Health Care Communication
Using Social
Media to
Improve Patient
Experiences
Ten years ago when social media
was a relatively new phenomenon,
it wasn’t necessary for the CAMC
Health System to have a team of
professionals dedicated to mon-
itoring its social media accounts
around the clock. Over time, however, it became apparent to
Chief Marketing Officer Elizabeth Pellegrin that social media
was going to become a communication tool that would be crucial
to watch—not just as a way for health care providers to share
important information but as a way to more hastily address
the concerns the hospital’s patients were sharing online.
These days, when people have a positive or negative
experience with a business, they are more likely to write about
it online than pick up a phone. For CAMC, this has resulted
in the creation of the hospital’s social media team. On top
of their other duties, the members of this three-person team
of marketing specialists share the responsibility of monitoring
social media from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily so that if a patient
shares concerns about an experience, they can let the nurse
manager on duty know immediately and get potential
problems rectified.
“What started as a marketing platform has evolved into
service recovery,” says Pellegrin, who began doing research
seven years ago on how other institutions use social media
and ultimately developed this format.
Her social media team focuses on three social media
outlets—Facebook, Twitter and YouTube—and monitors its
CAMC Health System page as well as the pages for all of
the system’s hospitals and medical centers, including CAMC
General Hospital, CAMC Memorial Hospital, CAMC Teays
Valley Hospital, CAMC Women and Children’s Hospital and
CAMC Cancer Center. They use a software program called
Sprout Social that sends notifications to the social media
team members anytime something is posted to one of their pages.
According to Scott Jarrell, a media specialist and account
rep for CAMC marketing and public relations, when a team
member can catch those messages right away, it can make
things better for the patient, turning the situation into a
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WEST VIRGINIA EXECUTIVE
JEAN HARDIMAN
positive experience. “This is the patients’ way of reaching the
hospital and making sure they’re heard,” he says.
When the team started responding to social media messages
a few years ago, patients were both surprised and grateful when
their complaints were heard and addressed quickly. “Now, it’s
expected that if you send something our way on social media,
someone is watching,” he says.
Pellegrin explains that there is a filtering process to make
sure the most pressing and legitimate concerns are addressed
first. Sometimes patients need medical advice, in which case
the social media team can help them get in touch with the
best experts. Other times, it’s something the nurse manager
on duty needs to know.
Over time, the system’s medical teams have grown accustomed
to working with the marketing team on these social media
efforts, though there was an adjustment period of getting to
know everyone and their roles in the process. After all, an effort
of this magnitude requires support at all levels.
“The administrative staff understands how important it is
to be on board with what we’re doing,” says Jarrell.
As a result, the hospital system has turned social media
into a multifaceted tool in an effort to deliver better patient
care. The health care system can share health tips and news
about its services, upcoming events and providers who have
earned special recognition. Social media is also helpful when
there has been an influx of media inquiries linked to a sizable
health-related event, such as the water crisis of 2014 caused
by a chemical leak in the Elk River.
According to Pellegrin, social media is a great way for the
hospital to communicate with its community and post updates
about what is going on within the health care system, and
tracking patient messages in order to enhance customer service
is just one of what could be many more discoveries regarding
its usefulness.
Pellegrin and her team take pride in their efforts to not only
push out their messages but also listen to their patients’ messages.
“We are the largest provider of health care in Southern West
Virginia,” she says. “With tens of thousands of patients, it’s
important to stay ahead of their messages.”