MultiCare Health System’s blog focuses on education and storytelling

 

A crash survivor reunites with those who saved her life. A soldier returns from Afghanistan to surprise his wife 15 minutes before the birth of his son.

And a gift from a preemie’s mother reminds parents they’re not alone.

The storytelling on MultiCare Vitals—a blog from MultiCare Health System in Tacoma, Wash.—boosted it into a first-place tie with Seattle Children’s Hospital for top honors in the Best Blog (Health System/Medical Group) category of Ragan’s 2013 Health Care PR and Marketing Awards.

We’re recommending the two Pacific Northwest hospitals arrange a cage match to settle this properly—with doctors, of course, standing by.

MultiCare Vitals shows how organizations benefit by making education and storytelling (rather than marketing) their content priority. MultiCare hired journalists to write, edit, curate, and translate medical jargon for the rest of us.

It also uses a variety of other staffers as writers, among them doctors, registered nurses, dietitians, and even a groundskeeper who discussed the right time of year to prune your roses, the hospital reports.

MultiCare wins points for its savvy use of social media and for catching the attention of mainstream media through its blog, ranging from regional newspapers to the “Today” show.

MultiCare uses pictures of real staffers and patients, and even posts mini-articles about them. Rather than just selling, it has become a popular resource.

Besides, who can doubt their claims of search-engine know-how when they are writing stories such as “Why Do I Pee When I Sneeze?” This is one of the blog’s most-read pieces every month, thanks to traffic from Google.

In the past year readership has shot up by 300 percent, to more than 100,000, boosting the hospital’s combined Facebook communities to more than 21,000 people.

Visit the blog here.

Want to get recognized for your hard work? Find out about Ragan and PR Daily’s award programs here.