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Nov 18

Twitter for Blood, Apps for Quiet

Author: Charlotte Evans

photo credit: rachel_r

There are rare moments in hospital public relations that you know you directly affected the saving of a patient’s life. For Aaron Hughling, this moment came on Nov. 5.

This was the day that he tweeted about patients arriving at Scott & White from Ft. Hood. After others in his department provided the requisite statement and updates necessary from the hospital during a crisis, Aaron began tweeting about the need for blood donations. More than 400 people retweeted Aaron’s plea, and 1,000 individuals donated blood. Six hundred people were turned away by the blood center and mobile units. Giving blood saves lives. Using Twitter makes it faster than ever.

This week, He althLeaders reported that a pilot study had been completed with nurses using iTouch to reduce the amount of noise and inefficiency involved in paging nurses. Nurses at Sarasota Memorial Healthcare System reduced the number of pages in eight hours from 172 to 38 in a unit that had at least one overhead page every three minutes. Overall, the iTouches were receiving 4,000 messages a day. For patients wrestling with pain or wanted to rest, iTouch helped their recovery.

Another headline this week was “Survey: When It Comes to Patient Experience, Executives are Enthusiastic, Ambivalent and Clueless.” There is a connection between new tools in the hands of early adopters and the patient experience. Hospital executives who hinder their PR departments from using social media or don’t provide resources to try new tools in patient care areas are missing out. And so will the very patients to whom they are responsible.

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