// By Ken Rickard // Imagine a healthcare world in which you had to pay a license fee to perform each angioplasty. Or one in which breakthroughs in cancer treatments were never published, but were instead reserved only for a select few doctors and institutions. Medicine, like science, depends on the free exchange of information Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // “The best way to change a culture is to be transparent,” says Emily Kagan Trenchard, Associate Vice President of Digital Strategy at Northwell Health (formerly North Shore-LIJ). “When you pull back the curtain, everyone wants to tidy up the room.” Kagan Trenchard and co-presenter Chris Boyer, Senior Vice President Read More
// By Emily Kagan Trenchard // We’re lucky enough to live in an era when design is no longer viewed as decoration. We understand it as a core principle that shapes our everyday interaction—from how we answer the smartphone in our pocket, to how we pay for things with a swipe of a card. We Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Rome wasn’t built in a day. It grew one conquest at a time. With so many major changes occurring in every aspect of healthcare, health systems today are advancing into new realms and evolving new models to better serve constituents. Change is the only constant. Before one major project Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // The social media budget at Orlando Health will double next year. But the health system’s social media strategy was anything but robust four years ago when Chantal Stephens came on board as Director of Marketing and Physician Sales. “Social media at the time was a very small part of Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // What makes a story great? It is relevant. It is original. It is simple to understand and retell. It is easy to share. It builds on feelings and values. It often ties into a bigger story. It gives your audience an opportunity to create or add to the story. Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Social media has become a critical component of the digital marketing mix for most healthcare organizations. Social media command centers are making it possible for lean marketing teams to listen, respond, and engage with growing numbers of consumers on multiple platforms, and share information across the organization. Some command Read More
Ask the Expert, with Scott Mowery, Director of Digital Services at Cleveland Clinic // By Jane Weber Brubaker // Scott Mowery, Director of Digital Services at Cleveland Clinic, presented at HCIC 2015. His background in e-commerce intrigued us. We wanted to know how it shaped his approach to digital marketing in healthcare. We also wanted Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // In March, we spoke with Sheree Esser, Consumer Engagement Marketing Manager at Trinity Health, about a planned marketing automation pilot at Saint Alphonsus in Boise, Idaho. We followed up with Esser to find out the results of the pilot. The purpose of the pilot was to see if email Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // The CEO of Kindred Hospital in Mansfield, Texas was concerned. A patient and the patient’s family member had previously committed to coming to the facility. “Then they went online, and they read the reviews, and they came back and told [the facility] that they were not coming any longer,” Read More
To say that the past couple of years at Nebraska Medicine have been a busy time would be an understatement. As if launching a new name and brand weren’t enough, Nebraska Medicine completed the clinical integration of three separate entities into one operating unit, all while dealing with the international press as one of three Read More
We at Plain-English Media extend our congratulations to the winners of the 2015 eHealthcare Leadership Awards. Presented by Health Care Communications, Rye, NY, the eHealthcare Leadership Awards program recognizes the very best websites and digital communications efforts of a wide range of healthcare organizations. The winners were announced today at a special presentation in Orlando, Read More
// By Dan Dunlop // Think about how you act when you host a dinner party. You are strategic when you develop the guest list, and bring people together who have commonalities. You greet people as they arrive and introduce them to others. And you facilitate conversation by suggesting interesting topics and by filling in Read More
Your health system’s marketing messages focus on the positive attributes of your organization and all the great services you have to offer. They capture the essence of your brand. But what do your patients actually say about you and the care they receive from your providers? Are you delivering on your brand promise from their Read More
// By Mike Reinhardt and Phil Harding // Delivering your brand promise through digital channels is obviously important to marketers at hospitals, health systems, and other healthcare organizations today. But what does delivering brand promise through digital really mean, and more important, how do you execute that delivery? We believe digital brand management is trending Read More
Leading-Edge Healthcare Organizations Now Promote Physician Reviews Online—Why It Works // By Jane Weber Brubaker // Your health system’s marketing messages focus on the positive attributes of your organization and all the great services you have to offer. They capture the essence of your brand. But what do your patients actually say about you and Read More
Learn why University of Wisconsin Health redesigned its intranet and how it keeps the large organization connected. // By Jane Weber Brubaker // Public-facing hospital websites are getting a lot of attention these days. Healthcare organizations are re-platforming and redesigning their sites to achieve organizational goals and live up to consumer expectations of the digital Read More
Web directors are assuming responsibility for the intranet in addition to public websites. Intranets require their own strategy, process, budget, and staff. Employees expect intranets to function as well as external sites. Employees want the ability to personalize content they use frequently for quick access. Intranets are adding social media-like features to content – commenting, Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // We’ve covered content management systems and hospital website redesigns extensively in the past few issues. In each case, once the hospital or health system was ready to start work, it faced a practical problem: how to migrate legacy content to the new site. The legacy content may be outdated. Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Even one of the most recognized and respected brands in pediatric healthcare can’t be content to rest on its laurels when it comes to hospital websites, but needs to keep moving forward, as technology continues to raise the bar on consumer expectations of the digital experience. When James Yanek Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // When Stanford Medicine decided it was time to replace its legacy platform, Dreamweaver, and look for a new enterprise Web content management platform, the number-one priority was ease of use by content authors. The Stanford Medicine Web presence consists of more than 200,000 pages; 825 websites; and 500 content Read More
// By Stephen Moegling // The Internet is the primary source for consumers to search for products and services instantly. Healthcare solutions are no exception. Hospitals are becoming savvier at using their website vehicles to convert prospective patients in the “golden moment” when those prospects are making active healthcare decisions. In addition, because the decision-making Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Do you hold your breath every time there’s a production push, hoping your hospital website doesn’t crash? If so, you can understand why Julie Lindsay, Director of Digital Services at SCL Health, started looking for a new Web content management system. “We just couldn’t take it anymore,” she says. Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Are you about to embark on a major overhaul of your health system’s website? A before-and-after user experience survey could help you prove that the investment was worth every penny. Or did you just launch your new website and you’re itching to find out how site visitors like it, Read More
// By Jane Weber Brubaker // According to Pew Research, “young adults, Hispanics, renters and the poor (as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau’s poverty thresholds) are all far more likely to be cell-only.” So if you’re a safety net hospital like Eskenazi Health in Indianapolis, Indiana, it makes sense to reach out to patients Read More