Case Study: Birchwood Medical Practice

Intro

Most people regularly use social media on a daily basis to access and share information, with a majority of people now using Facebook and Instagram. It is important for practices to recognise and utilise the benefits of communicating with patients through a mixture of websites, messaging, and social media. In addition, there has been a rapid growth in unofficial Facebook pages which are created when patients ‘check-in’ or ‘tag’ practices.

At a time when public perception of health services is under pressure and sharing validated and approved, population health information is crucial to keep people properly informed. This case study highlights the efforts of Birchwood Medical Practice to use social media and website communication to improve its services. In this case study, you will see both the outputs of their work and the impact it has had for them as a practice.

Background

Birchwood Medical Practice is based in North Walsham, Norfolk and is part of the North Norfolk PCN in the Norfolk and Waveney CCG.

Birchwood has been an early adopter of social media and websites, having set up both a practice website and Facebook page to communicate with patients.

However, Birchwood decided early on that they had bigger ambitions, wanting to operate a health information hub complete with a standalone website and social media pages.

Healthier North Walsham Website

The concept for Healthier North Walsham originally came from an idea to have healthy living resources catalogued and linked to the Birchwood Medical Practice website.

The resource centre quickly grew as it encompassed all the local and national resources available to support people with health, fitness, social-economic problems etc… At this point, it became clear that this resource could exist as a stand-alone activity to the practices other communications, thus Healthier North Walsham was born.

Healthier North Walsham serves as an online social prescribing resource that complements and improves the practices existing care offers.

Birchwood has recently invested in building Healthier North Walsham its own site, which is soon to be launched. The site will feature a categorised navigation tool to make it easier for patients to search for resources that support their specific needs. Just one of Birchwoods efforts at improving their service quality.

Healthier North Walsham On Social Media

To complement the fantastic online resource that is Healthier North Walsham – Birchwood Medical Practice has created a complimentary Facebook page. The page serves as a public health awareness and signposting page.

The Social Media page is run by just two members of staff who post content and moderate comments. The page posts twice a week on Monday and Thursdays.

The Birchwood team have even taken their content to the next level using custom graphics for their posts, which they create through the free online graphic design software Canva. They also use Canva to schedule their posts so they can dedicate specific time to creating content in advance whilst also meeting a consistent schedule.

Their content includes living well advice, live health stream with Birchwood staff and advisors on what to expect at health checks and appointments.

So far, Healthier Walshham’s messages have reached 120,000 people on social media. With recent posts reaching between 4,500 – 7,000 people per post.

What’s next

Birchwood is continually evolving its goals for patient communications with ambitions to expand Healthier North Walsham across the North Norfolk PCN.

As previously mentioned, the practice is excited to be announcing its new Healthier North Walsham website soon.

Birchwood has also begun to develop an Instagram account for Healthier North Walsham to help reach the younger demographic that more actively use that platform. They’re also considering using Tik Tok, one of the latest social media platforms and again a popular platform with young people.

Key Learning

Birchwood Medical Practice has shared a number of their learnings gained through developing social media and website communications:

Personable posts do well: Birchwood has found a high level of engagement with posts that are localised and familiar to the practices population. This includes videos and pictures of practice staff, local support offers and information about the operations of the practice in general.

You don’t need a big team: Birchwood Medical Practice has operated the Healthier North Walsham project with just two members of staff. With good planning and enabling technology support, projects such as this can be achieved through good planning and consistency.

There are user-friendly sites to support: Sites such as Canva have been really effective in enabling the Birchwood team to complete graphical content and schedule work through a single user-friendly point.

Acknowledgements

This case study could not have been completed without the feedback provided by:

• Wayne Catchpole |Practice Manager
• Birchwood Medical Practice | D82059
• Park Lane | North Walsham | NR28 0BQ |01692 402035