We’ve all done it. A strange symptom appears out of nowhere and we go straight to the Internet to diagnose it, usually coming up with something far scarier than it actually turns out to be. That insight about human behavior provided the creative inspiration for MidMichigan Health’s “Ask Dr. Internet” TV commercial, the centerpiece of Read More
Few would disagree that healthcare has lagged behind other industries in adoption of digital marketing strategies and technologies. Suzanne Sawyer, Chief Marketing Officer at Penn Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania Health System, made it her mission to change that in her own organization. “The discipline of marketing is changing and evolving,” says Sawyer. “We’ve been Read More
Penn Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania Health System, has a long and venerable history. The School of Medicine was the first in the nation, and the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania the first teaching hospital. In keeping with its legacy of innovation, Penn Medicine today continues to chart new territory, reaching new and existing Read More
When Dr. Tif Siragusa asks new patients why they chose him they say, “Because you had good reviews.” Siragusa’s reviews on Healthgrades and Vitals have more than doubled in less than two years since he began using a reputation management service developed by Boston-based MDConnect. The service, ReviewMD, is built around a dedicated review website, Read More
Peter Hudson and Wayne Guerra, emergency room physicians at Centura Health in Denver, saw that patients would often show up with minor problems that could have been treated at another type of care setting, and at a lower cost. They were inspired to create a mobile app, iTriage to give people tools to understand their Read More
MyDigitalLife iTriage is a mobile health app for consumers gaining wide acceptance from providers as health systems move toward population health and value-based care. Created in 2008 by two Denver-based ER physicians, Peter Hudson and Wayne Guerra, iTriage has been downloaded by 14 million consumers from the iTunes and Google Play app stores, where it Read More
#HCMKTG SHORT TAKES Dr. Tif Siragusa has been in practice as a vascular surgeon in Nashville, Tennessee, for five years. A little over two years ago he started working with MDConnect, a Boston-based digital marketing agency that works exclusively with healthcare clients. “My initial involvement with MDConnect is that they helped me with my pay-per-click Read More
The cornerstones of healthcare transformation are patient engagement and coordinated care, facilitated by electronic health records (EHRs) that offer a comprehensive and shared view of patients. But who controls the information contained in EHRs—patients or providers? Patient privacy advocates believe patients should have control over who can access their EHRs, using the principles of Fair Read More
Getting patients engaged in their health is a priority of healthcare transformation, and the patient portal is a big part of the strategy. But the portal experience can leave you cold. Shawn Gross, Chief Digital Strategist at White Rhino shares, “I appreciate the communications I receive from my provider’s patient portal, but the interface experience Read More
Ask the Expert with Shawn Gross PwC’s healthcare group recently commented, “As patients behave more like consumers, healthcare organizations need to deliver a higher level of personalized service, satisfaction and overall experience—or risk losing business to the competition.” If you’re a healthcare marketer driven to deliver the best possible patient experience, wouldn’t you love to Read More
In this article, we speak to marketers in charge of CRM and marketing automation at Trinity Health and Christus Health to explore how the systems have enabled more targeted content marketing campaigns and better tracking, decreased the cost of campaigns, and improved ROI.
Trinity Health plans to make all of its 87 hospitals accountable care organizations. As the system shifts from fee-for-service to fee-for-value and moves aggressively toward population health, marketing automation will be a key part of the strategy. “We’re going to pilot a marketing automation system at Saint Alphonsus,” said Sheree Esser, Trinity Health’s CRM Manager Read More
Patient engagement is the Holy Grail of healthcare. The theory is if patients take an active role in managing and maintaining their health, they will reap the benefits, staying healthier, spending less, and costing the system less. One way to get and keep patients engaged is through patient portals. But how do you get them Read More
eHealthcare Pulse In 2010, 100 primary care physicians affiliated with three health systems agreed to explore the impact of sharing clinical notes with patients in a project dubbed OpenNotes. The total panel for the initial trial was 20,000 patients from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Geisinger Health System in Pennsylvania, and Harborview Medical Read More
As if there weren’t enough pressures on providers and health systems, now they have to worry about competition from retail health clinics. Attention-grabbing headlines like this one from Forbes makes you wonder where all this is leading: “Healthcare for $4: Are You Ready For Wal-Mart To Be Your Doctor?” Health clinics operated by drugstore chains Read More
Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta and digital marketing solutions provider BrightWhistle were featured in our January article “Building a Facebook Community Creates Marketing Opportunities for Atlanta’s Piedmont Healthcare.” The article was based on a presentation at the 2014 Healthcare Internet Conference (HCIC) given by Matt Gove, CMO at Piedmont and Michael Sengbusch CTO at BrightWhistle. We Read More
Late last year, Facebook announced on its blog, “Pages that post promotional creative should expect their organic distribution to fall significantly over time.” In a related post on the same day, Facebook assured businesses that, “Pages still matter — a lot,” and for emphasis, added, “In October, for instance, nearly a billion people visited Facebook Read More
Ask the Expert with Ben Dillon In a recent discussion on the SHSMD list serv, a member asked: “For those of you with more than one hospital and/or multiple facilities…are there multiple Facebook pages for each hospital or do you consolidate your Facebook presence into one location? Do you also have service line or departmental Read More
If your service area covers three states, and your health system’s name only includes one state, it’s time for a change. That’s what Iowa Health System concluded in 2013 when it changed its name to UnityPoint Health. The change was more than just a solution to a geographic misnomer. It represented an overhaul of the Read More
If you Google “deadly cancers” you’ll probably find a link to the Top Five Most Dangerous Cancers in Men and Women on page one of the search results page. The article and infographic was posted by Iowa-based UnityPoint Health, the fourth largest nondenominational health system in the U.S. UnityPoint has been busy optimizing its website Read More
You never know which posts are going to get people’s attention on LinkedIn. Michael Yoder, Social Media Consultant at Spectrum Health was pleasantly surprised by the results of this post: The post generated 14,000 impressions and 300 clicks. Many hospitals effectively use LinkedIn as an extension of their efforts to recruit in-demand health care professionals—and Read More
By Spencer Hunt What’s the best strategy for hospitals using LinkedIn? Consider these two examples. The updates Vanderbilt University Medical Center posts on its LinkedIn page frequently congratulate doctors on their awards and promotions. Advances in malaria and scoliosis research are celebrated, and job openings at the Nashville hospital—particularly for nurses—are featured. Almost 500 miles Read More
It would be a big upgrade to have your branded hospital app available for download in the iTunes or Google Play app stores. But how do you build a native app for Apple and Android devices? If your hospital is like most, you don’t have that expertise in house. The Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Read More
When the program manager for the Executive Health program at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) came to Andrew Quinn, Interactive Marketing Director, and asked him to put the program’s printable exercise guide up on the website, Quinn suggested a different approach, a mobile solution. “Everyone has smart phones these days, especially this particular Read More
By Cheryl L. Serra A person could get plenty lost in the maze of a ten-story, one-million-square-foot new building addition. But leaders at University Health System (UHS) in San Antonio, TX acted quickly to make sure that didn’t happen. They teamed with Etelu to develop a wayfinding application (app) that helps patients, visitors, and staff Read More