The hospital industry is in the middle of a storm—a "quest for quality" storm. As government and other industry groups continue to make changes and issue mandates aimed at improving care practices and quality in America, hospitals need to closely look at report cards as a tool to document their course through the storm, toward improvement and best possible care.
Today, hospitals mostly leverage report card services conducted by organizations such as Hospital Compare, Consumer Checkbook, and Health Grades Inc. Still other organizations develop their own report cards based on data assembled by outside organizations such as those mentioned above plus the National Voluntary Hospital Reporting Initiative, Select Quality Care, the Leapfrog Group and the Health Care Acquisition Performance System (HCAPS). Whatever route your organization uses to collect and display its quality improvement information is fine, but is your organization smartly reporting the data?
While the report card concept can be painful and the process to develop one can be even more agonizing, they are a great opportunity for telling and documenting your hospital's quest for quality and, eventually, your hospital's arrival.
Report cards should tell a story
Consumers—past patients, future patients, family members, friends—physicians and others eagerly look through report cards to see how a particular hospital is performing in a certain category or measure and to see what they are doing to improve. Report cards should not just list numbers/data such as average wait time in the emergency room and number and type of hospital-acquired infections in a certain period. Rather report cards should tell a story – a story about what your hospital is doing to achieve quality.
Report cards should contain detailed information and explanations about various clinical performance initiatives that are underway throughout the organization. For example, talk about national or regional programs your hospital is participating in to improve performance in a certain clinical condition, such as VHA Inc.'s (the national health care alliance) New England region Rapid Adoption Network for pressure ulcers, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's 100 Lives from Harm Campaign or the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)/Premier healthcare alliance Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration. Your patients or potential patients already are reading about these programs in the media; why not tell them about how your hospital is participating in these programs?
Don't limit your quality story to what you're doing with organized groups, but also include what your hospital is doing on its own. What kinds of systems, protocols and procedures has your facility implemented to ensure service excellence? What is your hospital doing to improve wait times? Tell us. If your surgical teams take 10 minutes before making an incision to review out loud what area of the body is being operated, whether antibiotics have been administered one hour prior to incision, and whether the area has been decontaminated, then say so in your report card. Anything that your facility is doing or any program your facility is participating in or developing to improve the quality of care for its patients has a place in your hospital's report card.
Review community newsletters, your local newspaper and blogs to see what is being said about your hospital. Address these issues in your report card to support or correct any erroneous information that might be circulating in your market.
Don't limit your quality story
Finally, don't limit your quality story to report or score cards. Leverage your hospital's newsletter, community education programs and materials, and physician and service line communications as vehicles to tell your story. Make your report card visually stimulating. Use imagery and photography to help convey your story and passion for delivering quality care. Include photos of actual hospital staff so that consumers can identify these persons as they walk through your facility. It will help to build a personal connection and brand loyalty.
Unfortunately, stories about hospital and medical errors, poor conditions and/or treatment etc. appear daily. Hospital quality is a serious issue to consumers and a scary topic to consider as a patient or friend of a patient-to-be. Hospitals need to communicate about their quality efforts and achievements.
Used correctly, hospital report cards prove and demonstrate that your hospital is set on a course towards clinical quality improvement. Whether your hospital uses an outside source or chooses to develop its own report card, make sure the information contained is simple, not complicated to interpret, and clearly tells your hospital's quality story—what's been done, what's underway, what's next. Don't miss the opportunity to use your hospital's report card smartly and use it to demonstrate your organization's quality improvement journey.
Veronica Hunt is account supervisor at the public relations firm CRT/tanaka, headquartered in Richmond, VA. You may contact her at VHunt@CRT-tanaka.com.
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The existence of the return on investment of social media marketing has long been discussed. Businesses are curtailing their spending in this economy and want to be certain that their resources are allocated wisely. But instead of questioning social media's return on investment, why don't companies consider the return on ignoring?
Several times I've heard experts talk about how hospitals can use new media for promotion and public relations. The advice: Get on Facebook, start a blog, post to YouTube. And I'm always left wondering—OK, then what? So let's get specific. Since I started posting on Twitter, I've been watching several different hospitals and health systems to see what they're up to.
And, wow, are they doing some cool stuff.
Look who's tweeting Backus Hospital, a community hospital in Norwich, CT, recently got me to click through to its site merely by mentioning it had posted pictures of its first baby of the New Year. Who doesn't love babies? The photos are really sweet and also show the hospital in a warm, intimate, friendly, and caring light.
Some other ways the community hospital is using Twitter:
Asking general questions to engage its audience. (If Sanjay Gupta becomes the U.S. Sugeon General, what would you ask him?)
Posting safety tips (change those smoke alarm batteries).
Posting health reminders (get those flu shots).
Providing links to cross-promote other products (read our monthly health magazine).
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, always catches my attention with teases to stories about patients, volunteers, donors, and events. The marketing team at this organization really knows how to tell a good story.
Generating excitement about successful fundraising events and thanking fundraisers (marathoners raise $2 million for hospital).
Posting new research findings and overviews of topics such as cancer diagnosis and care.
The Office of Communications is a non-profit creative resource that serves organizations including the University of Texas Health Science Center and Texas Medical Center in Houston. I like their approach to Twitter. It's creative and diverse and full of personality. For example, they link to an article about why kids are terrified of Santa. (Many hospitals only link to their own sites. I think that's a mistake.)
Other ways the organization is using Twitter:
Internal communications. (What's on the agenda for the next faculty meeting?)
Links back to its other online sites (including its online newsletter, Scoop).
Fostering good customer relations. ("Taking time to thank our clients and all those who work with us for another great year").
ScrippsHealth in San Diego is an early adopter. They've posted more than 185 updates and have 409 people who follow their posts. After my last column on how hospitals can use Twitter for marketing, they commented that they've set up an account to syndicate out news stories and events. "It has been going well so far with lots of industry, media and community people following the account," they wrote. "The real opportunity," they added, "is the ability to speak directly to and hear directly from your consumers."
Other ways the organization is using Twitter:
Posting dates, times, and fees for healthcare-related classes (I could use a mindfulness-based stress reduction class).
Bolstering recruitment efforts (Scripps honored as top San Diego employer).
Some Twitter mistakes
A few things I've noticed since I've been poking around the site:
Too many organizations link repeatedly or even exclusively to their own Web sites. This comes off as very self-serving. If one of your experts in quoted in a news article, link to the news article—not your own press release about the article.
Too few organizations are asking open-ended questions to promote dialogue with their internal or external audiences.
Some organizations go overboard trying to include fun but meaningless posts along with useful, hospital-specific posts. An occasional light note—thanking everyone who's been following your Twitter account or who helped with a certain event—is fine. But don't wish everyone a cheery good morning every single morning.
On the other hand, some organizations aren't showing any personality at all in their posts. Robotic messages with the same kind of content (links to press releases for example) is boring and repetitive. Throw something in there every once in a while that proves your posts are written by a human being.
Keeping an eye on it all
I promised you a list 100 ways that hospitals and health systems can use Twitter, but you're going to have to do a little homework to round out what I've offered so far. Ed Bennett, director of web strategy for the University of Maryland Medical System, keeps an updated list of hospitals on Twitter—just click the "following" link to see them.
Meanwhile, Bennett has done some more work to help us find 100 ideas, with his extensive online list of hospitals that are on Twitter and Facebook. It's extensive. Start looking at what others are doing—and then figure out what works for your organization.