In recent years, the healthcare industry has been moving away from its traditional focus on episodic care toward wellness, prevention, and population health. The recent acquisition of Welltok by Virgin Pulse in October 2021 underscores that this movement is coming from multiple directions. Welltok and Virgin Pulse have primarily focused on the employer and payer Read More
One way health systems can highlight their digital leadership, share successes, and demonstrate the ways technology helped their organizations achieve strategic business objectives is to enter — and win — the Mark Gothberg eHealthcare Organizational Commitment Award, the highest honor conferred by the eHealthcare Leadership Awards. Three health systems received recognition for winning this prestigious Read More
Versatile podcasts can stand on their own as a popular source of content, but they are also a great way to stoke the content-generation engine, especially for healthcare communications and marketing programs. “It all starts with a podcast,” says Bill Klaproth, director of marketing and production for DoctorPodcasting by RadioMD. Klaproth, who provides podcast services Read More
It wasn’t just any Friday the 13th. It was March 13, 2020 — the day the federal government declared a national emergency due to the ongoing outbreak of COVID-19. Across the country, businesses started to shut down; people started working remotely, and hospitals, including Nemours Children’s Health, had to figure out how to quickly optimize Read More
When South Carolina’s Greenville Health System merged with Palmetto Health in 2017 to create Prisma Health, the two systems did not know each other very well. They had different billing systems and different electronic health records (EHR). They even had different physician referral systems. “We didn’t know each other, and providers didn’t know what services Read More
“Hospital and health system marketers and digital teams can stand tall at the end of 2021 and look back at a year in which they triumphed over some of their greatest challenges yet,” writes Jared Johnson of the Healthcare Rap podcast; he is also a member of the eHST Editorial Advisory Board. Here’s an excerpt Read More
“As we put the finishing touches on our annual Healthcare Digital Marketing Trends Survey, I always look for themes that will define the industry in the coming year,” says Ben Dillon of Geonetric. “This year, one theme is surfacing again and again: digital strategy and the level of investment and focus placed on it by Read More
If you use third-party data for your marketing, it’s time for you to start getting ready to do something different. That’s because new privacy laws around the world, as well as new measures from Apple and Google, will soon make using third-party data a thing of the past. Coming changes will give consumers more control Read More
“From digital data streams to artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, the prevalence and use of marketing data is growing exponentially,” says Daniel Fell of Optum. “According to a recent State of Marketing report from Salesforce, the median number of data sources used by marketers grew 50 percent from 2019 to 2021. And the report showed Read More
If your health system participates in value-based contracting, you have a vested interest in making sure you’re optimizing the three R’s: right care, right time, right setting. Easier said than done. So what is the secret to orchestrating all the variables that go into a patient’s decision to get care, choose a provider, and make Read More
“Patient churn is an expected part of any provider’s practice,” notes Shawn McKee of WebPT. “In fact, only 30 percent of physical therapy patients make it to the end of their treatment program before dropping out. As a result, practices may lose an average of $150,000 a year from patient dropout alone. “While the numbers Read More
When you still remember what someone said in a webinar a year ago, you know it’s someone you’d like to hear more from. Sarah Sommer, vice president of digital engagement at Geisinger, was a panelist in our October 2020 webinar, “How to Build the Case for Increasing Your Digital Marketing Budget in 2021.” It was Read More
Healthcare marketers ask a common and essential question when launching campaigns or important projects: “What does success look like?” Marketing success is typically measured in converted leads and improved loyalty. But nurturing potential customers in hopes that they will become consumers can be challenging. One marketing leader decided to study the process of lead conversion. Read More
A few hospitals and health systems have been using chatbots for several years, but they came into more widespread use last year to help deal with the high volume of phone calls and emails they received about COVID-19. One such system was Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, Utah. According to a news release from Read More
“Healthcare organizations are increasingly under enormous pressure to offer the best digital tools to their patients,” says Jared Mauskopf, CEO of Medical Web Experts. “But before you set out to develop a healthcare application, you’ll need to make a number of key decisions — not least whether you should opt for a mobile app or Read More
There’s a lot of fear around technology investments. They can be expensive, complicated, and hard to implement. You send out an RFP, get multiple proposals, and narrow the list down to a few finalists. You speak with references, get a proof of concept. You’re finally ready to pick the winner. Even with all the due Read More
“The data needed to run a modern healthcare marketing program is becoming vaster and more complex every day, and marketers will require ever more sophisticated tools to manage this data more efficiently and effectively in the future,” says Daniel Fell. Fell is a senior strategist with Optum and a member of the eHealthcare Strategy & Read More
The Peter Parker Principle says, “With great power comes great responsibility.” It’s a phrase often attributed to Spiderman’s father as he talked about the superhero’s powers. But it could be equally applicable to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare today. That’s because while AI can bring significant capabilities to healthcare, it can also Read More
Viva live conferences! When HCIC convenes in Las Vegas in November, it will feel like a long-deferred family reunion. Virtual conferences and video chat have kept us safe and connected during COVID, but there’s nothing like the shared energy of an in-person meeting. This year is the 25th anniversary of HCIC. Launched in 1996 — Read More
The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected many people’s mental health. A Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll from July 2020 found that many adults reported difficulty sleeping or eating, increases in alcohol consumption or substance use, and worsening chronic conditions, due to worry and stress over the coronavirus. But the stay-at-home orders made seeking in-person Read More
As the COVID-19 Delta variant spreads rapidly across the country, there is an increasingly urgent need to overcome vaccine hesitancy and access to care issues among the unvaccinated. Michigan Medicine is fielding a comprehensive vaccine hesitancy communications initiative that is strongly influenced by University of Michigan (U-M) research stressing the importance of being empathetic to Read More
Most people want to be healthy. Many smokers lament their smoking and make plans to quit but don’t. Others have a new year’s resolution to lose weight, exercise more, or eat healthier but often fall short. The reality is, saying you want to do something is way easier than actually doing it, especially if you Read More
AMITA Health is one of the largest health systems in Illinois and provides care to nearly 6.6 million residents of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. The system consists of 15 acute care hospitals, four specialty hospitals, 20 urgent care centers, and outpatient care centers for primary care and many specialties. “At AMITA, one of our Read More
“When it became clear in March 2020 that the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. had reached pandemic heights, federal health officials and cancer societies urged Americans to delay routine cancer screenings,” says Bradley Wensel, EVP and chief customer officer at Healthgrades. “Providers and consumers heeded those recommendations, which led to an abrupt drop in screenings, Read More
Even as healthcare organizations build out their marketing stacks to better reach, engage, and serve patients and prospective patients, health technology companies are building stacks of their own, for some of the same reasons — to help their clients improve patient access and convenience. NextGen Healthcare was named by KLAS in 2021 as the top Read More