Ask the Expert, with Avinash Kaushik // By Jane Weber Brubaker // Is it wrong to post ER wait times prominently on your homepage? It’s a fine strategy if you’re content to solve for a tiny fraction of your site visitors, say 2 percent. Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google, suggests instead: Why not Read More
An Interview with Craig Kartchner, Senior Director of Marketing // By Jane Weber Brubaker // At Intermountain Healthcare, patient engagement is a top priority, and the organization is tackling the issue from all sides. We spoke with Craig Kartchner, Senior Director of Marketing, to get an update on Intermountain’s digital strategies, successes, and challenges. “We Read More
The eHealthcare Strategy & Trends Editorial Advisory Board is made up of leaders in the digital healthcare marketing field who are committed to shaping the future of the industry. They offer ongoing feedback on our editorial coverage, write occasional articles, and point us to developments and people our members should know about. I’m very pleased Read More
// By Dagmara Scalise // In Part One of my overview of post-website redesign launch priorities, I focused on four important strategies to demonstrate the effectiveness of your website investment, and keep momentum going: Measurement Optimization Local search Content strategy Here we will get to the next set of priorities after your website redesign.
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // In 2014, Piedmont Healthcare was the second health system to go live with physician star ratings based on Press Ganey survey data. “The reason we did it was because there’s no more powerful voice in helping consumers understand the experience with a service or product than the voice of Read More
// By Jeremy Dietz // Organic search is a valuable source of website traffic for hospitals and health plans. To capture relevant search traffic, healthcare marketers need to build and maintain websites that meet current best practices for search engine optimization (SEO). It’s not always easy to know exactly what to do to make a Read More
Ask the Expert, with Michael Sengbusch // By Jane Weber Brubaker // Last year, we spoke with Michael Sengbusch, then Chief Technology Officer at Brightwhistle, about Facebook advertising trends like custom audiences and lookalike audiences. We asked Sengbusch, now General Manager, Digital Marketing Cloud at InfluenceHealth, to give us an update on paid advertising on Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // IBM’s cognitive computer Watson became a household name and overnight sensation in 2011 when it beat two of Jeopardy’s top contestants, smoothly handling the show’s lineup of cleverly named categories and obscure facts: “Dialing for Dialects for $800,” says Watson, choosing a category in the opening round. Host Alex Read More
Ask the Expert, with Chris Boyer, Senior Vice President, Digital at ReviveHealth // By Jane Weber Brubaker // We interviewed Chris Boyer following his presentation with Chris Bevolo, EVP at ReviveHealth, at this year’s Healthcare Marketing & Physician Strategies Summit. Their presentation “Personalized Marketing: Moving From Persona to Person” offers a vision of what healthcare Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Do you have a hard time getting your physicians to tweet or blog or post anything at all on social media? So did University of Utah Health Care (UUHC) before the organization found a way to crack the code. “I’m not going to lie, most of them needed some Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // By now, most of us have seen the 2014 chart that shows the number of mobile users finally surpassing desktop users. Although this doesn’t necessarily mean desktop is going away—78 percent of digital users use both desktop and mobile platforms, according to a 2015 report from ComScore—what is startling Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // The time change between China and the U.S. made it relatively easy to connect with Lee Aase, Director of Mayo Clinic Social Media Network; it was Wednesday evening on the East Coast, and Thursday morning in Beijing—12 hours apart. Aase was on a two-week trip to China in June, Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // In our self-service, digitally enabled world, healthcare consumers wonder why they can’t do something as basic as scheduling an appointment online. Today, ignoring patient demands for access and convenience can be a costly mistake, resulting in low satisfaction scores, or worse, losing out to competitors who pay closer attention. Read More
// By Kyra Hagan // One of the most significant transformations in healthcare today revolves around consumers’ growing interest and involvement in their health. The consumerism of healthcare has profound implications for marketers, care delivery teams, and IT professionals. New challenges as well as opportunities are emerging, and deciding when and how to leverage technology Read More
Ask the Expert, with Ben Dillon // By Jane Weber Brubaker // Remember when Google was where you went to figure out where to go next? Now Google is more interested in having you find what you need right on the search engine results page. Google’s answers may be taking up much more of the Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // “Every single touchpoint you have in healthcare, we should have the same consistent experience,” says Chantal Stephens of Orlando Health, formerly of Ritz-Carlton and Disney, two organizations renowned for exceptional customer service (eHST, January 2016). The implied word in this sentence is “positive”—a consistent positive experience. When any aspect Read More
eHealthcare Pulse // By Jane Weber Brubaker // A March 2016 editorial in JAMA authored by three University of Michigan physicians, “Health System Loyalty Programs: An Innovation in Customer Care and Service,” begins as follows: “Many people belong to loyalty programs for coffee shops, hotel chains, or airlines. Despite a highly consumer-oriented approach in some Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Net Promoter Score is a mechanism that collects consumer feedback by asking the question: How likely is it that you would recommend [brand] to a friend or colleague? Memorial Hermann uses Net Promoter Score to measure consumer sentiment across a range of online experiences. “We can get a gauge Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // While many health systems focus on driving volume in high-margin service lines, Gundersen Health System is beginning to think about things differently. “About two years ago we started looking at how to shift our marketing from driving volume to building relationships, and helping consumers engage in their health and Read More
// By James A. Gardner // “Virtual reality was once the dream of science fiction. But the Internet was also once a dream, and so were computers and smartphones. The future is coming.” —Facebook’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg If talk of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) brings to mind comically unfashionable goggles, Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // If you could get a physician to refer 100 percent of his or her patients to your hospital or health system, what would that be worth? If the physician refers to specialists, such as neurosurgeons or orthopedic surgeons, it could be worth $2.5 million to $3 million in annual Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // How many health systems do you know that could launch their first ever digital campaign on four weeks’ notice? When funding for a marketing campaign materialized in the fall of 2015, Lahey Health’s Specializing in You campaign was fast-tracked, with a mandate to be in market by October 1. Read More
// By Ken Robbins // Conversions are the goal of every marketer. But in healthcare, can you think of conversions the same way you do in other industries? Take retail, for example. Are tactics used to increase conversions in retail relevant to something as unique as healthcare? The answer to both questions is a resounding Read More
An Interview with Marketo CMO Sanjay Dholakia // By Jane Weber Brubaker // In early April, the Economist Intelligence Unit released results of its latest survey of top marketing executives, The Path to 2020: Marketers Seize the Customer Experience, commissioned by marketing automation company Marketo. The report captures the insights and opinions of global marketing Read More
// By Suni Munshani // Massive amounts of private health information (PHI) are stored in Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) ready for analysis by those in the healthcare industry for the benefit of all. But mobile and cloud technologies have blurred traditional enterprise perimeters and the healthcare industry must find new ways to defend itself and Read More