When I read recently about the various new hospital visitor policies changing throughout the country due to H1N1 flu, I thought, ok, makes sense. Why wouldn’t you restrict healthy children, among the most vulnerable to swine flu, from visiting care centers for the sickest people?
But I also thought…how sad, especially this time of the year. Many kids will be in the hospital through the holidays and their families will likely face certain limits on who or how many people can visit. This means some families who need to be together the most this season will not.
Then, today, I saw this Facebook post from Children’s National Medical Center, whose visitor restrictions include a limit of two family members in a child’s room at one time.
A slew of long, emotional comments followed. Admittedly, I was nearly in tears (and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the pregnancy hormones).
“…one thing that made it nice was that the staff was a little lax with visiting hours…”
“…I’m sure this holiday season will be more challenging for families and harder on children…”
“…hardest is missing the special traditions of home and not having all of family together…”
I am really impressed by how humanly the good PR folks at Children’s are handling this issue.
Yes, they issued a standard formal statement. But they are also using social media communities – Twitter and Facebook – to communicate with parents they are trying to reach using two-way conversations.
Putting the Public Back in Public Relations
Children’s is just one of many hospitals to jump on the social media bandwagon, but I think the medical center is doing a particularly fine job of, as Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge put in their latest book, “putting the public back in public relations.”
The book discusses how top-down messaging strategies, news releases with canned quotes and jargon, and one-way communication led over time to a less credible, less transparent public relations profession.
Solis and Breakenridge argue that the social Web, however, is forcing the reinvention of a PR field that instead focuses on conversation and engaging in meaningful two-way communication. PR has always been about relationships, they say, and we’re living in a time when PR pros can earn new found recognition by turning virtual relationships into real relationships.
Sociology First, Technology Second
My point, and what I think Children’s did really well with its latest Facebook post, is that communicators have an opportunity to humanize stories with social media. Solis and Breakenridge discuss this, and I think it’s their strongest argument. News releases are one-way, but with two-way communications you can really connect with the people you are trying to reach based on their needs and interests.
So while you must release your official statement updating people on your hospital’s new visitor policy because of H1N1, you don’t have to stop there any longer. Through social media and online communities, you can talk directly about the change with people who most affected, see how those people talk to each other, and learn more about what they want.
Does it get any more human than that? Kudos to Children’s. I look forward to watching them more as they grow in the social media space.
