Digital Reputation Management in American Cancer Hospitals
A Proposed Model
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51480/1899-5101.15.2(31).5Keywords:
corporate communication, hospital, brand, reputation, Social MediaAbstract
Cancer patients face complicated situations from an emotional, social and physical perspective. Hospitals help them through implementing corporate communication initiatives based on social media platforms. This win-win relationship allows hospitals to reinforce their brand reputation. This paper aims to better understand how cancer hospitals manage social media platforms for enhancing their brand as well as their relationships with stakeholders. To do that, we carried out a literature review about corporate communication in health organizations, as well as a content analysis about how the top 100 American cancer hospitals managed their corporate website as well as their corporate profile on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for branding initiatives. Finally, we proposed the Reb Model for Branding Cancer Hospitals. We concluded that thanks to social media, cancer hospitals can reinforce their brand because these platforms allow them to promote human values, improve their internal processes and become a true source of scientific information.
References
Apenteng, B., Ekpo, I., Mutiso, F., Akowuah, E., & Opoku, S. (2020). Examining the relationship between social media engagement and hospital revenue. Health Marketing Quarterly, 25: 1-12. Doi: 10.1080/07359683.2020.1713575.
Attai, D., Sedrak, M., Katz, M., Thompson, M., Anderson, P., Kesselheim, J. & Fisch, M. (2016). Social media in cancer care: highlights, challenges & opportunities. Future Oncology, 12 (13): 1549-1552. Doi: https://doi.org/10.2217/fon-2016-0065.
Balasooriya-Smeekens, C., Walter, F. & Scott, S. (2015). The role of emotions in time to presentation for symptoms suggestive of cancer: a systematic literature review of quantitative studies. Psychooncology, 24(12):1594-1604. Doi: 10.1002/pon.3833.
Basch, C., Basch, C., Hillyer, G. & Reeves, R. (2015). YouTube Videos Related to Skin Cancer: A Missed Opportunity for Cancer Prevention and Control. JMIR Cancer, 2(1): e1. Doi: 10.2196/cancer.4204.
Beesley, H., Goodfellow, S., Hocombe, C. & Salmon, P. (2016). The intensity of breast cancer patients’ relationships with their surgeons after the first meeting: Evidence that relationships are not ‘built’ but arise from attachment processes. European Journal of Surgical Oncology, 42(5): 679-684. Doi: 10.1016/j.ejso.2016.02.001.
Blanch-Hartigan, D., Chawla, N., Moser, R., Finney Rutten, L., Hesse, B. & Arora, N. (2016). Trends in cancer survivors’ experience of patient-centered communication: results from the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). Journal of Cancer Survivorship, 10(6):1067-1077. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11764-016-0550-7.
Blomgren M., Hedmo, T. & Waks, C. (2016). Being Special in an Ordinary Way: Swedish Hospitals’ Strategic Web Communication. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 10 (3): 177-194.
Brand, S., Fasciano, K. & Mack, J. (2017). Communication preferences of pediatric cancer patients: talking about prognosis and their future life. Support Care Center, 25 (3), 769-774. Doi: 10.1007/s00520-016-3458-x.
Brown, J. (2008). How clinical communication has become a core part of medical education in the UK. Medical Education, 43 (3): 271-278. Doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2923.2007.02955.x.
Costa-Sánchez, C. & Míguez-González, M-I. (2018). Use of social media for health education and corporate communication of hospitals. El Profesional de la Información. 27 (5): 1145-1150. Doi: 10.3145/epi.2018.sep.18.
Cho, H., Silver, N., Na, K. Adams, D., Luong, K. & Song, C. (2018). Visual Cancer Communication on Social Media: An Examination of Content and Effects of #Melanomasucks. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20 (9): e10501. Doi: 10.2196/10501.
De Las Heras-Pedrosa, C., Rando-Cueto, D., Jambrino-Maldonado, C. & Paniagua-Rojano, J. (2020). Analysis and study of hospital communication via social media from the patient perspective. Cogent Social Sciences, 6 (1). Doi: 10.1080/23311886.2020.1718578.
De Vries, A., Gholamrezaee, M., Verdonck-de Leeuw, I., De Roten, Y., Despland, J., Stiefel, F. & Passchier, J. (2018). Physicians’ emotion regulation during communication with advanced cancer patients. Psychooncology, 27(3): 929-936. Doi: 10.1002/pon.4614.
Epstein, R., Duberstein, P. & Fenton, J. (2017). Effect of a Patient-Centered Communication Intervention on Oncologist-Patient Communication, Quality of Life, and Health Care Utilization in Advanced Cancer. The VOICE Randomized Clinical Trial. Jama Oncology, 3(1):92-100. Doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2016.4373.
Falisi, A., Wiseman, K., Gaysynsky, A., Scheideler, J., Ramin, D. & Chou, W. (2017). Social media for breast cancer survivors: a literature review. Journal of Cancer Survivorship, 11 (6): 808-821. Doi: 10.1007/s11764-017-0620-5.
Fernández-Gómez, E. & Díaz-Campo, J. (2016). Comunicación sobre el cáncer en Facebook: Las asociaciones de Argentina, Chile, Colombia y España. Cuadernos.info, 38 : 35-50. Doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.7764/cdi.38.926.
Fischer, S. (2014). Hospital Positioning and Integrated Hospital Marketing Communications: State-of-the-Art Review, Conceptual Framework, and Research. Agenda. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 26 (1): 1-34. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/10495142.2014.870431.
Gage-Bouchard, E., La Valley, S., Mollica, M. & Beaupin, L. (2017). Examining how cancer caregivers use Facebook for cancer-related communication. Cancer Nursing, 40 (4): 332-338. Doi: 10.1097/NCC.0000000000000418.
González Pacanowski, T. & Medina Aguerrebere, P. (2018). Las apps en la identidad digital hospitalaria: implicaciones en la reputación y tendencias. Revista Española de Comunicación en Salud, 9 (1): 82-92. Doi: https://doi.org/10.20318/recs.2018.4255.
Griffis, H., Kilaru, A., Werner, R., Asch, D., Hershey, J., Hill, S., Ha, Y., Sellers, A., Mahoney, K. & Merchant, R. (2014). Use of Social Media Across US Hospitals: Descriptive Analysis of Adoption and Utilization. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 16(11):e264. DOI: 10.2196/jmir.3758.
Janz, N., Li, Y., Zikmund-Fisher, B., Jagsi, R., Kurian, A., An, L., McLeod, M., Lee, K., Katz, S. & Hawley, S. (2016). The impact of doctor-patient communication on patients’ perceptions of their risk of breast cancer recurrence. Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, 161(3): 525-535. doi: 10.1007/s10549-016-4076-5.
Jones, C., Jensen, J., Scherr, C., Brown, N., Christy, K. & Weaver, J. (2015). The Health Belief Model as an Explanatory Framework in Communication Research: Exploring Parallel, Serial, and Moderated Mediation. Health Communication, 30 (6): 566-576.
Klabunde, C., Haggstrom, D., Kahn, K., Gray, S., Kim, B., Liu, B., Eisenstein, J. & Keating, N (2017). Oncologists’ perspectives on post-cancer treatment communication and care coordination with primary care physicians. European Journal of Cancer Care, 26 (4). Doi: 10.1111/ecc.12628.
Kotsenas, A., Aase, L., Arce, M. & Timimi, F. (2018). The Social Media DNA of Mayo Clinic – and Health Care. Journal of American College of Radiology, 15, 162-166. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jacr.2017.09.026.
Lee, J., Choudhry, N., Wu, A., Matlin, O., Brennan, T. & Shrank, W. (2015). Patient Use of Email, Facebook, and Physician Websites to Communicate with Physicians: A National Digital Survey of Retail Pharmacy Users. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 31 (1): 45-51. Doi: 10.1007/s11606-015-3374-7.
Lim, W. (2016). Social media in medical and health care: opportunities and challenges. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 34 (7): 964 – 976.
Mazor, K., Street, R., Sue, V., Williams, A., Rabin, B. & Arora, N. (2016). Assessing patients’ experiences with communication across the cancer care continuum. Patient Education and Counseling, 99(8): 1343-1348. Doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2016.03.004.
Míguez-González, M-I., García Crespo, O. & Ramahí-García, D. (2019). Análisis de vídeos sobre cáncer de mama en YouTube. Cuadernos.info, 44: 179-193. https://dx.doi.org/10.7764/cdi.44.1528.
Miller, C., Guidry, J. & Fuemmeler, B. (2019). Breast Cancer Voices on Pinterest: Raising Awareness or Just an Inspirational Image? Health Education and Behaviour, 46 (2S): 49-58. Doi: 10.1177/1090198119863774.
Moore, P., Rivera, S., Bravo-Soto, G., Olivares, C. & Lawrie, T. (2018). Communication skills training for healthcare professionals working with people who have cancer. Cochrane Database System Review, 24 (7): CD003751. Doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD003751.pub4.
Namkoong, K., Shah, D. & Gustafson, D. (2017). Offline Social Relationships and Digital Cancer Communication: Effects of Social and Family Support on Digital Social Network Building. Health Communication, 32 (11): 1422-1429. Doi: 10.1080/10410236.2016.1230808
Park, H., Reber, B. & Chon, M-G. (2016). Tweeting as Health Communication: Health Organizations’ Use of Twitter for Health Promotion and Public Engagement. Journal of Health Communication, 21 (2): 188-198. DOI: 10.1080/10810730.2015.1058435.
Peterson, E., Ostroff, J., Duhamel, K., D’Agostino, T., Hernandez, M., Canzona, M. & Bylun, C. (2016). Impact of Provider-Patient Communication on Cancer Screening Adherence: A Systematic Review. Preventive Medicine, 93: 96–105. Doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2016.09.034.
Prochaska, J., Coughlin, S. & Lyons, E. (2017). Social Media and Mobile Technology for Cancer Prevention and Treatment. American Society of Clinical Oncology Educational Book, 37:128-137. Doi: 10.14694/EDBK_173841.
Salmon, P. & Young, B. (2017). A new paradigm for clinical communication: critical review of literature in cancer care. Medical Education, 51: 258-268. Doi: 10.1111/medu.13204.
Sedrak, M., Cohen, R., Merchant, R. & Schapira, M. (2016). Cancer Communication in the Social Media Age. JAMA Oncology, 12 (6): 822-823. Doi: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2015.5475.
Sedrak, M., Dizon, D., Anderson, P., Fisch, M., Graham, D., Katz, M., Kesselheim, J., Miller, R., Thompson, M., Utengen, A. & Attai, D. (2017). The emerging role of professional social media use in oncology. Future Oncology,13(15):1281-1285. Doi: 10.2217/fon-2017-0161.
Silverman, J. , Kurtz, Suzanne & Draper, Juliet (2013). Skills for Communicating with Patients. New York: Taylor and Francis Group.
Smailhodzic, E., Hooijsma, W., Boonstra, A. & Langley, D. (2016). Social media use in healthcare: A systematic review of effects on patients and on their relationship with healthcare professionals. BMC Health Services Research, 16: 442.
Sutton, J., Vos, S., Olson, M., Woods, C., Cohen, E., Gibson, C., Phillips, N., Studts, J., Eberth, J. & Butts, C. (2018). Lung Cancer Messages on Twitter: Content Analysis and Evaluation. Journal of the American College of Radiology, 15 (1): 210-217. Doi: 10.1016/j.jacr.2017.09.043.
Taken, K. (2017). Hospital Marketing and Communications Via Social Media. Services Marketing Quarterly, 38 (3): 187-201. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/15332969.2017.1363518.
Triemstra, J., Stork, R. & Arora, V. (2018). Correlations Between Hospitals’ Social Media Presence and Reputation Score and Ranking: Cross-Sectional Analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20 (11): e289. Doi: doi:10.2196/jmir.9713.
Vraga, E., Stefanidis, A., Lamprianidis, G., Croitoru, A., Crooks, A., Delamater, P., Pfoser, D., Radzikowski, J. & Jacobsen, K. (2018). Cancer and Social Media: A Comparison of Traffic about Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer, and Other Reproductive Cancers on Twitter and Instagram. Journal of Health Communication, 23(2): 181-189. Doi: 10.1080/10810730.2017.1421730.
Yang, P-C., Lee, W-C., Liu, H-Y., Shih, M-J., Chen, T-J., Chou, L-F. & Hwang, S-J. (2018). Use of Facebook by Hospitals in Taiwan: A Nationwide Survey. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(6): 1188. Doi: 10.3390/ijerph15061188.
Yeob, J., Hawkins, R., Baker, T., Shah, D., Pingree, S. & Gustafson, D. (2017). How Cancer Patients Use and Benefit from an Interactive Cancer Communication System. Journal of Health Communication, 22 (10): 792-799. Doi: 10.1080/10810730.2017.1360413.
Zerfass, A., & Viertmann, C. (2017). Creating business value through corporate communication: A theory-based framework and its practical application. Journal of Communication Management 21 (1): 68-81. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-07-2016-0059.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Polish Communication Association
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.