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Twitter This:Social Media & Hospitals
Jenna Mooney, Partner
Ingrid Brydolf, Partner
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Overview
Social media can be useful to providers: What is it? How is it being used?
Providers have legal obligations. Providers should be proactive with
maintaining control over content and establishing institutional policies on appropriate use.
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What is Social Networking? Broad range of Internet activities
Texting Chat rooms Emails Blogging Videos
Easily accessible Work computers Home computers Mobile smartphones and other devices
Inherent risks Immediacy Global reach Searchable “Email is Forever” Expectation of a dialogue
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Online Social Networking Exploding Facebook
>400 million users worldwide 2009 revenue: >$550 million 8 billion minutes spent on Facebook each day Increasing corporate marketing use
Twitter “Tweets” – max. of 140 characters Celebrity usage – Lance Armstrong, Brittany Spears Corporate use growing exponentially Over 55 million users / month and growing Largest user demographic: 35-49
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Online Social Networking Exploding LinkedIn
Facebook for professionals Over 50 million registered users
MySpace Similar to Facebook Less than half the users at over 100 million
YouTube Online videos
Blogs The original social networking tool
Non-provider hosted sites (external sites) Different legal obligations may arise when a provider hosts blogs and
other media on its own servers
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What’s in it for Health Care Providers?
April 2010: Hospitals have established: 250 YouTube channels 300 Facebook pages 400 Twitter accounts
Social Media is useful to Providers: Launch innovative advertising/marketing campaigns Provide patients & families with information Remain competitive with other providers that have
established social media presences. Use in hiring and firing staff?
Possible discrimination claims?
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Legal Obligations: Confidentiality
Providers are ‘covered entities’ under HIPAA & state law
Affirmative legal obligation to safeguard protected patient information Patient names, addresses, email addresses
Creating social media content does not implicate privacy laws as long as providers do not post patient information without authorization
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Legal Obligations: Practice of Medicine
Interactions with patients Malpractice risk Disclaimers (character limits with some media) Licensure issues Privacy Boundary issues
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Legal Obligations: Disclaimers
Given informal nature of social media, providers can remind online visitors that posts are public: “This is a public site. Please do not post
personal information about yourself or others, including medical information.”
Note: outside scope of this presentation, but with institution-hosted media (e.g., blogs), a more complete terms & conditions notice may be appropriate.
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What’s in it for Health Care Providers?
Can you say 11,000,000 hits?
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Administrative Controls
Wide range of administrative controls available to providers that establish social media presence
Facebook: Content posting restricted to page administrators
only (public cannot post content) Closed group – persons must formally request to
“join” group before having posting access
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Employee (Mis-)Use of Social Networks
For personal purposes, at work For personal purposes, impacting your business
Bad-mouthing the company Trade secrets theft Harassment
At work, for business purposes Monitoring comments on hospital services Answering consumer questions Promoting services / education Research
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Why Health Care Providers Should Care
61% of employees say that even if employers are monitoring their social networking activities, they won’t alter behavior
74% of employees believe it is easy to damage a brand’s reputation via social networking sites
53% of employees say “social networking pages are none of an employer’s business.”
*Per Deloitte’s 2009 Ethics & Workplace Survey
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Why Health Care Providers Should Care
Only 17% of companies have programs in place to monitor and mitigate reputational risks
Only 22% of employers have formal social networking policies
*Per Deloitte’s 2009 Ethics & Workplace Survey
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Employer Injury
Injury to corporate reputation Employee "venting" transmitted instantly to ever-
growing audience
Possible liability for employee postings Defamation Copyright infringement False advertising claims Discrimination/harassment Medical information (HIPAA/GINA)
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Employer Liability
Electronic discovery issues A new kind of “electronically stored information” (ESI) Social media data is typically not stored on employer’s network
or system National Labor Relations Act issues
Can be “protected, concerted activity” Blogging about unfair employer policies Applies to all employees, not just unionized workers
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What Should Employers Do? Develop a policy now – don’t wait for the crisis
Convene working group to draft: HR Legal IT Marketing PR/Corporate Communications Employee users
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Social Media Policy Considerations
What is your culture? Separate or integrated policy?
Allow or block access to social media websites?
Distinguish between professional use and personal use?
Extent to which provider equipment and networks can be used for social media?
What are your needs? Use of social networking to generate business?
Use of social networking in hiring / firing process?
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Social Media Policy Considerations
Duty to bargain with unions regarding policy?
Cross-reference in other policies? Anti-harassment and nondiscrimination
HIPAA/GINA confidentiality
Codes of ethics
Legal review of proposed employee terminations for social networking activity
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Social Media Policy
Providers should: Adopt a Social Media Policy for
employees and staff Educate staff about the contents of the
Policy Enforce policy through imposing
consequences for violations
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Social Media Policy: Adopt
Policy should: Set rules for what information staff can post and
say online Remind and educate staff about obligations –
patient privacy, protecting proprietary institutional information
Clarify appropriate relationships between staff, patients and the public
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Social Media Policy: Educate & Enforce
Educate: Any policy is only as good as the
institutional awareness of it Know the policy; educate staff at hire and
push periodic updates
Enforce: Follow through with penalties for violations
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Social Media Policy: Provisions & Examples
Policy statement: “Employees can use social media for business-related purposes subject to restrictions in this Policy to ensure compliance with legal requirements and institutional policies.”
Scope of policy – separate provisions for institution-hosted and externally hosted sites.
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Social Media Policy: Provisions & Examples
Rules for use: Maintain patient privacy Respect patients and other staff – no libelous or
defamatory speech Safeguard proprietary institutional information Comply with copyright, trademark and other law Do not communicate on “behalf” of institution No patient-specific medical advice
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Questions?