A rising tide: Hospitals and social media

Abstract

The advent of social media has changed the face of healthcare communications. More and more hospitals are recognizing this fact and seeking to integrate tools like Twitter^® and Facebook^® into their own communications strategies. This article gives an overview of the challenges clinics are facing vis-à-vis social media, and of the benefits they reap when the new tools are used effectively. Trends in social media use by hospitals in North America and Europe are highlighted and a range of best practice examples given. These include brand and crisis management, patient and physician education, fundraising, community building, and recruitment. Finally, the shifting role of medical writers and communicators toward social media management is explained.

Keywords:

• Hospitals
• Social media
• Healthcare
• Medical communications
• Medical writing
• Patient experience

Media coverage of cancer

Beyond the oncology clinical study reports and the medical manuscripts that we medical writers prepare is a body of literature on cancer that targets the lay audience. And these may actually paint a completely different picture of the disease than what we see in tables, figures, and listings.

Two studies investigated how the media cover cancer research in two countries. In one study, American researchers conducted a content analysis of cancer news reporting by US newspapers (n = 8) and magazines (n = 5) between 2005 and 2007. Their results showed that of the 436 randomly sampled articles analysed, 32.1% focused on survivorship and only 7.6% on mortality. The majority of the articles covered aggressive cancer treatments (57.1%), but only 13.1% reported that these treatments can fail. The topic of end-of-life palliative care for cancer patients is very rarely discussed (2 of the 436 articles). The authors criticized the American media for misleading the public by giving an ‘inappropriately optimistic view of cancer treatment, outcomes, and prognosis’.¹

Another study analysed stories by the world's largest broadcasting organization, the UK-based BBC, on cancer research from July 1998 to June 2006. Innovations in cancer treatment are a favourite topic (20%) followed by lifestyle choices (12%), genetics (9%) and nutrition (e.g. food and beverage; 8%). Most of the stories cited as sources articles published in peer-reviewed journals but with a bias towards UK (40%) and US (36%) research papers. In fact, the British papers were overcited by a factor of about 6 relative to research papers from the rest of the world. The sources were dominated by The Lancet, British Journal of Cancer, and British Medical Journal, journals with high impact factors. The authors concluded that ‘media reporting of cancer research by the BBC is, relative to global cancer research activity and outputs (publications), narrow’.

Both studies reported breast cancer as the cancer type most covered by the media (>30% of all the BBC stories), which was actually over-reported relative to its cancer disease burden of 13%.² Preference for the ‘pink’ cancer may be due to its high survival rate which gives lots of happy-ending material. However, survivorship of young, beautiful celebrities (e.g. Kylie Minogue, Christina Applegate) also ‘glams’ the malignancy and keeps the paparazzi busy.

Statistics estimate that one in two men and one in three women will have cancer during their lifetime.¹ Everybody knows at least one person diagnosed with cancer. Sad as it may sound, cancer is so widespread it has almost become a household word. All the more reason why a balanced and less hyped media reporting on cancer is needed.

Raquel Billiones

[email protected]

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ursula Schoenberg

Ursula Schoenberg is a bilingual German-American medical writer. She offers professional copywriting, editing and translation to companies, communications agencies and organisations seeking to strengthen their messages in a global market. One of her fields of interest is how new channels of communication are changing the healthcare landscape.