Blurring the Lines between Transparency and Privacy

Protecting patient privacy in healthcare is not a new concept. With the introduction of HIPAA in December 2000, privacy moved to the forefront of healthcare policy and practice (HHS.gov, n.d.). While much of the rules including revisions and modifications are fairly vague, punishment is straightforward and intimidating. With such rigidity in protecting privacy, healthcare marketing professionals have struggled for the past 15 years with the blurry lines between education, targeted marketing, and privacy violation.

Then along came social media and public reviewing sites to kick dirt in our faces a little more.

Consumers Expect Responses – and Quickly

Customers, especially in healthcare, want to be heard. If they are complaining about service, care, or their bill there is a sense of urgency that cannot be ignored (DeMers, 2014). Outside of the healthcare industry, nearly 60% of organizations have discovered that social media and review sites are a great way for quick brand wins following a compliment or complaint (Walter, 2015).

Swooping in within hours or minutes to respond with a thank you, resolution, or simply a place to call (not the first option of course) can turn a negative into a positive or spread a positive message about your brand. Other customers who may follow the post will also see the company’s public response, which shows how quickly and appropriately the organization handles complaints (DeMers, 2014).

Progressive companies and early adopters who use social media as their customer service channel have learned a thing or two (DeMers, 2014; Walter, 2015; Zendesk, 2014).

• Responsiveness

Social media users are accustomed to speedy responses online. They expect the same from customer service commentary online. Organizations who respond quickly are more likely to see positive results than their counterparts that take too long or don’t respond at all.

• Transparency

When the message is relayed by a consumer in a public forum, the expectation would be to respond in the same fashion. Not to mention, think of the positive brand reach when your company publicly addresses an issue or positive comment.

• Same Medium

When your consumers are asking questions on Twitter, but you respond on Facebook … well that just simply doesn’t make sense. First, how will they even know you responded? Handles for Twitter and profiles on Facebook are not always easy to match up. Second, consumers expect brands to be where they are — not where the company thinks they should be. Third, it’s not about you!

• When to Go Offline

Not all issues or concerns can or should be handled on a public forum. If a conversation is going back and forth too long it will clutter feeds, irritate other customers, and potentially lose context. There are times where a simple message asking the customer to private message the company to settle the details of their questions or concerns is enough to satisfy the situation. Private information is certainly an offline conversation.

Transparency in Healthcare

So how should healthcare organizations respond in a public forum using the platform of their customers without violating the privacy of their previous or current patients? Just because a consumer may give detailed information regarding their encounter with your service or facility, it does not give the organization the right to respond with the same detail (HHS.gov, n.d.).

Transparency is pretty straightforward for healthcare – personnel health information is private. End of story. On social media, if a patient complains you take it offline. Most organizations offer a phone number, private message or name and number of a person waiting to hear from the patient to address the situation.

According to Kaiser Permanente, you cannot distinguish privacy in different mediums (Kiron, 2012, p. 5). “It’s really a matter of being just as careful with that content in the social media space as you would be anywhere else” (Kiron, 2012, p. 5).

Healthcare Wins on Social Media

Fortunately for healthcare marketers, most comments can be handled with simple, authentic exchanges with a customer who may be waiting for a service, happy with their stay, or just announced the birth of their baby. With customers tagging the organization combined with online listening tools, real-time responses are within reach for healthcare organizations.

Healthcare marketers can realize many quick wins regarding reputation, brand advocacy, preference, share of voice, and media impressions using social media and online review sites. The future is wide open for hospitals, health systems, physician practices, and free-standing healthcare services. The key is willingness to have open dialogue in a public forum; dedicated resource(s) to monitor, respond, and carefully craft messages; and commit over the long haul to change the view of transparency in your organization.

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References

DeMers, J. (2014, August 12). Seven reasons you need to be using social media as your customer service portal [Web log]. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2014/08/12/7-reasons-you-need-to-be-using-social-media-as-your-customer-service-portal/

HHS.gov, (n.d.). The privacy rule. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Retrieved from http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/administrative/privacyrule/

Kiron, D. (2012). Social business at Kaiser Permanente: Using social tools to improve customer service, research and internal collaboration. MIT Sloan Management Review, 53(3), 1-5.

Walter, E. (2015, February 20). Three mistakes that undermine using social media for customer service [Web log]. Entrepreneur. Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241906

Zendesk. (2014). Providing great customer service through social media [Web log]. Retrieved from https://www.zendesk.com/resources/customer-service-through-social-media

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photo credit: who will fight for the privacy of visitors? via photopin (license)