State of play – social media and hospitals in Australia
Due to some sterling work by Ed Bennett and Mike Cadogan we have a gauge on the state of play of how hospitals are using social media here in Australia and can also do a comparison with hospitals in the US. The graph makes for grim reading.
Overall, 935 Australian Hospitals were surveyed compared with 871 US hospitals. The main use of social media by hospitals here in Australia is facebook but this is still only 9% versus 78% in the US. Many of the facebook pages here are also private and not open to the public.
There is a glimmer of hope, judging by the increased requests for presentations I have had, that health care organisations do want to know how to implement social media strategically. Listening to the conversations at board level I would say there has been a significant difference in approach to the business of healthcare and 2011 will see a change in not just how hospitals but also health organisations use social media.
References:
- Ed Bennett, Found in Cache: US Hospital Social Network List
- Mike Cadogan, Life in the Fast lane: Australian Hospital Social Network List
Update: for a great write up on Ed Bennett and his work see a post on KevinMD’s web page.
Why is it “grim reading”?
What are the hospitals in the US getting out of using Social Media? What are the advantages in Patient Care that might be provided by Social Media?
Just because the US is doing something does this mean the rest of the world should follow. GFC… perhaps they did.
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Are these stats skewed a bit? I would assume that 935 would be just about the total number of hospitals we have in Australia whereas the US has over 5000. I think that the hospitals included in Ed Bennett’s list all use some form of social media (which is why they are in the list?). I’m not sure you are comparing apples with apples!
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Heidi Allen Reply:
February 9th, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Hi Enna – I think that’s a very fair point. It would be better to compare these stats as a percentage of total – I have been wondering whether to do a new post which would be a better reflection of the stats.
Thanks for taking the time to comment and recommend!
Heidi
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