Aiming to expand its reach in the community, Southcoast Hospitals Group has started using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to supplement its monthly e-mail newsletter and Web site.

On Twitter, where the group’s handle is SouthcoastHosp, more than 350 users are now following “tweets” on everything from blood drives and cancer screenings, to local and global health care news. On Facebook, the Southcoast page has a more modest 40-plus fans. On YouTube, the hospitals have posted videos of interviews with surgeons and staff as well as educational programs. Links to all three, as well as to Southcoast RSS feeds, are posted together at www.southcoast.org/connect.

“We are keeping up with the way people are getting their news and information by using the latest and most popular social media methods,” said Jim Rattray, vice president of marketing and public affairs for Southcoast Health System, in a news release. “It helps us stay in touch with our community in an easy and convenient way.”

The hospitals have been using online tools for some time, including the award-winning Southcoast eNews monthly e-mail newsletter, an online discussion forum for Southcoast’s weight loss surgery program, and an “e-mail a patient” program that allows people to send greetings to patients while they are hospitalized.

Southcoast Health System offers a continuum of community-based services throughout southeastern Massachusetts and the East Bay region of Rhode Island, anchored by three hospitals: Charlton Memorial Hospital in Fall River, St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford and Tobey Hospital in Wareham. For more information, go to www.southcoast.org.