Health Care Utilizes Facebook in New Ways

“Why Hospitals Shouldbe Facebook Friends with Benefits” is definitely an interesting article! It opens by discussing statistics on how hospitals are not connecting with others through Facebook. Well I have been discussing how the health care industry needs to engage more for months now so there is nothing new or surprising there. What is surprising are the examples of how certain health care systems are choosing to use Facebook.

My favorite use of a Facebook mentioned in the article is the Pinky Swear app that reminds women to schedule a mammogram and allows them to send reminders to others. The Henry Ford Health System is using this app to connect with patients, but also as prevention tool to educate women on risks associated with breast cancer. Love, love, love it! Even the name of the app is catchy and fun. I would love to see if this app actually influenced behavior and managed to get more women into the doctor’s office for a mammogram. Apps are very good at creating awareness and grabbing people’s attention, but just how effective are they are causing certain behaviors? Maybe additional research will tell us all soon enough! Either way, I am interested to see the numbers on just how successful this Facebook app is for the Henry Ford Health System because it is definitely a new and innovative way of using this social media tool to engage and connect.

Just How Many People Seek Health Information Through Social Media Sites?

This article, written by Donna Fuscaldo, came as no surprise to me when I read it. According to a Ticker survey of 22,877 Americans, “96% of respondents said they used Facebook to gather information about health care while 28% used YouTube and 22% used Twitter.” So if 96% of the respondents are utilizing Facebook when searching for health information, can the health care industry continue to sit around and wait to join the social media craze? I guess the bigger question is even though people are using social media sites to seek this information, how many of them trust the information they receive?

What I found to be most interesting is the fact that households who earned $75,000 or more were more likely to us social media sites when seeking health information in comparison to smaller income households. Additional research into the demographics social media site users is needed. The health care industry is constantly researching diseases associated with certain ages, gender, race, and income. Research into targeting certain messages to specific audiences and groups based on demographics could prove useful in health education, information sharing, and prevention.

Overall, this article is just flat out interesting. It is a good read so take a look at it and let me know your thoughts!