- Involve users as co-producers, or even producers of social media service, cooperating fully with professional doctors and nurses. The cooperation can start as early as planning, providing and evaluating these services. EVE (expected visitor experiences): the set of activities and functions that an average user would expect to find the use on a specific digital platform. Use each social media site as it was intended or you’ll find yourself alone. This means that the hospital has to interact on discussion forum, enable “the wall” on Facebook, allow comments and ratings on YouTube.
- Make the content more interesting and attracting to users, such as running a poll, a quiz, a contest. The hospitals can also set up some bonus scheme to encourage user participation in online forum and Facebook discussion.
- Multiple languages: Since Singapore is mainly made up by four nationalities, so if possible the social media platform should try to use English, Chinese, Malay and Indian, in order to reach more audience.
- Two-way conversations: Two-way conversations can foster meaningful communication with users that can help to facilitate relationships, sharing and interaction. Blogs, for instance, don’t have to serve merely as expert articles or news feeds. You can use a blog to ask for comments, request submissions for guest articles, hold a contest, mediate an argument—you name it. And when you tie that blog into a full-scale social media architecture, with a Facebook page, a Twitter account, discussion boards and video clips submitted by loyal followers, you’ve got a powerful engagement engine capable of drawing in new customers while retaining the interest of existing customers. Engagement creates conversations. Conversations create community.
- Provide multiple formats: the content should not be limited to plain text, multiple formats such as pictures, photos, videos, audios, etc., can not only reinforce messages but also give people different ways to interact with your content based on their level of engagement and access to media.
- Mobile technologies: More than ninety percent of adults in America subscribe to mobile services. Mobile technology is personal, portable and affordable. It allows the sharing of health information through text messaging, mobile websites and mobile applications.
- Personalization: the content and experience should be changed for each user based on user profile, such as age, gender or pages recently viewed. For our recommendation system, it is actually one category of personalization, collaboration based personalization.
- Provide real-time information: Real-time information is critically important because it nurtures loyalty, as it shows that the hospital is working hard to fulfill obvious needs. What’s more, it empowers every user to carry forth the right and correct information.
- Help users to make sure the information patients are getting from Facebook or discussion form is accurate, reliable, and medically sound. NUH could encourage doctors to double-check articles online or write articles by themselves.
Benefits
Social media allows for the tailoring of messages to help express empathy and acknowledge concern, promote action and listen to what people are saying about health-related topics in the community.
Being able to use the web for self-diagnosis is truly revolutionizing the way many of us care for ourselves, and how we approach doctor visits (Catone, J. [October 05, 2009]). The rating and recommendation system will it easier to locate a good doctor by using more information than just their name on website. In the meantime, users could create support communities online using social media. NUH could connect patients by encouraging them to share their stories on discussion forum and building support circles among friends, family, and peers.
Social media can facilitate, enhance, and improve physician–patient communication. Patients can leave feedback about their experience, which allows physicians to address concerns. A patient’s postings might show physicians the major issues in that patient’s life. A physician’s postings, on the other hand, can inform patients of what to expect during a visit and prepare them for the visit. Allowing patients to share stories through a hospital blog is also a form of customer service because it may foster connections and build a support group. A physician’s postings may improve physician–patient communication by personalizing the physician or the entire practice, which is more difficult to achieve during short clinic visits.
Providing updates on health topics helps to inform patients. A health post can be established in which a physician discusses issues in the media or in the local community. The posting can educate patients and help make them more active in self-management or disease prevention. Providing education through social media extends the patient visit into the pre-, during-, post-visit continuum, which can improve information flow and consistency of care, especially for illnesses that require long-term care.
Social media are tools for crisis communication, during which physicians can quickly inform others of their availability and readiness to help in a disaster/crisis situation. An online survey by the American Red Cross demonstrates the public’s high expectations in this respect. Most participants (69%) said that emergency responders should monitor social media sites, so that the responders could quickly send help, and 74% expect help to arrive within an hour after a tweet or Facebook posting.