Physician recruiting remains remarkably competitive, and the significant changes made in the healthcare industry have opened up new opportunities for physicians, recruiters and healthcare groups to communicate. Social media comes to mind. With three out four Americans and two thirds of global online audience accessing social networking sites, the increasing use of websites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and other viral, networking sites is not surprising. Many industries use social media to promote their organizations and enhance customer relations through online support, and healthcare is not exempt from this.
Indeed, more and more hospitals are utilizing social networking sites to promote their organization to their audience, and more recently for physician recruiting. For many facilities, social media presents new opportunities. It helps them not only provide better brand awareness to a global audience but also develop new sourcing and recruiting methodologies beyond the usual advertising techniques, enabling them to also reach out to ‘passive, job-searching’ physicians.
Recent surveys from New England Journal of Medicine shows 71% of the physician respondents search for practice opportunities online. Manhattan Research, meanwhile, cited that 88% of all doctors use the internet to access medical and device information, and that at least 40% of research physicians do happen online. In addition, there is growing increase with medical journals being published online, along with CME courses and specialty-specific news, trends and developments conveniently provided online for physicians.
Social media’s role in information consumption and dissemination is also increasing. Two thirds of physicians watch online video clips, and at least 70% of doctors use smartphones. In a separate survey by Knowledge Networks, 60% of healthcare specialists and about half of all doctors use smartphones, and that 90% of these mobile owners use it to go online, which includes social networking sites. Ed Bennett of University of Maryland Medical Center has listed that 1,188 hospitals are currently using social media technologies as of June 8, 2011. This is broken down into 548 YouTube channels, 1018 Facebook pages, 788 Twitter accounts, 458 LinkedIn profiles and 137 blogs, which all translate to 3,952 healthcare social networking sites.
Danville, PA-based Geisinger Health System, for instance, has launched its social media campaign following lukewarm response to their print-based sourcing and successfully hired gastroenterologists, with one recruited directly from their Facebook page. Alongside Geisinger are facilities which have set up their own social networks such as Scripps Health in San Diego, the Mayo Clinic (Minnesota, Florida and Arizona-specific), Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Indiana University Hospital’s Clarian Health, Kaiser Permanente, Tenet Healthcare, Maryland Medical System, Hardin Memorial Hospital and the Suburban Health Organization.
“Social media as one of the many tools for physician recruiting has significant advantages,” said Mike Broxterman, Chief Operating Officer of Pinnacle Health Group (PHG). “The ways you reach out and communicate with doctors are unlimited, as you can instantly share information across different platforms, simultaneously. The expediency is particularly effective for physicians who are too busy to read through an advertisement, or doctors who regularly use online tools to manage their careers. Moreover, they have integrated benchmark tools, so you can easily track and monitor the results.”
Craig Fowler, PHG’s Vice President for Recruiting and Training, added, “Social media is a content-specific and multimedia-rich platform, so physicians are given a personal touch when recruiters present them practice opportunities with it. It gives them a ‘virtual’ tour of the facility that they can consider working at in the future, or the community they would want to relocate. Even for a passive job seeker, there’s good probability that they will keep you on their list once they explore new practice opportunities.
“Moreover, today’s generation of physicians, with all their changing work and lifestyle preferences as well as increasing usage of electronic/digital devices, is also becoming increasingly tech-savvy. The hiring process for recruiters, whether in-house or external firms, has to accommodate for these new technologies.”
An effective social media campaign is time-consuming, so healthcare organizations must be committed to investing the resources needed for it. Social media is also a two-way process, says Fowler. Both healthcare organizations and physicians can access each other’s communication channels, so it is important to engage in proactive communication.
Employers work on this by managing their online reputation and joining discussions about the group. Today’s leading social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and YouTube allow their target demographic / audience to ‘comment,’ and it presents as a good opportunity to positively influence your audience and respond to, if not avoid, negative feedback.
Many social networks also provide opportunities for employers to solicit feedback, and these become strategic advantage in getting valuable insight in improving physician-hospital relations, marketing, branding and recruiting initiatives. Furthermore, content distribution is an essential part of any social media campaign, so healthcare groups benefit from distributing educational, helpful resources and tools that physicians or any target audience can use in their careers.
“Social media presents many advantages,” said Broxterman. “It creates a more collegial community between employers and doctors, optimizes business development and solicit feedback for your group to improve on. On the other hand, not all hospitals are open to this technology yet, so it depends on their corporate culture. Sometimes the projected benefits of using social media, along with time-tested or traditional recruiting techniques, can outweigh some risks that may be involved when using it, but you need to mitigate them and ensure you have the time and resources for it.”