Social media, in this case Facebook, is once more causing hospital PR, HR, marketing and legal headaches while costing an employee her job.
This time the incident involved a hospital employee posting comments regarding a patient to her personal Facebook page. As with so many of these situations, there are two sides to the story. While the employee promises legal action, the incident is making news, creating controversy and undoubtedly upsetting the community. See the news coverage and video on WJBK Fox 2 from Detroit here.
This is what has recently come to be called a “teachable moment.” The questions is, who will be taught and what lessons will be learned?
The unfortunate possibility is that hospital administrators, attorneys, healthcare marketers and IT pros will use the incident to justify their continued fear of social media channels. They will insist on ever more restrictive practices and miss the opportunity to get closer to their patients.
The alternative is that those same healthcare marketers and other hospital leaders will do what more progressive institutions have done – enact a clear social media policy and have every employee read and sign it as a condition of employment. Then they can remove the restrictions and the firewalls to use these channels to better engage their patients – using the technology that is becoming more popular by the day. (See my previous post on the topic: Conquer fear of social media – start with a policy).
Few employees willfully violate established policies. And if they do, their employer has clear, and non-controversial (i.e. non-newsworthy), recourse.
I know of hospitals and other organizations that fall into both camps and I hope to post interviews with representatives of each in the coming weeks. In the meantime, what’s YOUR policy and what lessons do YOU think should come of this?
Comments and discussion welcome.
Today’s parting thought:
“The trouble with life isn’t that there is no answer, it’s that there are so many answers.” - Ruth Benedict
