Swedish Medical Center is the largest, most comprehensive, nonprofit health care provider in the Greater Seattle area.
Situation
- Swedish is home to Northwest’s leading robot-assisted surgery program, and its doctors are often called on to train others on the technology.
- The organization needed a creative public relations campaign to garner new exposure for the program.
Solution
- Hosted a live surgery on Twitter: included minute-by-minute details of the procedure, descriptions of the operating room, photos and comments from the doctor.
- Leveraged Swedish’s Twitter following to maximize exposure, amplify the story and elevate the institution’s reputation among new audiences.
- Established a hashtag to monitor Twitter conversations.
- Conducted an aggressive media relations campaign to gain new exposure for the robust robot-assisted surgery program.
- Partnered a robot-assisted prostate cancer surgeon with a local celebrity chef and hosted a speaker’s series offering eating tips and recipes for keeping your prostate healthy.
Results
- Conversations about the surgery lasted 36 hours and reached more than 83,000 people.
- Social media made an old story new again – sparking media coverage on local television stations and several print, online and radio outlets.
- A doctor appeared on KING 5 TV (NBC-Seattle) and peeled a grape using the surgery robot to show the device’s accuracy and precision.
- Hosted a media tour of the world’s first operating room tailored to the new da Vinci robot and secured more than 7 million PR impressions for the program.