The Top Ten Hospitals on Twitter

by Ed Bennett on March 17, 2009

in Hospitals,twitter

Hospital – Twitter Account – (Twitter Score)*

Doctor at Henry Ford Health

Doctor at Henry Ford Health

1. Henry Ford Health – @HenryFordNews – (1,984)

2. Alegent Health – @AlegentHealth – (1,752)

3. Children’s National Med. Center – @childrenshealth – (1,337)

4. St. Jude Children’s – @StJude – (1,292)

5. Mayo Clinic - @mayoclinic – (1,245)

6. Scripps Health – @ScrippsHealth – (1,079)

7. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center – @MDAndersonNews – (996)

8. Detroit Medical Center – @DMCheals (957)

9. Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley - @SutterEdenMed – (948)

10. U. of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics - @uwhealth – (897)

*the scoring is simple: # of Updates + # of Followers = Twitter Score. Data was captured on March 14, 2009, and is certainly out of date by now. Get full data on 193 hospitals here

I put this list together for fun, and hope no one takes it seriously. Everyone who reads this blog understands that in all Social Media, including  Twitter, quality is more important than quantity.

I look forward to your comments :)

Tagged as:

  • http://www.twitter.com/stephaniethum Stephanie T.

    I would have picked Henry Ford as #1, as well–not due to quantity of followers, but because as you said, Ed, quality. With the tweeting of surgeries straight from their OR (awake craniotomy tomorrow morning!), Henry Ford has set the bar high for creativity in using Twitter to increase its brand recognition and enhance its reputation further.

  • http://lastmileblog.com Tom Stitt

    No surprises for me. Would love to see future rankings the number of updates with “@” and the number of updates that were ReTweeted. Perhaps your staff can start working on that now? (Kidding.) I still think HFH will be at the top of the list because of the surgical tweetcasts. And the team at Sutter Eden Medical including @creativesage deserves double praise. Good metrics. And solid outcomes in their efforts to regain community support for the new hospital.

  • http://ebennett.org Ed Bennett

    Thanks Tom, I’ll get my staff on that now (Ed looks at his dog…) I’ll have to get back you on that.

    Seriously, I haven’t found a Twitter grading system that make sense to me. Many of them can be gamed, and the ones that were serious attempts to track health care twitter accounts still leave me bewildered. (See this list)

    Too much of what makes a Twitter presence successful is subjective, and different for each person. But, there’s no denying that Top Ten lists are fun – I will do them occasionally, but don’t expect to invest too much time on them.

  • http://twitter.com/reedsmith Reed Smith

    Ed – I would agree with you and others that HFH is at the top of the list… I would maybe give 2 points for followers and only 1 for updates… anyone can update an account hundreds of time and not have anyone listening… Just a thought.

  • http://www.fortepartnersllc.com Suzanne Dewey

    Thanks Ed for keeping track and putting a top 1o list together. Even though it comes under the “fun and interesting” side of things, it does help other health care organizations see what is being done and, by their own following, make some decisions on how they can utilize Twitter as part of their strategy.

  • http://www.thestrategygroup.com Carla Bryant

    Ed, Thanks for pulling this together. It will be a helpful reference for organizations trying to get support to take the plunge into SM and to help draw attention to the importance of being part of the conversation. I would echo the thought of others that as an industry we need to find some way to measure relevance in the future. But that’s an adventure for another day!

  • http://www.hcg.com Carmen Gonzalez

    This is very helpful, Ed. My old pals at a cancer research center are just now wading into the Twitter pool. They have so many cutting-edge research programs going on, it would be a waste to not try to at least mimic what leaders like Henry Ford Hospital are up to. The list at least provides a nudge. I have sent your article on to the movers and shakers there.

  • http://braddavis.cc Brad Davis

    Ed, I just recently found your site (recommended to me by someone I met at south by southwest) and have found it to be an amazing resource. I don’t know if this is your personal blog or not but it is really great and I hope everyone can come together to talk about these topics.
    More specifically, I am interested how you put this together. Maybe we can put together a web application that can create these numbers automatically and maybe with some visualizations.
    Thanks.

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  • http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/ peter jones

    Great thanks for these extra people to follow.
    PJ – Hodges’ model
    http://twitter.com/h2cm

  • Brent Saravia

    I would like to know what is the top ten veterans hospitals in the nation. Can anyone help me find out which ones are in the top ten ? Thank you in advance for your assistance as I am a disabled veteran looking for the best hospital.

  • http://robertfraser.ca rdjfraser

    Who is using that twitter score? Just wondering if it is being used anywhere else and what value they associate with it.

    • http://ebennett.org Ed Bennett

      Robert,
      I don’t think anyone is using the score – at least not seriously. It was just something I did for a bit of fun.

  • http://robertfraser.ca rdjfraser

    Fair enough, just curious. It is all for a bit of fun really, I still think there isn’t a good grading system. Everyone uses twitter differently and for a different purpose. There is no way any analytic could figure out that I got accepted to conferences, featured in nursing leadership journals and now do partnerships with hospitals and healthcare organizations to help them understand web 2.0/social media.
    Amusingly enough though I still check theses twitter graders regularly, lol, I think it is something cultural we just want to be praised for our work.

    Thanks for the other info on the hospitals though that is very intersting.

    Rob

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