What’s up, Doc? Twittering. That’s what. Medical Community is Tweeting, too.

Q.  What does one do, if they are a social media junkie, and experiences an important life event?

A.  Well, duh!  They Twitter about it.

I arrived at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown, Pa. last Thursday to be with my family– my little sister was having a baby.  After hugs of course, the first thing I did was send out a message on Twitter, or a ‘tweet.’

Is at Lehigh Valley Hospital with my family - little sis just had her baby
4:31 PM Mar 19th from twitterrific

A little while later, I was going through Twitteriffic on my iphone and saw a reply.

At first I wasn’t sure who sent that– thought it was a new follower.  Then,  I looked again.  Wow!  That’s the hospital logo!  The hospital marketing team was up to speed, even updating from their own mobile phone.  I replied to them that it was cool they were on Twitter, and they replied to me once again, welcoming the new member of our family. They must be using a service like TweetBeep (like a Google Alert for tweets) to be pinged when someone mentions the hospital, which again, is a great tool to see who is talking about you on Twitter.

Thought that was pretty darn cool that the hospital was into Twittering, and in tune with their hospital patients and visitors.  When I got home, I looked up the hospital website, and prominently displayed on their homepage is their invitation for people to follow them on Twitter.  They pledge that they will send updates (tweets) about healthcare news, etc.

I had heard in the news of surgeons Twittering during surgery and such, but for a whole medical organization to be in tune with the latest in social media is just awesome.  This proves that Twitter is not just a tool to tell people what you are doing at any given moment- but it can be used successfully, too for engaging people, for communication, for promotions, for inspiration and so much more.