More and more healthcare organizations are getting on board the social media train. But according to a recent Verasoni case study, most organizations aren’t effectively using Facebook to engage patients and build brands.

The study found that children’s hospitals overall tend to have a higher concentration of quality interactions between patients and the hospital. The Children’s Hospital in Aurora, Colorado – a Geonetric client – is an example of a children’s hospital that is successfully using Facebook to cultivate a sense of community among their fans. Their Facebook page provides a common ground for their patients and their patients’ families to interact with each other, and in turn, with the hospital.

What The Children’s Hospital is doing right:

• Thanking parents for sharing their child’s story, picture, or positive results on the wall
• Posting one or more times a day on their wall, including videos, patient testimonials, events and news
• Integrating other social medias such as videos and their blog RSS feed
• Including a donation page
• Responding quickly to comments/questions on their wall from patients and potential patients
• Providing relevant links to events and locations within the responses

If you have a Facebook page but don’t have a strategy to encourage patient engagement, expand your online brand and find out what patients are talking about, this report tells you that you’re not alone. Many hospitals haven’t quite figured out how to utilize social media to achieve their goals. But those that are successfully using social media are finding a lot of value in using Facebook to provide information, develop strong relationships with patients and community members, develop loyalties to their organization and participate in online conversations.

Check out the report – you may find some key takeaways from the results. And congrats to The Children’s Hospital for their great Facebook page.