All Healthcare Is Local — Especially During a Pandemic

// By Carrie Liken // The COVID-19 pandemic has been a defining moment for humanity. It has been equally defining for healthcare. As long as COVID is part of our world, people will travel less for care, and they will search more for local care that is convenient to them. If you use this to Read More

Digital Marketing Trends in 2020 — The Impact of COVID-19

// By Ben Dillon // The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted every industry in the U.S., but not all in the same way or to the same degree. Healthcare’s experience has been unique, with the combination of shutdowns early in the crisis coupled with costly emergency response plans for many health systems. Teams pivoted to focus Read More

Riverview Health Mines Data to Uncover New Opportunities and Drive Growth

// By Jim Samuel // Health systems and hospitals can use data they already have to help set marketing priorities and determine the best use of their budgets. That was just one of the lessons identified during “Using Analytics to Inform, Plan, and Optimize Marketing,” a presentation given during the 2020 Healthcare Marketing and Physician Read More

On-Demand Virtual Visits Attract New Patients to Rush University System for Health

// By Wendy Stark Healy // The COVID-19 outbreak was challenging for healthcare organizations, but one positive for marketers was that the pandemic presented new opportunities to engage consumers digitally. When patients couldn’t see their providers in the office, they used virtual care or telemedicine services. Rush University System for Health, a network of physicians Read More

Following the Fundamentals Still Works: Cleveland Clinic Case Study

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // In this digitally saturated age, we’re all running as fast as we can to keep up with the latest marketing trends and technology innovations. With all the noise, it’s sometimes hard to remember that “the simplest solution is almost always the best solution,” says the philosophical principle known as Read More

North Carolina Is First in Flight — Again

Novant Health’s pandemic response includes delivery of critical supplies by drone. // By Jane Weber Brubaker // What does a healthcare logistics company that’s had success distributing medical supplies to remote healthcare facilities in rural Africa have to offer large, technologically advanced, geographically distributed health systems in the U.S.? Plenty. Zipline, whose mission is “to Read More

Why Search Query Optimization Is Vital for Paid Search Success

// By Hardy Kalisher // To thrive in healthcare’s hyper-competitive search arena, your organization’s paid search needs to be able to hit the nail on the head perfectly every time. Search query optimization (SQO) is a vital first step in setting your paid search up to maximize your ROI. Many paid search efforts begin with Read More

Cutting Edge Outreach: Think Like a Data Scientist

// By Jim Samuel // Data and analytics can help physician outreach teams focus their efforts to achieve more of their objectives and make themselves indispensable to their organizations. Physician liaison and outreach departments should focus on more than volume growth and instead use data and analytics to help hospitals and health systems achieve their Read More

The Rise of “Tradigital” Marketing

// By Wendy Stark Healy // It’s time to stop thinking about marketing as two separate components — traditional vs. digital — and blend the best tactics of each discipline. “Tradigital” combines the best of both strategies and is redefining healthcare marketing today. That was the message of healthcare marketing consultants Kathy Divis, president and Read More

How Three Health Systems Used Their MarTech Stack to Improve Patient Experience and Drive Growth

// By Kyle Hardner // Connecting the dots. That’s the value provided by a customer relationship management (CRM) database, a tool health system marketing and communications leaders increasingly use to deliver precision marketing to consumers and calculate accurate return on investment (ROI). According to the 5th Annual Digital Marketing Report from Greystone and Klein & Read More

The Zero-Click Front Door, Becoming a Data Czar, and More Tips for Patient Acquisition

// By Jared Johnson // Technology has changed how consumers seek health information, consume content, and travel to and from appointments. Chris Pace, senior director of digital marketing at Banner Health; Carrie Liken, head of industry for healthcare at Yext; and Michael Andrews, executive director at WebMD, presented on this topic during the 2020 Healthcare Read More

Hackensack Meridian Health and Ochsner Health Share Their Game Plan for Virtual Care Now and Post-Pandemic

// By Marlene Kurban // When the pandemic blocked the normal channels of consumer access to healthcare, physicians’ groups, hospitals, and health systems around the country scrambled to establish or expand their telehealth capabilities. The question is, what happens next? What is the roadmap to scale and improve telehealth while the pandemic still rages, and Read More

Chatbots Reshape the Way COVID-19 Era Healthcare Facilities and Hospitals Connect with Patients

// By James Ramey // There’s no doubt that recent circumstances surrounding COVID-19 have reshaped the way hospitals and healthcare facilities connect with their patients. Shelter-in-place ordinances and stay-at-home mandates have forced many provider organizations to rely on technologies like chatbots and knowledge management tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) with machine learning (ML) to Read More

Navigating the New Marketing Normal

// By Marlene Kurban // Today’s environment is incredibly challenging for healthcare leaders, as the pressures and changes brought by COVID-19 have impacted the way they plan and implement marketing/communications within their organizations. Many have been asked to “do more with less,” but what does this mean and how can organizations prepare for a post-COVID Read More

Integrating Digital Media and Content Strategy

// By John Gonda // Content marketing and digital media placement are becoming increasingly intertwined. To increase the impact of marketing efforts, coordination among paid, earned, and owned communication channels is vital. By truly understanding the entire buyer’s journey, you can better align your media strategies to produce desired awareness and action. You can then Read More

Unleash the Dragon and Up Your Social Media Performance

// By Amy Houck // When creating a social media campaign, a few simple steps can optimize social media performance. Following the DRAGON Method will put healthcare marketers on the best track to success: Duplicate top-performing ads. Retarget website visitors. Actively test new copy and creatives. Get rid of poor-performing ads. Optimize and repeat. Never Read More

Medical Algorithm Technology and Its Fatal Flaw: An Implicit Bias

// By Ndome Yvonne Essoka // In 2019, Optum’s medical algorithms were flagged for underestimating the needs of the sickest Black patients in its system. Hospitals and insurers all over the country use these algorithms daily to make healthcare decisions for hundreds of millions of Americans in the U.S. each year. The error highlighted flaws Read More

How a Chatbot Helped Adventist HealthCare Connect With Patients During COVID-19

// By Kyle Hardner // When Adventist HealthCare, a three-hospital system based in Gaithersburg, Maryland deployed a chatbot on its website in late 2018, it did so to connect with two distinct audiences. First, it asked the chatbot to give moms-to-be answers to their pregnancy and childbirth-related questions. Next, Adventist used the chatbot to provide Read More

How COVID-19 Has Put Technology Roadmaps on a Fast Track

Ask the Expert, with Bryce Cannon, President of Modea // By Jane Weber Brubaker // The pandemic has taken a toll on every aspect of our lives for the past several months. As health systems have scrambled to meet the needs of their communities, technology projects that may have been nice to have down the Read More

Telemedicine – Zooming to New Heights

Virtual care is here to stay. // By Marcia Simon, APR // COVID-19 brought about the explosion of telemedicine for obvious reasons — quick and convenient access between patient and provider, maintaining patient load to prevent appointment cancellations, and — most important — safety for both patients and providers. “Why would I want to go Read More

Building Connected Healthcare Experiences One Step at a Time

// By Jim Samuel // What has changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic — and what hospitals and health systems should know about moving from a basic online presence to a fully open digital front door. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced hospitals and health systems to quickly adopt new technology that has changed how Americans Read More

Twitter-Like App in the EMR Delivers Time-Sensitive Communications to Clinicians

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // If you’ve ever used Microsoft Office, you’re familiar with the ribbon — the horizontal toolbar at the top of the document loaded with icons that make it easy for users to change things like fonts, formatting, colors, layouts, and alignment with a single click. Now take that same concept Read More

Digital Marketing Lessons We’ve Relearned (So Far) in 2020

// By Andy Gradel // It’s hard to believe we’re only seven months into 2020, which has brought us enough twists and turns to last a decade. From a global pandemic and coast-to-coast protests over police practices to a presidential impeachment and even murder hornets, the 24-hour news cycle has been true to its name. Read More

Preparing Your Post-Pandemic Marketing Strategy, Part II

Leveraging New Opportunities Pushed Forward by the Coronavirus // By Dan Dunlop and Jared Johnson // In Part I of this two-article series, we discussed a phased approach to marketing during the peak of the crisis and a plan for coming out of it. Here, we’ll talk about some of the new opportunities that are Read More

The 2019 eHealthcare Leadership Awards: Digital Progress That Helped Healthcare Organizations Cope With a Crisis in 2020

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Looking back at the winners from the 2019 eHealthcare Leadership Awards, we can see how leading organizations moved the industry forward in ways that they couldn’t have anticipated would be so necessary as the COVID-19 pandemic surged. Could they have known, for example, that virtual visits would become an Read More