The COVID-19 pandemic put hospitals in the spotlight to take care of patients in the facilities and to make related physical and mental health education available to the public.
“As soon as COVID-19 was deemed a pandemic, our communications team went into overdrive creating educational content,” said Alyssa Van Duyse, social media specialist with HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital. “We used the CDC website as our source, paid attention to current events and the buzz surrounding COVID-19, and then we created social media posts that were intriguing and informational.”
Aside from washing hands and masking, an important part of HSHS Sacred Heart social media touched on not just physical health, but mental health during first few months of the pandemic.
“It’s not natural for people to isolate in their homes and rarely see others,” Van Duyse said. “One priority brought to light by our Community Health Needs Assessment is mental health. We wanted to make sure we were touching on self-care, inspiration, depression and suicide knowing that people may be struggling.”
HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital continues to share important, up-to-date health information on social media. Van Duyse says it is well received and the numbers suggest thousands of people are seeing the posts.