Strategy is the name of the game if you’re a hospital CEO. For many, that includes a presence on social media. But is that a strategy every CEO should use?
Part of a CEO’s job is to communicate what is going on with the hospital, the strategic vision, what is being accomplished and what they hope to accomplish. The Internet is an extremely effective way to do that en masse, said Paul Levy, the former president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and author of How a Blog Held Off the Most Powerful Union in America.
[See also: Reading List: "How a Blog Held Off the Most Powerful Union in America".]
“Until social media came along, the way that was done was through phone calls, meetings with staff and trustees and civic associations, and interviews with media,” he said. “But the menu has expanded and it has turned out to be a very powerful set of tools to do that portion of the job.”
Levy’s foray into social media didn’t begin as part of a strategic public relations plan. It was a chance progression of events that made him a pioneer in social media and an advocate for the transformation movement in healthcare.
His journey began with an article in the New York Times. The newspaper ran a list of Fortune 500 CEOs that had blogs and he thought, “I run an interesting organization and everyone is interested in healthcare, so maybe I will start a blog and see if anyone reads it,” he said.
He called a 30-year-old friend to get advice on how to start a blog and was up and running. Soon after, he joined Facebook and Twitter and was on his way to developing a reputable social media presence.
Being on social media, he said, provided him with advantages.
Facebook, he said, was a way to connect with employees. He was able to learn about things going on in the hospital that he wouldn’t have known about otherwise. He was also able to get the word out about things going on in the hospital that no one would have ever read in a newsletter. When he congratulated people on improvements made, he could see them post it and forward the information to friends and family.
And his blogs were a way to influence legislation and regulations. “It was like having my own editorial page,” he said. “If you think 10,000 people were reading it and it included legislators, governors, media and other hospitals in the area, it was an intensely powerful communication tool and in terms of political influence, had some beyond what it deserved.”
The Mayo Clinic began a blog, the Future of Healthcare, last month to allow the CEO and other vice presidents at the organization to share their perspectives in areas like healthcare policy and running a patient-focused model of care.
Lee Aase, director of the Center for Social Media at the Mayo Clinic, said they wanted to have the organization’s leadership be part of a conversation that wasn’t narrowed between a handful of leaders in a series of closed e-mails.
“The strategic direction of an organization shouldn’t be a secret,” Aase said. “If you want to get alignment among employees and have them pulling in the same direction, having a CEO out there with his or her thoughts creates a better opportunity for that to happen and more efficiently.”
Even though CEOs acknowledge the power of social media – a 2013 PwC Global CEO Survey in Healthcare found that more than half of CEOs think that social media users influence their companies – only a handful of them have followed Levy online (although, in that same PwC survey, 81 percent said they plan to increase engagement with social media).
Kim Fox, vice president of public affairs at healthcare marketing firm Jarrard Phillips Cate & Hancock in Tennessee, said having a CEO on social media can provide a human link between users and the system.
“Paul Levy opened the kimono and allowed people to see something they didn’t understand,” she said.
People are fascinated with the minds of leaders and love to have that kind of connection with an organization, she said. Reading a blog by a nurse or doctor is different than reading something from the CEO.
“Healthcare can seem so big and cold and difficult to understand, and social media can seem more real and human and accessible,” she said. “Healthcare is very complicated and if they can make it real and understandable, it will be a go-to source for them.”
But being on social media isn’t for every CEO, she cautioned.
“Should CEOs be doing social media … the strong answer is maybe,” Fox said. “Not everyone is built for social media. If you have to force a CEO and they are uncomfortable with it, don’t do it.”
Thinking about joining social media? Consider these things first, Fox says:
- Understand what you want to say. CEOs they need to be the expert on a topic like population health or patient experience. It is best if there is a message that is unique or edgy. “Those that do the best are ones willing to have an edge and be controversial,” she said. “They think they need to be on Facebook or Twitter, but not about the platform. It has to be more about what the message is.”
- Do you have the time? Being on social media is a time commitment, Fox said. CEOs can dabble on Twitter, but it has to be done regularly. Blogs should be put out two to three times a week to keep people coming back.
- Have authenticity. What CEOs put out on social media shouldn’t be written by five different people. Fox said she wouldn’t have someone out there who isn’t a natural communicator because a bad blog is worse than no blog at all.
Check out these popular hospital CEO bloggers:
Ora H. Pescovitz, University of Michigan Health System
http://www.medicinethatspeaks.org/
John Noseworthy, Mayo Clinic
futureofhealthcareblog.mayoclinic.org
David C. Pate, St. Luke’s Health System
http://drpate.stlukesblogs.org/
John Popovich, Jr., Henry Ford Hospital
Paul Levy, former president and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center