More hospitals use social media to gather feedback from patients' families

When staffers at the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del., want to simplify appointment scheduling, make surgery smoother for kids or even work on doctors' bedside manner, they turn to a special group of experts, a "virtual advisory council" made up of parents on a private social network. Hospitals are turning to Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media to recruit patients and their families as advisers. They are asking parents for input, via questionnaires and surveys, on improvements in care, new services and even new facility names. At the University of Michigan Health System, these "e-advisors" answer about 35 online surveys a year, and a teen council responds to questions via its own Facebook page. [Registration required]