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Web site spotlight: Twitter can play key role in disaster management

Nurse Leader Weekly, January 25, 2010

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While it might not qualify yet as a warm embrace, safety and facilities professionals in hospitals in 2009 at least shook hands with Twitter and found new ways to get their messages across using the social media site.

For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter, at its core is the ability for users to post short, 140-character updates—known as "tweets"—about what they're doing. You can keep track of other's tweets you're interested in (i.e., people you're "following") and also see who's reading your tweets (i.e., "followers"). You need to be registered with Twitter to follow someone's tweets.

Disaster management seems to be a natural extension of Twitter for hospital safety officers and emergency management coordinators. Here is one example seen over the past year:

• After the mass shootings at Ford Hood, TX, on November 5, Scott & White Hospital in Temple, TX, revved up its existing Twitter presence with useful updates (the hospital received 10 shooting victims). Among the information tweeted: the operating status of the hospital's ER and wait times for volunteers to give blood.

Editor’s note: To read the rest of this article, visit “Twitter can play key role in disaster management” found in the Reading Room at www.StrategiesForNurseManagers.com.

Do you need continuing education (CE) credits? Check out this month’s CE article to learn about a successful project that helps facilities prepare for patient falls or visit our archives and view a compilation of CE articles (marked with an asterisk).

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