

Memorial Hermann, Houston, TX on Twitter and a Blog

Norman Regional Health System, Norman, OK  on  Twitter

Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago, IL on Twitter

Sacred Heart Health System, Pensacola, FL on Twitter

Sacred Heart Hospital, Miramar Beach, FL on Twitter

UNC Health Care, Chapel Hill, NC on YouTube

Update – April 8, 2009

Please see this post for the latest charts - Twitter is now the leading hospital Social Media site

______________________

On Saturday, March 14, 2009,  I took a snapshot of Hospital social media activity. Using links from the big list, I  gathered the following data:

YouTube:

• Account creation date
• Number of Videos posted
• Number of YouTube Channel Views
• Number of Channel Subscribers

Twitter:

• Account creation date (first update)
• Number of Updates
• Number of Followers

Facebook:

• Number of Fans / Members

Here are some results. The original data is available as an Excel spreadsheet, please email me if you want a copy.

First, take a look at the adoption rate for YouTube and Twitter:

No surprises here, but it is interesting to see the rapid growth on Twitter. It took 26 months to reach 100 YouTube accounts, and 17 months to get the same number for Twitter. At this pace I expect crossover will happen in the next four to six weeks.

YouTube Statistics:

• There are 121 YouTube channels, with a total of 4,575 videos.
• The average number of videos per channel is 38, the median is 19
• The average number of subscribers is 28, the median is 11
• The average number of Channel Views is 1,736, the median is 629

Firsts and Mosts:

• First on board – The first Hospital Youtube channel was set up by the Arkansas Children’s Hospital on Sept. 13, 2006
  
• Number of Videos – Avera Health has 377 videos on it’s YouTube channel – more than anyone else.
• Number of Subscribers – M.D. Anderson Cancer Center leads with 575 subscribers
• Number of Channel Views – Cooper University Hospital leads with 24,383 views. This is interesting because the number was only 12,500 on Feb 2, 2009. Could it be Kelly Ripa?

Twitter Statistics:

• There are 103 Twitter accounts, with a total of 9,223 updates
• The average number of updates is 90, the median is 37
• The average number of followers is 294, the median 202

Firsts and Mosts:

• First on board – The first Twitter account was set up by St. Jude Children’s on October 23, 2007
• Most Followers – Henry Ford Health has the most with 1,489 followers
• Most Updates – Alegent Health leads with 1349 updates, almost three times more than the second most active account, @HenryFordNews

Facebook Stats:

Facebook doesn’t offer much for number crunching. You can’t even figure out when an account was created. The only stat I can track is the number of Fans or Members for a given account.

• There are 82 Facebook accounts, with the average membership of 821. The median is 163 – which tells you that a few accounts have some high numbers
• Most Fans / Members – Once again, St. Jude Children’s has the most with 33,252 fans

Want more? The original data is available as an Excel spreadsheet, please email me if you want a copy. Let me know if this is useful to you, and if there are any other statistics that we should follow.

While fun, these numbers don’t address the quality of the programs run by the 190+ hospitals tracked. And in Social Networking that counts for much more than sheer volume.  However, monitoring the growth has some value, and I plan to capture these snapshots at regular intervals (possibly monthly). In six months to year, we should have enough data to see trends.

A big update this week.

The list now follows 193 Hospitals on 121 YouTube Channels, 82 Facebook pages, 103 Twitter accounts and 20 Blogs.

New to the list:

Avera Health, Sioux Falls, SD on YouTube

Barnes-Jewish Hospital St. Louis, MO, on Twitter

Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chigaco, IL is on Twitter

Cooks Children’s in Fort Worth TX on Twitter

Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center in Mephis, TN on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter

Mercy Hospital Medical Center in Des Moines, IA on Facebook

Northside Hospital, St. Petersburg, FL on Twitter

Sarasota Memorial Hospital, Sarasota FL on Twitter

St. Francis Hospital, Indianapolis, IN has a Blog and is on Twitter

St. Johns Hospital in Springfield, MO on Twitter

St. Lukes Hospital in Houston TX on Twitter

Siteman Cancer Center St. Louis, MO on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube

VCU Medical Center in Richmond, VA on Twitter

Washington Hospital Healthcare in Fremont, CA on YouTube

More updates to the Hospital Social Networking List – 22 new sites

Avera Health on Twitter

Carilion Clinic on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter

Danbury Hospital on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter

Evergreen Hospital on Twitter

Greater Baltimore Medical Center on Twitter

Inova Health System on YouTube and Twitter

Innovis Health on Twitter

Lakewood Hospital on Twitter

McKee Medical Center on Twitter

Mercy Health System on Twitter

Mercy Medical Center on Facebook and Twitter

Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital on Twitter

Sanford Health on Twitter

Southeast Missouri Hospital on Twitter

St. John Health System on Twitter

St. Joseph Hospital of Orange on Facebook

Over the past few months, I’ve developed a set of talking points about social media. Here’s what I share with different folks at my hospital:

The 30-second elevator pitch – suitable for anyone:
Social Media is a conversation. Millions of people use these sites to connect, create trusted circles and talk to each other. Sometimes they talk about us – our hospital, our staff and their experiences here. We have to be in the room – the social media site, if we want to be invited into the conversation.

To the Marketing folks:
You can use Social Media in three ways – 1. It’s another way to promote our services and let interested patients find us. 2. You can also use it to monitor and protect our brand reputation. 3. It’s also a great tool to follow what folks say about our competition. And oh yes, our competition is starting to use it to promote their services. Do you want to be left behind?

To the Customer Service team:
It’s an easy, asynchronous way to let our customers contact us when they need help. It’s simple, cheap and a way to catch problems quickly – then resolve them before they get out of control.

To the Public Relations office:
The traditional media (TV, Radio, Print) is monitoring social media looking for breaking stories. They use Twitter, Facebook and other sites – many times connecting directly with our employees, asking questions and bypassing traditional news releases. Participating in social media is one way to monitor this activity, and promote the messages you consider important.

To the Community Outreach folks:
You invest energy working with the local community around our hospital. Social networks are a extension of our local, physical communities – many of the folks who live near us use these sites. In addition, with these tools, the definition of community extends beyond physical boundaries.

To the Patient Education / Support teams:
Our patients and many others are on these sites are looking for trusted medical information. We can be that trusted source – and yes, we can do it without violating privacy and HIPAA rules.

You get the idea. Social Media is a technology, and just like the telephone or computer, its a tool, not an endpoint. Its uses are only limited by our creativity and imagination.

What do you say?

Special mid-week update, the list keeps growing.

Many new updates have come in over the past two days, including 6 Twitter accounts, 2 new YouTube accounts, 2 Facebook pages and 1 new blog.

Current totals: 171 Hospitals 112 YouTube Channels 75 Facebook pages 71 Twitter Accounts and 16 Blogs

Lifebridge Health is on Twitter

Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley is on YouTube

Froedtert Hospital has several blogs

North Memorial Hospital has new Facebook page and YouTube site

Children’s National is on Facebook

Doctors Hospital on Twitter

Dublin Methodist on Twitter

Grady Memorial on Twitter

Ohio Health System on Twitter

Grinnell Regional on Twitter and a Blog

This weeks updates to the Hospital Social Network List:

As of February 15, 2009, the list has 166 Hospitals – 73 on Facebook, 110 on YouTube, 65 on Twitter and 14 with Blogs.

New this week:

Riverside Health System is now on Twitter

SSM Health Care is now on Twitter

University of Arkansas Medical Center is on YouTube and Twitter

Univ. of MD Greenebaum Cancer Center has a new Twitter account

Riverside Methodist Hospital is on Twitter

Johns Hopkins Medicine is now on Twitter

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital is on Twitter

Dave Ekrem and I started the Hospital Social Network project with two goals in mind:

1. Create a list of all U.S. hospitals with a presence on YouTube, Facebook or Twitter

2. Benchmark this activity for comparison purposes at a later date.  How many hospitals are involved, and what percent of top hospitals participate?

To determine the percentage of top hospitals, we used the 2008 U.S. News and World Report list as a guide.  After sorting and combining the different categories we had 210 individual hospitals to research. Some health care professionals would disagree with this choice, but we felt it was good starting point.

Here are the numbers as of January 19, 2009, out of 210 U.S. News Hospitals:

• 59 (28%) are on YouTube
• 47 (22%) are on FaceBook
• 24 (11%) are on Twitter

more to come…