Hospitals' social media efforts boost reputation, patient loyalty: study

Hospitals are putting more and more energy and resources into growing their social media presence, but do those efforts bear fruit when it comes to reputation and patient loyalty?

New research says yes.

During a session at the American College of Healthcare Executives annual meeting in Chicago, two researchers explained results of their forthcoming study on the value of social media in healthcare.

“We wanted to find out what the real relationship was between social media richness and (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) ratings,” said Deirdre McCaughey, assistant professor of healthcare management and strategy at Pennsylvania State University and one of the study's authors.

To find the answer to that question, McCaughey and her colleagues evaluated a sample of 106 hospitals, looking specifically at whether those organizations had social media policies posted on their websites and how they used various social media channels.

They also gathered data on hospitals' scores on two HCAHPS questions: the percentage of patients who rated the hospital a “9” or a “10,” and the percentage who said they would definitely recommend the hospital to friends and family.

Hospitals' scores on social media richness—a metric that measures the depth and breadth of communication on different types of social media—correlated with high HCAHPS scores, McCaughey said.

Additionally, researchers performed a more in-depth analysis and found that use of social media was predictive of higher HCAHPS scores. “Correlations are great but not enough,” she said.

The study is expected to appear sometime in the next several months in the journal Social Science Computer Review. It's one of the first to measure the value of social media for healthcare organizations.

Using HCAHPS is just one way to measure and more research is needed, said Dominique LaRochelle, a project manager in quality improvement at the Cleveland Clinic and another of the study's authors.

Follow Maureen McKinney on Twitter: @MHMMcKinney

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