Fletcher Allen Health Care

Pharmacists and Social Media – Brian McDonald

Who should be at the table when discussing healthcare in social media? Ideally, everyone who impacts patient health from the patient themselves to the caregivers, caretakers, hospitals, insurance companies, wellness practitioners, and more. One of the integral members of the discussion is, and should be, the pharmacist. That may not always be the case as pharma companies and pharmacists are extremely cautious when engaging (or not) in social media.

Get Social Health invited Brian McDonald, Digital Marketing Manager of Parata Systems to talk to us about some of the issues that may be holding back pharmacists from fully engaging online.

To follow key points in our discussion, here is a time stamp of the interview:

00:45 Introduction
03:00 The pharmacist’s role
04:50 Pharmacist’s contact with patients
06:00 What is pharmacy automation?
07:05 “The Pill Ritual”
11:00 How the Parata pill automation system works
14:50 Thought Leadership for pharmacists
19:38 What is the state of social media use among pharmacists?
22:53 How can pharmacists participate in social media in regard to privacy and HIPAA compliance?
25:00 Do pharmacists have a preference for long form (blog) or short form (Twitter) communication?
27:55 What about drug misinformation in social media?
32:30 Are there pharmacy related tweet chats?
35:29 Next Generation Pharmacist Awards
37:48 Social Media Tip from Kimberly Wessel from Valassis Communications

Visit our resources page for more valuable (and free!) resources on social media and digital health

Parata Systems: Pharmacy automation company

White board video that explains how recent changes, including Affordable Care Act raise the need for the discussion about how to reduce unnecessary cost such as readmittance to hospital due to medication non-adherence.

Infographic that presents research data points to support the ACA discussion.

Parata ebookeBook that allowed us to dive deeper into where pharmacists will play vital role in healthcare and use technology to get them there faster.

Next Generation Pharmacist Awards are being held in Boston on August 24, 2014.  Co-founded by Parata and Pharmacy Times, this national awards program honors pharmacists, technicians, students and industry advocates who are defining the future of pharmacy. Since 2010, more than 100 pharmacy leaders have been named finalists or winners.

Twitter Chat: #RXChat

Pharmacy Podcast

Social Media for Fletcher Allen Health Care

Alexandra Tursi Alexandra Tursi of Fletcher Allen Health Care was guest of Get Social Health podcast #005. It was a great conversation that ran so long we didn’t get to all the questions I wanted to ask. She was kind enough to put some time into answering them so I could share them with you.

Bonus questions!

Janet: Talk about working with the C-Suite on your digital and social media efforts – did you have to do some education about social or were they up to speed?

Alex: The C-Suite was open to social media originally. That said, we have done training and education and we also produce a quarterly report that shows ROI.

Janet: What do you see in healthcare social media among your peers – both in general and among other hospital systems?

Alex: I see incredible opportunity! I think Cleveland Clinic has a great strategy and they publish great content on a very frequent basis. We are definitely inspired by them. I think the great opportunity is in thought leadership and expertise. Health care consumers are desperate for information about medical topics. Our goal is to provide evidence-based expertise that people can use in their information-gathering and put into action. Yet, only 11% of healthcare professionals use social media for professional reasons. We need to increase the clinical voice in social media. That is our opportunity.

Janet: What would you say to other hospitals about the benefits of engaging in social media?

Alex: It’s where your healthcare consumers are – and where they will only continue to be in increasing numbers. Start now, build your foundation – it’s only going to get bigger. The benefits are incredible – we see our employees proud to share our social media content, we see patients sharing positive experiences. It is incredible for word-of-mouth.

Janet: What “words of wisdom” would you offer?

Alex: Start small, define your goals very specifically, make a plan for ongoing content creation, identify some preliminary metrics and a process for measuring them, identify and train your team.

Janet: The issues some hospitals deal with daily are ones that our society is still not comfortable talking about openly – suicide, STDs, mental health, chronic conditions and more. Do you think social media is opening a dialog about these issues?

Alex: Yes, as I mentioned it is critical to have an expert voice in these conversations. They are happening whether we participate or not.

Janet: How do you deal with such provocative issues in social media?

Alex: Carefully and strategically. It’s a team approach among our Marketing team and the involved Public Affairs and Clinical teams.

Janet: Have you ever had to deal with a privacy issue online? “TMI” or “Oversharing”?

Alex: No. But we have dealt with patients who have reported negative experiences.

Thanks to Alex for answering these additional questions. You can hear more about her work in podcast number 5.