Social Media Best Practice: Emergency Communications
Posted Dec 27 2010 12:00am
It rained a great deal here in So Cal last week, so I thought I'd share an example of emergency communications using social media during the 2009 floods in the Innovis Health (now part of Essentia Health ) communities. It demonstrates how fast a blog or Twitter account can be established and ways that they are effective when more traditional communications are not.
Think of social media technologies as another layer to your healthcare organization's redundant communications plan and consider that tweets may be the best way to reach your employees when the cell towers are overloaded and/or they are on the move.
Since writing the book , I also heard that one hospital issued key rings with emergency communications numbers to its employees and another issued pocket/wallet cards. This is also a great place to put your emergency Twitter or blog addresses so employees and others will know where to look for information and updates.
So, plan ahead -- look at your Emergency Operations Plan and consider adding social media to your pool of communication system options. And, most importantly, include expectations specific to emergency use of social media. If your organization is already using social media, also review your social media policy and consider updates or cross reference it with the Communications Section of your EOP.
It rained a great deal here in So Cal last week, so I thought I'd share an example of emergency communications using social media during the 2009 floods in the Innovis Health (now part of Essentia Health ) communities. It demonstrates how fast a blog or Twitter account can be established and ways that they are effective when more traditional communications are not.
Think of social media technologies as another layer to your healthcare organization's redundant communications plan and consider that tweets may be the best way to reach your employees when the cell towers are overloaded and/or they are on the move.
Since writing the book , I also heard that one hospital issued key rings with emergency communications numbers to its employees and another issued pocket/wallet cards. This is also a great place to put your emergency Twitter or blog addresses so employees and others will know where to look for information and updates.
So, plan ahead -- look at your Emergency Operations Plan and consider adding social media to your pool of communication system options. And, most importantly, include expectations specific to emergency use of social media. If your organization is already using social media, also review your social media policy and consider updates or cross reference it with the Communications Section of your EOP.