Background: Social media provide new channels for hospitals to engage with communities, a goal of increasing importance as non-profit hospitals face stricter definitions of community benefit under the Affordable Care Act. We describe the variability in social media presence among US children's hospitals and the distribution of their Facebook content curation.Methods: Social media data from freestanding children's hospitals were extracted from September-November 2013. Social media adoption was reviewed for each hospital-generated Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google + and Pinterest platform. Facebook page (number of Likes) and Twitter account (number of followers) engagement were examined by hospital characteristics. Facebook posts from each hospital over a 6-week period were thematically characterized.
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