Category: Social media in healthcare

Posted on

Hospitals Now Focus on Patient Experience and Reputation Management

Patient experience and reputation management now priorities for healthcare facilities

Laura Markowski used to worry every time a text alerted her that a patient had posted a negative review online of a doctor at her health-care system.

She’s in charge of “reputation management” at a group of hospitals and clinics in Virginia, and it’s her job to monitor complaints about rudeness, long waits, lack of face time with a doctor or something more serious.

But after several months of reviewing comments in real time on nearly a dozen Web sites, including Healthgrades.com, ZocDoc.com and Google Plus, as well as Facebook and Twitter, she’s calmer.

Most reviews have been “one-offs for different physicians,” she said, not focused on just one doctor or group practice that would raise a red flag.

Patient experience and reputation management

Markowski is part of a new and urgent effort by hospitals and health systems to track and control their online reputations. As out-of-pocket costs for health care have risen, people are increasingly shopping for their medical care and comparing reviews. And younger consumers who have grown up on Yelp and Rate My Professors expect the same seamless, digital experience with health care that they have used in other aspects of their lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShILNHgnEjU

Patient satisfaction, long ignored by the health-care industry, is a strategic priority for another simple reason: It’s playing a more important role in determining how the federal government pays hospitals. In the last three years the government has been taking into account patient satisfaction data when determining how much to reimburse hospitals for Medicare patients.

But putting hospitals and doctors into the online rating world is fraught with possible problems. For one, patients and doctors have widely differing expectations.

When patients are asked to rate how doctor quality should be measured, clinical outcomes, such as getting cured of a disease, rarely come up, said Lisa Suennen, who advises health-care companies. Patients talk about whether a doctor or nurse was kind to them, or whether their experience was fast and convenient. It’s assumed that the doctor is going to treat their illness or condition.

Physicians, on the other hand, go straight to the clinical. The cancer is gone. Or the person can walk again. “They don’t even talk about the other stuff,” Suennen said. The two groups “are really disconnected.”

Physicians are not eager to be rated like restaurants. It’s hard for them to wrap their minds around the process, because taking care of patients is exceptionally complex, said Adrienne Boissy, the chief experience officer at the Cleveland Clinic.

“We don’t have consumers, we have patients,” she said. “Health care isn’t necessarily like shopping at Target.”

And some experts fear that the focus is more on burnishing the online reputations of doctors and hospitals than improving delivery of care.

Read more

Continue reading “Hospitals Now Focus on Patient Experience and Reputation Management”

Posted on

HIPAA Often Misinterpreted

HIPAA mythsIntended to keep personal health information private, the law does not prohibit health care providers from sharing information with family, friends or caregivers unless the patient specifically objects. Even if he or she is not present or is incapacitated, providers may use “professional judgment” to disclose pertinent information to a relative or friend if it’s “in the best interests of the individual.”

Hipaa applies only to health care providers, health insurers, clearinghouses that manage and store health data, and their business associates. Yet when I last wrote about this topic, a California reader commented that she’d heard a minister explain that the names of ailing parishioners could no longer appear in the church bulletin because of Hipaa.

Wrong. Neither a church nor a distraught spouse is a “covered entity” under the law.

Last month, Representative Doris Matsui, Democrat of California and co-chairwoman of the Democratic Caucus Seniors Task Force, who has heard similar complaints from constituents, introduced legislation to clarify who can divulge what and under what circumstances. The proposed bill would require the Department of Health and Human Services, which last year issued new Hipaa “guidance,” to make that statement part of its regulations and to create model training programs for providers and administrators, patients and families.

“A lot of times it’s just misunderstanding what is and isn’t allowed under Hipaa,” Representative Matsui said in an interview.

So, what is and isn’t?

Learn more

Posted on

FTC Social Media Endorsements Guidelines

FTC endorsements guidelinesEndorsements and reviews are big in social media, they can be effective decision making tools for consumers if they are truthful.  the FTC published endorsement guidelines to help brands and businesses stay out of trouble

Suppose you meet someone who tells you about a great new product. She tells you it performs wonderfully and offers fantastic new features that nobody else has. Would that recommendation factor into your decision to buy the product? Probably.

Now suppose the person works for the company that sells the product – or has been paid by the company to tout the product. Would you want to know that when you’re evaluating the endorser’s glowing recommendation? You bet. That common-sense premise is at the heart of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Endorsement Guides.

The Guides, at their core, reflect the basic truth-in-advertising principle that endorsements must be honest and not misleading. An endorsement must reflect the honest opinion of the endorser and can’t be used to make a claim that the product’s marketer couldn’t legally make. Continue reading “FTC Social Media Endorsements Guidelines”

Posted on

Social Media Guidance For Physicians

Social Media Guidance For PhysiciansLack of social media guidance for physicians

Professionals in healthcare have been slow to embrace social media and one of the reasons is the lack of social media guidance for physicians.  Physicians face a number of issues related to compliance (HIPAA and in some cases FDA), maintaining trust in the patient/physician relationship and the integrity of the profession

Professional associations steps in

In some cases, professional associations, concerned with the potential negative impact of social media  on the profession at large, have tried to fill the gap and issued guidance.

One of these associations, the American College of Physicians offers physicians a set of social media guidance to explain the pros and cons of social media as well as issue recommendations and safeguards for the proper use of social media

The goal of the recommendations being to preserve the trust in the patient/physician relationship and the integrity of the profession.

Recommendations and guidelines Continue reading “Social Media Guidance For Physicians”

Posted on

FDA Cracking Down on Facebook Marketing

FDA craking down on FacebookThe FDA cracking down on Facebook marketing is a clear signal that companies have to treat Facebook the same way they would treat any other media they use in their communication with the public

In the past 6 months the FDA has issued 6 warning letters mostly for unapproved claims but when it comes to unapproved claims social media creates a unique challenge for companies in the healthcare industry at large (that includes manufacturers and distributors of supplements and other products not usually considered drugs or medical devices but could be construed as related to health) in that comments posted by third parties can also be construed as claims and the simple fact of liking a comment constitutes an endorsement of the claim by the owner of the page Continue reading “FDA Cracking Down on Facebook Marketing”

Posted on

What Worries Compliance Officers?

what worries complaince officersWhen it comes to regulated markets, compliance is a major issue, especially when it comes to social media, it worries compliance officers and has held back the use of social media in regulated markets.

So, what keeps compliance officers up at night and what do they do about it.

In short, anything posted on social media is amplified and can have an impact on the brand and the reputation and once the cat is out of the box, getting it back in the box is rather difficult.

As Warren Buffet said:“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

Of course, there are ways to mitigate risk. For one thing, a social media policy explaining who can post on social media sites, how they post and what they can or cannot say, what requires compliance approval before posting.  Yous social media policy should also define the steps to follow in case of crisis

The other challenge is what employees post about the company on their personal social media accounts.  Their post can be perceived as representing the views of the companies and can have an impact on the company reputation and/or have repercussions from the regulatory authorities

What makes it even more challenging is that be it in healthcare or financial services there are no set social media rules.  The regulatory authorities (FDA, FINRA, SEC, OCC and others) have not created a framework to regulate social media, they have only issued guidance on how to apply traditional communication with the public regulations to the electronic era and social media. The guidance seems to be a lot clearer though in the financial markets; in the medical market, the FDA is still going back and forth and the guidance can be confusing at best.

In addition, social media platforms are diverse and so are the posting modes and the number of character allowed creating challenges especially when it comes to disclosures.

Read more about what keeps compliance officers awake in financial services.

Posted on

Six Ways To Detect Fake LinkedIn Profiles

How_to_detect_a_fake_LinkedIn_profileBefore we look at the six ways to detect fake LinkedIn profiles, it’s important to understand the driving force behind these profiles and the main reason is spamming.

Spamming has been around for a long time, first via email and as blogs started proliferating, spammers started polluting blogs, it was only a question of time before they  started polluting social media platforms

Coming back to LinkedIn, two of the best way to get maximum exposure on LinkedIn are growing your network or participating in large, active discussion groups.  Both imply creating a profile and since spammers learn early on that to effectively spam, they needed many identities, in case they were filtered out.

Over the past few years, we have seen a rapid increase in the number of fake profiles created by spammers either joining discussion groups or asking to join users networks, they usually target large active discussion groups and/or users with large networks, especially LIONs (LinkedIn Open Networkers) who are not too selective in growing their network and allow spammers to develop their network based on first and second degree connections.

Of course, there are a number of ways to stop them, the first one is to be selective in who you accept in your network, the second is for group owners to be more proactive in monitoring who joins their groups and to not fall into the temptation to grow the size of their group at the expense of the quality of the discussion. Continue reading “Six Ways To Detect Fake LinkedIn Profiles”

Posted on

FDA Social Media Guidance Controversy

FDAUnder the new FDA social media guidance, manufacturers would be responsible for monitoring their social media platforms for comments considered inaccurate, misleading or related to non approved or off label use.

They would also be liable when third party websites they have collaborated with publishes or do not filter articles, posts, ads or comments considered inaccurate, misleading or related to non approved or off label use.

All three major industry trade associations – the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed) warn FDA of significant flaws in the agency’s proposed regulations on the use of social media.

Their contention being that information and comments published online by third party comes under the first amendment and they should not have to monitor, correct or remove them even if they are misleading

The first amendment argument has been widely used to justify misleading information in non regulated industries but in the healthcare industry, misleading information, even by third party can have wide ranging consequences on the health of patients, raise false hope and create undue pressure by ill patients on doctors. Continue reading “FDA Social Media Guidance Controversy”

Posted on

Facebook Venturing into Healthcare

Facebook venturing into healthcareFacebook venturing into healthcare was predictable.  Apple, Google are doing it and there is a plethora of niche platform doing it.

Facebook already knows us in more intimate ways than we sometimes know.  They know what we like, who our friends are, they know what we share, they certainly have been following and recording when we share our medical conditions, health concerns and health initiative.

They also follow anything happening on their platform and there is no doubt they have noticed that patients have created a number of communities (private and public support groups based on health conditions, they are also keenly aware that studies have shown that these support communities in and out of Facebook are very active and engaged, in spite of Facebook dubious reputation when it comes to privacy

As Facebook mentioned, most Instagram users do not know Instagram is owned by Facebook and they are hoping their health care ventures will follow a similar path with patients ignoring or being unaware of the link between Facebook and the community.

How do you feel about sharing intimate health information in communities run by Facebook or on a Facebook owned platform?

Continue reading “Facebook Venturing into Healthcare”

Posted on

Physician Reviews: Patient Experience Trumps Skills

physician reviewsHow important are physician reviews

In healthcare, branding sometimes is reduced to its most basic component and it’s not what most physicians would thing about first.

Unless a patient is victim of malpractice, it’s very difficult for them to evaluate a physician medical skills.

On the other hand, patients have expectations in terms of experience and oftentimes, that experience will drive their perception of the physician or the healthcare facility.

According to a recent study of physician review websites released in April 2013 by Vanguard Communications, poor customer service and bedside manners are the biggest complaints on online medical review sites, trumping by far poor medical skills

  • 43.1 percent of the negative reviews complained about doctor indifference and bedside manner
  • 35.3 percent were about poor customer service including staff rudeness, erroneous billing, unprofessional dress and facilities not being hygienic.
  • 21.5 percent highlighted a lack of physician skills

To stand out of the crowd, just like any business, healthcare professionals need to start thinking about their brand holistically, in term of patient experience from beginning to end.

What does that mean?  That means evaluating and improving each point of contact with the patient, from the website, social media, printed material, telephone demeanor, front office staff,  assistants, nurses, bedside manners, parking lot, waiting room … to improve patient and caregivers’ experience

Think in term of great experience and patients and caregivers will flock to review sites and sing your praise.

What’s in it for you? Increasingly patients are going online for healthcare information and  to choose healthcare professionals based on peer reviews and referrals.

In addition, positive reviews improve your website organic search rankings which in turn, means better visibility and more patients and referrals.

There is no downside

Proudly powered by WordPress