In most cases, a badly designed website isn’t life-threatening, but in healthcare, being able to find the right information at the right time could actually make a difference. Are health system websites equal to the task? How easy do they make it for consumers to quickly find what they’re looking for? HDX-15, the Hospital Digital Read More
Live video is not for the faint of heart. Consider the jaw-dropping gaffe at this year’s Academy Awards, when Warren Beatty got the wrong envelope and broke the hearts of the La La Land producers. So why does the social media team at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin love live video? “When you’re forced to walk Read More
We’ve written extensively about the need for different skills in healthcare marketing. A recurring theme is: MarCom is out and MarTech is in. But the truth is, we need both. The goal of everything we do as marketers is to communicate clearly and effectively, no matter which channel we’re doing it in. One thing healthcare Read More
Millennials are officially the largest generation, edging out baby boomers in 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. By 2018, millennials will have more spending power than any other generation, and marketers are lining up to find ways to connect with them. So what do hospitals have to offer young, mostly healthy people? OhioHealth turned Read More
“You’re spending a lot to attract potential patients, but how well are you converting them, or nurturing them once you get their attention?” asks Kris Altiere, director of marketing and creative at Sequence Health. “Are you able to see where they are in the sequence of actions you’re trying to get them to take? Do Read More
Business development consultant Marlene Kurban poses an interesting question for healthcare marketers: “If your CEO walked up to you in the hallway at your hospital next week and asked you what return on investment your hospital is getting for your marketing efforts, could you accurately answer the question?” Alicia Shoemaker, senior account manager at Nationwide Read More
Don Stanziano is corporate vice president of marketing and communications at Scripps Health, an integrated healthcare delivery network in San Diego with five acute care hospitals; 30 ambulatory clinics; 14,000 employees; 3,000 physicians; and $2.9 billion in annual revenue. Stanziano leads branding, public relations, internal communications, and call center marketing, as well as digital-first demand Read More
If you’ve ever taken the subway in New York from Grand Central Station, you’ve witnessed a highly efficient capacity utilization model. As soon as the line at one turnstile gets a little shorter than the others, transit riders immediately shift over to it, and whatever surplus capacity was there takes a split second to disappear. Read More
In 2002, years before patient portals were a checkbox to qualify for meaningful use incentives under healthcare reform, MD Anderson Cancer Center created its own patient portal. myMDAnderson was launched in 2002. It gave patients a personalized electronic hub to organize all their information, and 24/7 online access. The tool has stood the test of time, Read More
Mayur Gupta is a marketing technology visionary with diverse industry background including C-level executive positions at Healthgrades, Kimberly-Clark, and Spotify. “The world is dramatically changing,” Gupta notes. “We finally have the consumer as the protagonist. [The main character is] no longer the retailer or the seller. The evolution that has happened over the past 10 Read More
A little over two years ago, Jill Austin, chief marketing officer at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), was given a challenge by her CEO. “Vanderbilt, at the time, had gotten a lot of recognition for being way out in front on social media,” says Chris Bevolo, author of Joe Public Doesn’t Care About Your Hospital, Read More
Is there a great divide between healthcare marketers and executive leadership? And if there is, what can each side do to close the gap? A lively discussion took place at the 2016 SHSMD conference when Jerry Hobbs, president of Prairie Dog|TCG reprised his popular session, “The Naked CEO: Surveys Say CEOs Are Not Impressed with 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 eHST members like you should know about. I’m Read More
Looking for a technology solution to stay in closer touch with patients between visits? Maybe your patients over age 50 haven’t scheduled their colonoscopy yet. Some patients may need closer contact after being discharged from the hospital, or they have a chronic condition like diabetes, hypertension, or COPD and need to be monitored between office Read More
“Imagineering is a concept created by Walt Disney in 1952 as ‘the blending of creative imagination with technical know-how,’” says Andy Gradel, system director of digital marketing for Main Line Health in Philadelphia. “At its core, imagineering is rooted in storytelling, with projects using extensive theming, atmosphere, and attention to detail in an attempt to create attractions Read More
Digital marketing in healthcare continues to evolve and grow in sophistication, according to Kathy Divis, president and co-founder of Greystone.Net (and member of the eHealthcare Strategy & Trends Editorial Advisory Board), and she has the data to prove it. “In our digital survey [The State of Digital Marketing in Healthcare Moving Toward 2017] we asked our Read More
There is no shortage of digital innovation in any field these days, but in healthcare, there has been an explosion of interest in developing digital solutions for the industry’s most pressing problems. The challenge has been that the culture of innovation and entrepreneurship is often at odds with complex, risk-averse, highly regulated healthcare organizations. Amazon Read More
“[In 2016], more than 205 U.S. digital advertising professionals working for publishers were surveyed about the state of the digital advertising marketplace and the issues they believe matter most. Sixty-nine percent said they were extremely or very concerned about viewability, identifying it as the top issue impacting the market,” says Boz Boschen, Digital Media Director Read More
It took an Olympic swimmer, Rio bronze medalist Cody Miller, to raise public awareness of pectus excavatum: a chest wall deformity characterized by a caved-in appearance. The condition can cause compression of the heart and lungs. Pectus excavatum can be corrected through a surgical procedure known as the Nuss procedure. Jackie Hurley is Surgical Coordinator for Read More
“Patients turn to online doctor profiles to learn something meaningful about the person who’s going to be managing their health,” says Shawn Gross, Chief Digital Strategist, Healthcare Practice Lead for White Rhino in Lexington, Massachusetts. “But often these profiles are little more than an abbreviated resume: an academic history, professional credentials, and a headshot. They rarely convey Read More
In a recent eHST “Ask the Expert” column with Avinash Kaushik, Digital Evangelist at Google and Co-Founder of Market Motive Inc., we briefly touched on the concept of economic value in the context of web analytics and website goals. “Without goals and goal values, you are not doing web analytics,” says Kaushik. Goals are conversions, Read More
“Marketing automation refers to the software platforms and technologies that facilitate digital marketing strategies by automating certain repetitive tasks,” says Robin Snow, founder and principal of Aefinity Interactive, LLC. “[It] allows for personalized communication on a massive scale.” While the idea of automating marketing initiatives is undeniably appealing, what does it involve in practical terms? Read More
After reading marketing automation software company Marketo’s Definitive Guide to Mobile Marketing, we asked Marketo how healthcare organizations compare to other types of organizations when it comes to mobile. Kristen Kaighn, Senior Product Marketing Manager, weighed in: “While 90 percent of healthcare providers claim to use mobile devices to engage with patients, only 48 percent Read More
The Podcast Consumer 2016 survey reports that 57 million Americans ages 12 and up listened to a podcast within the past month, up 24 percent from 2015. As recently as 2013, only 42 percent of survey respondents who identified themselves as podcast listeners accessed podcasts from a mobile device; in 2016 that number has jumped Read More
On September 29-30, the World Congress convened its third annual Hospital Marketing and Communications Summit in Boston, with presenters from Cleveland Clinic, Novant Health, Main Line Health, Presence Health, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Trinity Health, RWJBarnabas Health, and others. Several presentations discussed the evolution of hospital brands in an environment of consolidation. Presenters also explored the Read More