Do Social Hospitals Have Better HCAHPS Scores??

People wonder about many different things - do these pants make me look fat? - what will I be when I grow up?.. I wonder if social hospitals have better #HCAHPS scores?? My gut tells me that they do - why?? To me the hospital that has adopted social media tools to better communicate with their patients, employees, medical staff, and community reflects an organizational culture of superior communication.

Check out the publicly reported #HCAHPS questions and you will find that they are mainly based upon "communicated well", "received help as soon as they wanted (they were listened to)", and "always explained". These very same characteristics mirror the basic principles of social media - "communicate well, listen, and explain". It is no secret that if your organizational culture is one of superior communication, there should be a correlation to your hospital's #HCAHPS scores.

Like anything else - show me the numbers - for sake of time this morning I choose to look at one of my favorite twittering hospitals - Sarasota Memorial Hospital (Florida) (http://www.smh.com @SMHCS) - (or perhaps it is just me imagining myself on one of Sarasota's fine beaches!) - Shawn Halls does a wonderful job in managing their twitter account - @SMHCS is currently #21 on @wefollow in the hospital category with 1,263 twitter followers. They also have earned a 97.9 score according to http://twitter.grader.com/smhcs - they also rank #66,888 out of over 3.2 million overall twitter users!

Sarasota Memorial also has a very nice website that earns a 92 score from (http://www.grader.com/site.php?URL=www.smh.com) - with easy to find social media links/buttons to their twitter, facebook, myspace, and delicious accounts. There facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/SarasotaMemorialHospital?ref=mf) is very nice - with many postings about classes, clinical services, community activities, etc. All in all, SMH does a very nice job of utilizing social media tools and engaging their employees, patients, medical staff, and community. With this being said, based upon their scores - I would consider them to be one of the "Best Practice" social hospitals.

The other hospital in Sarasota is Doctors Hospital of Sarasota. They too have a very nice visual website - (http://www.doctorsofsarasota.com/) - it has their "ER Wait Times", great links and pictures to their events, key service lines, CEO welcome letter, etc. But in contrast to SMH - their website only scores a 64 according to grader.com (http://www.grader.com/site.php?URL=www.doctorsofsarasota.com). Though, their website also does not show any links/buttons to any social media tools/accounts. I did find that they have a facebook page - with only 1 member, I was unable to find a twitter account for them, and they are not listed on Ed Bennett's social media list (http://ebennett.org/hsnl/).

Now let's see how their #HCAHPS scores compare to their competitor - while many of the ten #HCAHPS patient experience ratings are very close - there is a material difference in what I consider the most important question - "Percent of patients who reported YES, they would definitely recommend the hospital" - 77% of Sarasota Memorial Hospital's patients would "definitely recommend" - whereby 71% of Doctors Hospital of Sarasota would "definitely recommend".

While a 6 percentage point difference may not seem like a lot - and certainly 71% is not substandard - Sarasota Memorial had 13,615 discharges in FY2008 (according to their Medicare cost report) - this 6 percentage point difference represents 817 more discharges (patients) that "would definitely recommend" SMH, as compared to Doctors Hospital's 71% rate. In applying this same logic to Doctors Hospital - they had 3,627 discharges in FY2007 (according to their Medicare cost report) - this same 6 percentage point difference represents 218 less discharges (patients) that "would definitely recommend" DHS to their friends and family.

You can draw your own conclusions about the data - this example to me shows that potentially an organization's "superior communication" culture - whether in social media adoption, hospital operations, and patient care - could translate into higher #HCAHPS scores. I will continue this research and looking for other similar markets.

How Does This Best Practice Hospital Grade Out??

Children's Hospital Foundation in Washington D.C. (http://www.childrensnational.org/give) is a best practice hospital in their utilization of social media tools. They are the top U.S. hospital on Twitter with 2,906 followers (@childrenshealth). On their facebook page, they have 1,666 fans. Certainly with these numbers of fans and followers they certainly have a solid "social capital" base of fans, followers, and friends.

Their website is excellent - with ways to financially support their mission, learn about events, and a great section dedicated to meeting children that they have cared for!

As the utilization of social media tools continue to evolve - I believe that the 2.0 version of social media will turn towards quantifying and measuring the "social capital" and "social effectiveness" of organizations and businesses that have adopted these tools. The hospital CFO mind in me wants to see a report/score card format for hospitals using social media tools.

It is very important for us to engage our communities by having tons of followers, friends, and fans. But as we move towards to social media 2.0, how are we capitalizing on our new online engaged communities? Are the friends, fans, and followers that we have really quality, local customers/patients? Are our social media efforts and initiatives translating into a stronger market share, more surgeries, outpatient revenue, and ultimately bottomline impact?

I am starting to work on a social media scorecard that will measure and track hospital and health system social media grades/scores. I believe that this scorecard will be very important for our business and we progress into a social media 2.0 world.

Children's Hospital Foundation's website has earned a grade of 76 out of 100 (according to http://www.websitegrader.com/) - Here is a copy of their report - http://www.grader.com/site.php?URL=www.dcchildrensfoundation.com/site/PageServer

As you will see - there are very specific areas that they can improve on with their website to maximize their excellent efforts in this area.

Their twitter efforts certainly show with a grade of 98.4 out of 100 - here is a copy of their report - http://twitter.grader.com/childrenshealth - their follower/following history is excellent with a great growth of both on this chart http://twitter.grader.com/history/childrenshealth.

As mentioned above Children's Hospital has 1,666 fans on their facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/childrens.national - they do a great job in presenting a "presurgical tour" online, interviews of their medical staff that appeared on CNN and even a visit by President Obama!

Great job - Children's Hospital Foundation for a solid scorecard and great use of social media tools!!

DIY or Outsource Your Hospital's Social Media Activities??

With the current low hospital and hospital association social media adoption rate - I would tend to conclude that there are multiple factors that are keeping this number low. Is it a cost issue? Is it a knowledge/awareness issue? Is it a time issue? We could speculate all night as to what the driving factors are behind this issue.

As I have documented in some recent posts, the issue for a hospital is not whether to adopt/implement these tools as much as it is who is going to become the "social media" champion within their organization.

Ok - so your CEO just came into your weekly administrative meeting and proclaimed that your hospital is going to become the next "social media superstar" within thirty days. What do you do? Do you take on the steep learning curve and spend the next 2-3 weeks learning how facebook, twitter, blogs, and Youtube work? Do you contact your marketing company to see if they know how do social media? Do you do a Google search for "outsource social media" companies?

According to a July 7, 2009 article by Lydia Dishman - http://www.entrepreneur.com/ebusiness/expandingyouronlinepresence/article202500.html - she states that "as the number of platforms grows, so does the time it takes to feed and groom each account. Not to mention the front-end investment of setting everything up". She also poses the question "for those caught up in a social media blitz - and those contemplating taking the plunge - why not consider outsourcing"?

If you are considering outsourcing your social media and are looking for an "expert" - I would recommend that you script your interview questions using Ian Lurie's "10 Questions to Evaluate a Social Media Expert" - http://www.conversationmarketing.com/2009/07/10-questions-for-social-media-experts.htm - this is a very good place to start - as well as give you a basic idea of what to look for. The upside to outsourcing is that (in theory) you will be engaging a social media expert (no learning curve), quick implementation, cheaper than hiring a dedicated employee or a portion of an FTE, and they will be up to date with social media tool trends. The downside is that there is a lot of pressure to select the right firm out of many that claim they are "experts", lack of control, and the typical outsource management issues (i.e. performance, responsiveness..etc).

From the D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) side of the ball - you can hire a person or people to take on your social media program - the advantages of this is that you will maintain direct control over the messages, your branding, and promotions. The downside is that you will have to deal with typical employee relations issues (i.e. sick/vacation time), cross training, steep learning curve, and large time commitment.

You can certainly make a very compelling case for either DIY or outsourcing your social media strategy. As with any strategic decision, make sure you do your homework before you choose your path.

Good luck with your selection! I look forward to seeing and reporting on your future successes!!