The popular #hcsm Twitter hashtag is used by health care communicators,
patients, physicians, and nurses among others. It’s often used to close tweets
about patient experiences, social media best practices, and whether or not its
use is cost effective for health care providers. We believe that access to
information is a patient’s right and social media helps to enable that. Better
info. Better health. But the dollars and cents can be elusive. So, we went
looking for some answers.
Our search led us to Chris Boyer. He’s the Director of Digital
Communications and Marketing for Inova Health System and external advisory
board member of the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media. He has particular
expertise in the area of return on investment for dollars spent on social
media. He also has a personal health experience that inspires his work.
At eighteen, Chris Boyer was diagnosed with a serious
illness. It proved to be traumatic. It convinced him that the patient
experience could be better. Today the “better patient experience” is up to him.
So how’s he doing it?
As a social media advocate, he promotes his organization’s
use of social media to share health information and promote healthy lifestyles.
His approach has been successful. Yet,
he’s still challenged to demonstrate its cost effectiveness.
So why’s that important?
“Dealing with your
executives is going to be the biggest hurdle in any health care organization,”
Boyer says. The higher ups believe that the proof is in the pudding. And the
pudding is usually made up of a mixture of budgets and cash flow.
According to Chris, there are three focus areas of social
media ROI:
- Driving growth in patient choice procedures
- Saving money by using social media to supplement and replace traditional media
- Building engagement and loyalty for lifetime patients
And he routinely demonstrates this to his organization.
Are you challenged to provide similar proof? We can help you
work through that. In the meantime, check out Chris’ ukulele-driven social
media ROI song. It might provide some inspiration. You can find it at www.christopherboyer.com
You can find us on Twitter. Search #hcsm or check out
@timbigfish or @addiemcgowan there.
