How Many People Think Health Care Industry Is Doing A Great Job with Social Media?

Do you think the health care industry, as a whole, is using social media well enough to communicate, share information and engage with consumers? Well, we are doing an informal survey right now to gauge people's opinion and preliminary results indicated that only 10% think so.

What do you think? Is that dead wrong? Will social media ever take off in healthcare . Who's doing a good job building a community. Take a second and fill out a quick four question survey here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WF2XWTH

Healthcare and Social Media Survey 2010

(click here for a quick four question survey, hosted on surveymonkey.com)

Almost a year ago, I kicked off a survey designed to gauge the adoption of social media among healthcare professionals and the healthcare industry. (Read my original blog post here.)

In March 2010, I announced the full results and published them here. Here is what I wrote at the time:

We all can be susceptible to hype, so it's a good thing to try and gather empirical evidence from time to time to challenge one's notions. Even if you think you are in great shape and have the body of a 20 year old Olympic athlete, it's probably a good idea to step on a scale once in a while and confirm that this is actually true. -ahem-

Everyone is talking about the impact that social media is having on the healthcare industry. But is it really? There are plenty of patient and doctor social networks and lots of hospital twitter accounts. But is any of this obvious activity actually engaging these disparate audiences? Are we all confusing motion with progress?

The main takeaway last year was that the prognosis was negative for social media in the healthcare industry. As I found last year,

96 percent of respondents said the industry is not using social media enough to communicate, share information and engage with patients.

However, as we've learned, 12 months is a long time when I comes to the adoption of social media technologies. Has any of this changed? I'd sure like to know.

SO...I'd like to ask any readers of this blog post to click here for a quick four question survey, hosted on surveymonkey.com. When I get a decent sample size, I'll post the results, note any change in sentiment and we can talk about what needs to be done to drive adoption more effectively...

Prognosis Negative on Social Media Adoption in Healthcare

We all can be susceptible to hype, so it's a good thing to try and gather empirical evidence from time to time to challenge one's notions. Even if you think you are in great shape and have the body of a 20 year old Olympic athlete, it's probably a good idea to step on a scale once in a while and confirm that this is actually true. -ahem-

Everyone is talking about the impact that social media is having on the healthcare industry. But is it really? There are plenty of patient and doctor social networks and lots of hospital twitter accounts. But is any of this obvious activity actually engaging these disparate audiences? Are we all confusing motion with progress?

Well, my colleagues and I got to talking about the need for an informal survey to determine what impact all this social media adoption is having. Are people satisfied with the healthcare industry's embrace of social media? are they getting the information they are looking for? What sort of info are they, in fact, searching for? So we set up a quick survey on SurveyMonkey.com and distributed it through Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media sites.

Here are a couple of nuggets to digest:

• 96 percent of respondents said the industry is not using social media enough to communicate, share information and engage with patients.
• Ninety-nine percent of the respondents frequently used social media, including blogs, social networks and online communities, to discuss and research a wide variety of healthcare topics.

96% for a small survey is still pretty much everyone. I think we can conclude that the healthcare industry is nowhere near effectively engaging with it's stakeholders. Lots of work still needs to be done.

Take a look at the survey results. Let me know what you think- leave a comment...

1. How often do you review blogs, social networks, online communities and discussion forms for healthcare related information?

• Never- 1%
• Only once- 0%
• Occasionally- 17%
• Once a day- 16%
• All the time- 66%

2. What kinds of information do you look for in social media and online communities?

• Personal health information- 51%
• Public policy information- 65%
• Scientific research and developments- 68%
• Market trends- 82%
• Employment information- 21%

3. Do you think the health care industry, as a whole, is using social media well enough to communicate, share information and engage with consumers?

Yes- 4%
No- 96%

(BTW, any comments about statistics, sample size or standard deviations will be summarily mocked. :))