1. The Evolution of Social Media in Healthcare
Healthcare organizations continue to navigate the
transforming healthcare industry and identify new
avenues to engage with consumers outside of the
facility walls. In a fast-paced,
information-dominated world, successfully
interacting with consumers may seem like a
daunting task. The key is to connect with
consumers where they are and provide them
with actionable health and wellness
information they need to live a healthier life.
When you think of social media in healthcare you
might think it is a tool for marketing, but it goes
much farther than that. Sure, social media can be used to
attract and retain consumers, but social media can also be a powerful tool to reduce
healthcare costs and help with chronic disease and population health management.
Healthcare organizations are in varying stages of becoming social enterprises, from social
innovators like Mayo Clinic to those beginning the journey to developing a comprehensive
social media strategy.
In this perspective we take a look at the evolution of social media in healthcare and discuss
what social media in healthcare will look like in the future.
When did you begin to see social media used in healthcare? How was it first used?
Social media has been used in healthcare for a number of years. Henry Ford Health System was the
first to live tweet a surgery in 2009, and Mayo Clinic held the first Annual Health Care Social Media
Summit that year as well. However, it really wasn’t until 2011-2012 that we began to see high
adoption of social media in healthcare. However, with the exception of some great examples like
Seattle’s Swedish Hospital, social media was largely used just as a PR tool. Healthcare
organizations were still largely speaking about themselves in the first person by describing all of
their accomplishments in a way that looked very much like a press release. The healthcare
organizations that got social media right in the early days understood their role as “healthcare
provider” within the social media context as well.
How is social media in healthcare used today?
While almost every healthcare organization has a social media presence in one form or another, they
vary significantly in terms of maturity. The more advanced healthcare organizations are using social
media for one (or both) of the following:
• Managing population wellness: One of the most important uses of social media comes in
the form of public health. Social media provides a multi-faceted means of delivering new –
and perhaps critical – healthcare information to the public. The viral nature of social media
can be a very effective means of disseminating information quickly. This is especially true
when the information comes from a highly regarded source and is viewed as immediately
applicable to patients.
PE R S P E C T I V E S
AN INTERVIEW WITH
Melody Smith Jones
leads connected health
solutions for Perficient. She
has more than 12 years of
experience integrating
technology solutions into
marketing and loyalty
strategies, and has specialized knowledge in
the implementation of collaborative
technologies, business intelligence, and CRM.
Melody has an MBA from Xavier University in
Business Intelligence and Marketing.
Perficient experts sit down for an informal Q&A on the technology topics and issues on the minds of our clients. April 2015

2. • Converting unknown consumers into patients: Any business
needs to drive new revenue, and hospitals and health plans are
no different. Given that approximately 60% of internet users look
for health information online, social media is an abundantly
helpful tool that both payors and providers can use to convert
unknown consumers into patients/members and to increase
loyalty from existing consumers. If hospitals and health plans
want to serve the public, then they need to meet the public
where they are, which increasingly means on the internet and
social media.
How does social media impact healthcare consumer behaviors?
The job of social media is to start conversations with consumers using
forms of outreach they are already using to collect health information.
Social media impacts consumer behavior in the same way that any great
conversation with a trusted advisor does. In fact, according to Webbed
Feet, 92% of consumers say they trust earned media, such as social
media, word of mouth, recommendation from friends and family, above
all other forms of advertising.
There is a seismic and stressful cultural shift taking place that transforms
our “sick care” model into a “wellness” model that impacts care outside
of the clinical setting in a transformational way. The market has reached
a place where the industry has both the incentives and information
needed to move towards this new model of care. The business practice
challenge will understandably take much more time to heal.
What are the benefits of social media for patients, providers
and health plans?
The shift towards the wellness model has important implications for the
health insurance plan as well. For example, Humana has reported that
technology will be key in the effort to engage its more than 20 million
consumers in a wellness model. Investments in “information tools” allow
Humana to educate and motivate consumers, help them gain easier
access to providers and more timely treatments, and to work to improve
their health in multiple ways. Humana is transitioning its role to help
members with their health needs as opposed to simply “financing access
to sick care.” The strategy wraps around the integrated delivery model to
accomplish several things:
• Quick dissemination of health education: Social media
provides an incredible opportunity for healthcare organizations
to demonstrate thought leadership on today’s most pressing
healthcare topics such as diabetes, obesity, and wellness.
Through the dissemination of medical information that is
accurate and actionable, healthcare organizations can not only
improve general health and well-being but also grow patient
rosters, and the bottom line, as a result. Other industries have
learned that providing free content that demonstrates thought
leadership often brings sizeable rewards. Those same industries
would be green with envy at the interest healthcare organizations
receive from the content they create.
• Healthcare across vast distances: Social media allows people
to share information at a speed and distance never before
possible. It presents a new opportunity to prevent, diagnose, and
treat diseases. In some cases it can even save lives. But we still
need more engagement from healthcare professionals. Having
lived in rural communities and a foreign country where I did not
speak the native language, I can attest to the tremendous
opportunity that healthcare organizations have through the
adoption of collaboration and social media tools to provide
quality care to individuals who may not otherwise have access to
medical advice.
• Mechanism for cost control: Social media is the most
cost-effective way to promote a message. Smart marketers
already realize this, which is why they were early adopters of
social media. However, social media can go beyond the
marketing department of healthcare organizations. Social media
and collaboration tools can provide an incredibly cost-effective
way to monitor and dispense healthcare services. Healthcare
organizations have an incredible opportunity to differentiate
themselves as low cost providers of high-quality medicine
through the use of social media and collaboration tools.
• Collaborative nature of social media: In many cases, industries
outside of healthcare become guinea pigs for technological
advances that can be later used in the healthcare industry. Social
media has, in countless instances, leveled the playing field
between companies and their consumers. Companies are now
vigilantly monitoring social media networks for traces of
customer sentiment around their brand in hopes that they can
react. They are also leveraging the power of social media
offensively to build brand awareness, prove thought leadership,
and innovate. Healthcare organizations have incredible
opportunities to harness the power of social media to achieve
these same ends. However, if healthcare organizations are slow
to invest in the tools and functions necessary to respond
adequately to healthcare consumerism, then they could be at an
incredible disadvantage if social media takes over their brand
while they are not looking.

3. What challenges does social media present?
There are some. First, there are privacy concerns. Violating HIPAA
privacy policies can result in stiff penalties. As such, the same open
nature that makes social media appealing also raises privacy concerns
for healthcare organizations. There is little in the way of advice on the
matter, and healthcare organizations have been shy with advancing
social media policies of their own. Progress in this area, though slow,
has grown at a good pace over the past few years. For example, Health
and Human Services and the American Medical Association have
guidance in the area.
Next, there is a lack of training in collaborative technologies. Many are
intimidated by the rapid pace of social media, and doctors are no
exception. There has been little professional guidance to help physicians
navigate connections with patients on Facebook, Twitter, and other
sites. My recommendation is to join social media and ask the healthcare
social community some questions. Due to its very nature, social media is
filled with highly collaborative people who are willing to help a
newcomer. Veterans in social media enthusiastically provide advice to
newbies.
Limits on holistic patient information is another concern. For obvious
reasons, doctors are hesitant to provide medical advice to “online
patients” when they have very little in the way of holistic medical history.
Doctors have very good reasons for shining light in your eyes and
listening to you breathe during an office visit. Interacting with patients
online limits a physician’s access to important information. As a result,
this new social medium for disseminating healthcare services creates
questions related to liability for misdiagnosis. The reactionary nature of
laws, particularly in regulating the use of new technologies, make
healthcare organizations very skeptical about the social media scene.
Finally, there is a social stigma around social media. While a growing
number of physicians participate in social media, there are also
physicians that look down on the practice. They may wonder if a “real
doctor” should be navigating social networks. They also may wonder if
social media compromises the existing patient/doctor relationship. With
the popularity of physician-only social media outlets like Doximity, I’m
confident that these questions will be worked out within the medical
community to the benefit of social media as a whole.
Where do you see healthcare social media going in the future?
We expect to see three main trends in healthcare social media:
• Private networks: One of the biggest movements in social
networking is a drive towards more private moments with a less
densely populated circle of friends. This movement towards
fewer but more stable connections is known as Dunbar’s
number, which operates under the premise that one can
maintain stable social relationships with about 150 people. With
today’s social networks deluged with data, many consumers are
moving towards more intimate and personal connections. Many
of these networks are trending towards a common theme. As
opposed to connecting only to people they know, consumers
are now forming private networks based on shared themes,
interests, passions, beliefs, and ideologies. It will be important
for healthcare organizations to understand the already-existing
online patient communities as well. From my perspective, these
pre-existing communities will form into the private social
networks of healthcare.
• Social patient portal: Not all patient-doctor interaction can
occur in traditional social media outlets. However, technologies
are rapidly filling the current void to extend social media
channels into a private, communication-rich online environments
where patients and doctors can interact. Using these advances
in technology, I envision that the traditional social media outlets,
such as Twitter and Facebook, will become a starting point for
healthcare communications that can be fully integrated into care
using advances in collaborative technology.
• Social analytics and patient data: Over the past year I have
heard the healthcare industry sing the collective “retail strategy”
song. It’s true that adopting successful consumer engagement
practices from other industries is a good practice to adopt.
However, many healthcare organizations rallying behind retail
strategies are ignoring what retail does so well: collect data
around the consumer. Retail uses data to understand its
consumer and predict their behavior to plan accordingly.
However, healthcare organizations are catching on, and the
future of social media will reflect this with the increased use of
social analytics.
What should healthcare organizations do now to prepare for
the future in terms of social media?
Preparing for the future requires an organization to form a social media
bedrock of both strategy and governance. To make a social media
strategy effective, it is important to present content in a fashion and
format that makes the most sense to the healthcare consumer. No two
patient populations are the same, so you must know your patient
population better than anyone else. Many times, the battle for customer
engagement is fought through social media. And, increasingly, it can
seem that organizations are no longer in control of the conversations
that occur around their brand. This is a scary thought. As such, it is
crucial that every social media strategy include a formal social media
governance program. This program will ensure that an organization’s

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social media conversations stay relevant and on message while also
building a defense against brand erosion. However, with the right
strategy, you can embrace the power of social to influence the
conversation and amplify your message.
What else do you want people to know about the evolution?
Doing social media well is not a sprint – it is a marathon. A healthcare
organization should not expect to execute a single social media
campaign – even a good one – and expect success. An effective
healthcare social media program consists of a long-term relationship
between a healthcare organization and the population it keeps well.
How can Perficient help engage healthcare consumers?
Perficient’s connected health solutions engage patients, members,
providers, and the health community using technology to deliver quality
care outside of the traditional medical setting. While the healthcare
consumer, on average, only spends 1% of their time in the care setting, it
is the other 99% that determines whether they return or maintain their
health. Connected health solutions at Perficient aim to maximize
healthcare resources and provide increased and flexible opportunities for
healthcare consumers to engage with their care. The ultimate goal is to
reduce costs and improve the quality of care.