Facebook likes are often a good sign of a brand’s reach and consumer sentiment, but Facebook likes have a whole different set of implications when it comes to hospitals — and even provide some interesting data about the efficacy of a facility.
Facebook likes are seemingly an interesting determiner of one important aspect of hospitals — how likely one is to survive a stay, it seems. While it stands to reason death of a loved one might cause individuals to “unlike” a hospital, the correlation in the relatively new field of social media research is a compelling datapoint indeed.
According to The Atlantic, a recent medical journal study looked at Facebook likes and their influence on hospital patient satisfaction, and the site explains:
This reality, as a study in TheAmerican Journal of Medical Quality found, extends to the patient experience. When its authors compared the number of ‘likes’ acquired by 40 hospitals in the New York City area, they found that online popularity was positively corresponded with how many people responded, ‘Yes, they would definitely recommend the hospital,’ in patient satisfaction surveys.
But patient satisfaction was not the only factor — the site notes of mortality and Facebook likes:
An even stronger relationship was found for mortality. Each percentage point of a decrease in a hospital’s 30-day mortality rate corresponded with that hospital’s page having an average of 93 more Facebook likes.
It seems the Facebook likes were an overall gauge of hospital satisfaction — but it also stands to reason one might want to compare and contrast hospital Facebook likes as a possible mortality indicator before heading in for a procedure.
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