A healthy dose of hospitals that tweet

When it comes to health and wellness, providers—and their Twitter accounts—have your back. Or is it your waistline? Either way, in our never-ending quest to prove that people really do read good news stories, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite healthy advice from the healthcare organizations we follow on Twitter. 

In our downtown Washington offices, the locals were feeling frosty at 27 degrees last week. Here in the North, where the temps were hovering in the low teens, we call that a heat wave. Bostonians, like the folks at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, laugh at cold weather—and then go for a run. 

RELATED: We're thankful for hospitals that tweet

Whatever your definition of "cold," Riley Children's Health at Indiana University, Mercy Health System in Janesville, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma's Integris Health are all serving up a cup of healthy cheer. 

This advice from Seattle's Swedish (No, we're not in Sweden," noted its Twitter account profile) subtly gives people the hint that the sniffles are best treated at home. Forget the whole "right care in the right place at the right time" issue. The real reason to stay out of the ER when you have a cold is that you could end up going home with the flu. 

The Cleveland Clinic (which is definitely in Ohio) isn't saying you can't have fat. It's just saying maybe pick the healthy fat once and a while, OK?

If healthcare marketers could win an Emmy, the Mayo Clinic team would get one for visual effects. 

Starting to sense a theme, here. Lancaster (Pennsylvania) General, Northwell Health (formerly North Shore-LIJ Health System), Chicago's Rush University Medical Center and Yale New Haven's Bridgeport Hospital have a message for their communities: "Baby, it's cold outside."

Meanwhile, Rush weighed in again with this #handwashing advice—if only clinicians would follow it, too. Maybe that would make for a nice New Year's resolution for the healthcare industry? 

The editorial staff at FierceHealthcare (@fiercehealth) wish all of our readers (and followers) a happy and healthy New Year. We'll be taking a break from publishing our daily and weekly e-newsletters starting tomorrow, but we'll be posting stories to FierceHealthcare.com over the holidays, so be sure to check in.