Social Media Role During Healthcare Crisis

Social Media, being a boon or a bane has always been a major debate around the globe by various people of diverse age groups. It is utilized in various industries like the fashion, marketing, entertainment, healthcare, etc.

Yes, you read it right. It is even utilized in the healthcare industry and here it is definitely a boon here. Many people argue, it’s not safe for making use of social media when in a serious sector like healthcare.

But the media can be employed mostly during healthcare crisis. What is social media role during healthcare crisis is the crux of the entire article?

1. While Crisis Planning:

Social media role during healthcare crisis can be done while the planning of solutions for crisis is going on. Many hospitals do not give much importance to social networking sites when a crisis arrives. But one should not be doing this even in their dreams as well.

In cases of emergency, patients, staff and members of the media usually turn to your social media channels for any kind updates and information. So, it is necessary that the crisis team is at the table and commence their work as soon as possible.

Therefore, the healthcare organization should even involve social media teams as well when handling crisis.

2. Monitoring:

Monitoring social media like patients is also fundamental for social media teams. One should keep an eye on what a patient is posting on to the healthcare Facebook wall or tagging in the Twitter handle.

There are even effective monitoring tools available in the market and it’s definitely a worthwhile investment for the organization.

In short, it is better not to restrict social media during healthcare crisis only.

3. Keep Calm:

Many times it happens that a person tends to post something wrong on the social media in case of anger. In that case, it is always better to keep calm, avoid asking follow-up questions in public and ask him or her to email his query/problem in an email privately.

This way one can even have a reputation that the organization is highly responsive and it can also aid in HIPAA rules being violated.

4. Update:

One way of avoiding usage of social media role during healthcare crisis is informing/updating the potential audience on a regular basis. The visitors (of the social media page), patients and even the general public have right to know what is going on in the organization.

The happenings in the organization can be anything. Like closing of any branch in the city, renovation of any area within the organization, opening of any new branch/lab, arrival of new equipments, etc.

5. Perfection:

Nobody is perfect in this world and there is no such saying called “an ideal organization.” It is incorrect on the part of an organization if they tend to delete negative comments against the organization on social media.

Instead the negative comments or feedback on social media should be handled in a matured manner. People find credibility in healthcare organizations when there is a presence of both positive and negative feedback.