by Jared Johnson

I came away from a recent networking luncheon with more than just a couple of business contacts and a good meal. We listened to an engaging presentation from Ketchum, one of the nation's top public relations agencies, about the findings of a recent study called Media Myths and Realities. Ketchum partnered with the University of Southern California to dispel myths about how we reach people through mass media. If you haven't been in a room full of PR gurus when someone starts showing media usage data, it's much akin to the way Wall Street hounds crave earnings reports. In other words, we were glued to the PowerPoint as if we were caught in a tractor beam.

At any rate, we heard three conclusions that I found particularly insightful in a health care setting. The application is simple. If we truly are to make hospitals the best-run organizations in the country, we must know how to communicate our message. We must be united in how we present health care to the masses because the masses have no problem lumping us all together as part of the health care hustle.

The first conclusion is that blogs are far from superseding traditional media , i.e. local television news and daily newspapers. Blogs are being read increasingly across all age groups, but not nearly as much as we think. Even 18- to 35-year-olds read local newspapers nearly three times as often as blogs. This doesn't spell doom for HospitalImpact; it just means we should be aware of how blogs fit into the public perception of hospitals.

The second, which was a surprise to me, is that social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook are no longer just for kids. They are growing more popular among professionals. These sites are often deemed hangouts for pre-teens, but the data shows that usage continues to increase among those 35 and over. More than 30 million moms are online and 70 percent visit social networking sites like NewBaby.com. The proliferation doesn't stop there; in fact, there is now a social network devoted exclusively to baby boomers. If so many consumers are making connections this way, it seems there is value to exploring these sites rather than dismissing them as child's play.

Finally, you're not alone if you see the need for improvement in the way your hospital communicates internally. The Ketchum study showed that, across the board, corporate communicators rely too heavily on their company Web site. Hospitals are unique in that clinical staff members generally doesn't spend time sitting behind a computer while on shift. So posting important corporate announcements on the intranet or even sending out an e-blast won't necessarily reach a majority of workers.

Ketchum posted a news release about the study for anyone who is interested.