FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 14, 2010
 Turlock, CA- To help people get and stay healthy, Emanuel Medical Center now provides a number of free electronic, mobile and social media services providing health information, tips and support.
"Emanuel is on Facebook, Twitter and has e-mail and text messaging services," explained Pennie Rorex, Emanuel's vice president of corporate communication and marketing. "It's the way people communicate today, and with these services people can sign up to get just the kind of information they want."
The text message service, for instance, will send users texts on hospital and community health events, and users can choose to get additional information on women's health, men's health or children's health. Subscribers may receive up to four texts a month.
"Our new e-mail service is similar," Rorex explained. "People can subscribe to receive general Emanuel news, but also choose a number of additional options, including cancer information, women and children's health information, heart health information and many others."
The hospital's Twitter and Facebook pages alert people of upcoming events, give health tips and provide real-time news, pictures and video. It's all designed to help people stay healthy, Rorex said, and to help their friends and loved ones stay healthy as well.
The benefits of these instant communication methods were illustrated during American Heart Month in February, when Rorex e-mailed a press release about the event to the local media as well as to Emanuel's board members, including Turlock's Bob Field.
Field, who had a heart attack three years ago, immediately forwarded the message to about five dozen people in his e-mail address book, urging them to pass the word to anyone they knew who might benefit from the tests.
"Because I had a heart attack, I'm more cognizant of these things and really believe screenings can save people's lives," he said. "It made sense to me to send it to the people I know, and I'm sure a lot of them passed it on to their friends. It got up and rolling and a lot of people in Turlock knew about the screenings pretty quickly."
That's a perfect example of the power of personal social networks, Rorex said.
Subscribers to any of Emanuel's electronic information services can unsubscribe at any time, and Emanuel provides the services for free. (Some cellular providers charge for text messages, so be sure to check your plan.)
Here's how to sign up:
Facebook: Visit www.facebook.com/EmanuelMedCtr and click "Become a Fan"
Twitter: Visit www.twitter.com/EmanuelMedCtr and click "Follow"
Email: Visit www.emanuelmedicalcenter.org/eHealth and select the health topics of special interest to you.
Text: Text EMANUEL to 88788 to subscribe to the hospital's Mobile Health Digest
Emanuel Medical Center is a not-for-profit, community-based Christian hospital. Its 415-bed multi-level medical campus includes a 209-bed acute care hospital, a 145-bed skilled nursing facility and a 49-bed assisted living facility. It provides emergency, critical care, pediatric, medical and surgical services, cardiology, cancer diagnosis and treatment services, women's health services, and hospice services.
For more information, to search for a doctor by specialty or location, or for an online symptom-checker visit www.emanuelmedicalcenter.org.
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