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About Patrice

Patrice-Anne Rutledge is a business technology author and consultant who specializes in social media, online collaboration, and presentation technologies.
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Social Networking Success Story: Parkland Health & Hospital System

Filed Under Social Media & Social Networking

Charise Thomason, a public relations specialist at Parkland Health & Hospital System in Dallas, recently talked to me about the success of their MySpace page dedicated to teen health issues.

What prompted you to create a MySpace page for your hospital?

We’ve noticed a decline in younger patients – teens and young adults – and we’re concerned that these patients are not receiving help from anyone. We want these members of our community to be informed of the family planning options available to them to avert unintended pregnancies and illness. We’ve created the page to communicate with teens using a vehicle they are already comfortable with – that is social media. We hope it will become a valuable resource for adolescents who may have questions about reproductive health or who may find themselves in need of help.

How has it enabled you to reach your audience?

We have had about 1,700 visitors to our page and we have almost 250 friends. We are constantly receiving new friend requests and we know teens are looking at our page because they are asking questions.

What success stories can you report so far?

We’ve received questions from people of all ages asking questions on our page so it seems we’re reaching an audience we never expected to reach on MySpace. Parents are asking where they can take their teens for services, nurses at other hospitals are asking about working at Parkland and most importantly, teens are asking questions about their health. This was our goal and this makes our MySpace presence so successful.