My favorite takeaway from a recent conference I attended came from hospital social media guru Ed Bennett – that social media is business as usual. Many folks remember when TV was “new media,” and look what happened with that! If you aren’t using, adapting, leveraging social media, then you are missing a piece of the pie.

Social media certainly isn’t a cure for everything, but it definitely plays a role in communication, education, community building and more – including the hot button topic of Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) scores. The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has started publicly reporting the results of this patient experience survey, so everyone is rightly concerned (we have even launched a program for members). But we seem to overlook the fact that the large majority of HCAHPS questions assess communication.

The HCAHPS survey “contains 18 patient perspectives on care and patient rating items that encompass eight key topics”:

  • communication with doctors
  • communication with nurses
  • responsiveness of hospital staff
  • pain management
  • communication about medicines
  • discharge information
  • cleanliness of the hospital environment
  • quietness of the hospital environment

Three of the eight even use the word communication! And another two are distinctly intertwined with how well providers communicate information.

Though not directly related to HCAHPS, the latest report on social media and healthcare from PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) found that 70 percent of consumers would expect health care companies to respond within a day to a request for information via social media, while more than 40 percent would expect a response within a few hours. Similar findings were also true for consumers regarding posting a complaint about a service, product or experience. Moreover, more than 75 percent of consumers surveyed would expect health care companies to respond within a day or less to appointment requests via social media, and nearly half would expect responses within hours.

The report also indicates that more than 70 percent of respondents would appreciate receiving assistance from health care providers via social media for referrals and scheduling appointments, while 69 percent would want postdischarge support and even money-saving/drug discount offers via social media. Other information of value via social media to 65 percent or more of respondents: current ED wait times, treatment reminders, patient reviews of providers and customer service/complaints.

So consumers are looking to technology to improve the way they interact with their providers. If patients are seeking that communication, why can’t we give it and at the same time improve on HCAHPS?

Many of you may be wondering who exactly is active on social media, and you may even be thinking it likely isn’t your key patient mix. But you would be wrong. For NAPH members – hospitals and systems providing care to underserved populations – one key metric from the PwC report: lower-income Medicaid beneficiaries were the most willing to share health information through social media at 64 percent. Those with individual insurance or no insurance were also among those most likely to engage and share. Regarding age, more than 80 percent of respondents ages 18-24 would be likely to share health information and engage in social media, while roughly 45 percent of respondents ages 45-64 would be likely to share via social media and 56 percent of the same age group would be likely to engage via social media.

So the community is there, the patients and caregivers are there, and the providers should be too. The integration of social media into providers’ communications is now business as usual, and you will be judged on how well you listen, respond and engage.