by Kris Rusch Scheduling medical and dental appointments can be a source of frustration for patients and providers alike. Patients often complain of long lags between the time they realize they need to see a practitioner and the date of the next available appointment. For people wanting to see specialty care providers, the next available Read More
Ask The Expert with Daniel Fell Recently, my 91-year-old father voiced considerable frustration about changes in his insurance plan. Rather than presenting changes in a clear, concise manner, the plan used language that only confused him more and forced him to spend hours on the phone talking to customer service representatives. At the time, I Read More
Travel Insurance With summer vacations just around the corner, some thought about travel insurance is in order, especially if you are planning an expensive trip or going to an exotic destination. Insurance coverage options generally fall into three broad categories – trip cancellation, emergency medical care, and medical evacuation to a healthcare facility, with the Read More
by Neal Linkon When they visited, my parents were always surprised at how much my kids had changed. I hardly noticed because I saw them every day. Now that I’m back in healthcare, I feel like my parents. I was away for more than three years. When I came back a year ago, it felt Read More
by Glen Doss A growing number of healthcare organizations have turned to open source software to help manage their websites. Open source software is a collection of tools and technologies that are free to use, modify, and share. Two of the most popular open source platforms are the Drupal and WordPress content management systems. Both Read More
Athens Regional Health System – Wellness www.athenshealth.org Wellness is a hot topic as healthcare organizations transition to population health management and value-based payment. But even the best sites continue to just integrate wellness information with health information, health resources, or health library sections. Such is not the case for this website for a Georgia provider. Read More
RESOURCES Social Media Analytics Tools Adopted by 61 Percent of Marketers, finds a study conducted by Demand Metric and sponsored by NetBase. The major cited uses of analytics were for campaign tracking (60 percent), brand analysis (48 percent), competitive intelligence (40 percent), and customer care (36 percent). Other key findings in the study were: Social Read More
by Cheryl L. Serra Diagnosis: Cancer. Reaction: Disbelief and fear. Fear of your prognosis, the treatment, reaction of family and friends, and your financial future. How will you possibly be able to undergo treatment—or care for a loved one with cancer—and work? A new employee benefit will soon be available to help support cancer patients Read More
by Mark S. Gothberg “This is the story of taking an off-the-shelf, out-of-the-box tool – the Epic patient portal – and making it a branded, differentiated, and best-of-class portal experience,” says Cindy Moon-Mogush, senior vice president of communications at Aurora Health Care, an integrated system that serves eastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Although the organization Read More
WEBSITES Resources for Caregivers of Loved Ones with Rare Diseases launched at www.rarecaregivers.org. Sponsored by the Caregiver Action Network, the site is not intended for patients. New Website About Lung Cancer Screening at www.checkmylungs.com. Sponsored by Scottsdale (AZ) Medical Imaging, the site features an assessment tool to help site visitors determine if a low-radiation CT Read More
Centegra HealthSystem www.centegra.org This beautifully designed site for an Illinois system has great navigation. There are lots of little touches that make the site stand out. Will consumers use a hospital that doesn’t take their health insurance? Almost never. But many hospital websites fail to indicate to visitors what insurance plans are accepted. Such is Read More
by Mark S. Gothberg “People always talk about how great Amazon.com is and how all websites should be like it. But a healthcare site shouldn’t be like Amazon, where a consumer buys a book and then browses the site for other things of interest to buy. People have very specific interests in healthcare, and a Read More
Your Mental Age You have no doubt heard about apps that will reveal your “heart age” or your “real biological age,” compared with your chronological age. But if you are an active, physically fit professional, the bigger question is your mental age. With responses to six simple questions at www.whatismymentalage.com, you will quickly have a Read More
Ask The Expert with Ben Dillon With the growing number of ways that consumers access the Internet, responsive design is fast becoming the industry standard for hospital websites. Responsive design enables websites to adapt to the device being used, presenting an optimal experience on smartphones, tablets, and desktops. Research by Geonetric, an online solutions company, Read More
by Jane Weber Brubaker The key challenges facing healthcare systems today revolve around the quality and efficiency of care delivery. How can technology optimize the time and talents of the care team in a rapidly evolving environment that focuses on care coordination? Will fee-for-service be replaced by value-based models? When? How can providers qualify for Read More
by Mark S. Gothberg “We have to keep in mind … that we must bring value to the organization. To do that, we have to identify our goals and keep track of our results. The use of social networks is no different from our other marketing tools – they must deliver a concrete, measurable contribution,” Read More
Grady Health System www.gradyhealth.org If you have seen the movie “Nebraska,” you know about the power of black-and-white visuals. A similar and effective approach is taken with this site for an Atlanta-based system. The home page banner rotates photos of five individuals and a family, shown in black and white, each with a simple message Read More
by Mark S. Gothberg When you combine six organizations, you are going to have some internal communications issues in the best of circumstances. But the problems at The University of Arizona Health Network, formed in 2009, were enormous. Six interim CEOs headed the Tucson-based organization during a three-year period before a permanent CEO was hired Read More
Ask The Expert with Daniel E. Ansel A daughter stops by her mother’s house on her way to work and finds her mom unable to get up and that her speech is slurred. She’s had a stroke. A young wife and her husband are enjoying a vacation, and he suffers a brain aneurysm. In an Read More
WEBSITES Unilever’s Heart Age Tool is gaining increased attention, with studies finding that people are more likely to change behavior if they know that their heart age is greater than their chronological age. The tool may have more promise in changing behaviors as compared with the widely used Framingham Heart Study, an assessment that indicates Read More
Yes, You Can Repair a Cellphone I wish I had known about repair services before I replaced my daughter’s cellphone twice – once when the screen had severe cracks from the phone being dropped and stepped on, and once when the battery just quit. There are indeed companies that will repair cellphones that have screen Read More
by Jane Weber Brubaker The 2014 Sundance Film Festival lineup includes a documentary titled “Web Junkie,” a film about an Internet addiction treatment center outside Beijing. In a clip from the film posted by The New York Times on YouTube, a title appears over scenes of the military-style treatment center: “In 2008 China declared Internet Read More
// By Sandra Fancher // Mark Twain once said, “Supposing is good, but finding out is better.” As a Web and marketing professional, you know it’s easy to immerse yourself in a Web project and assume every choice or assumption you make will be clear to everyone. You know what’s worked in the past. You Read More
by Theresa Jacobellis “Hi. I’m Myra. When you’re ready, click on one of these links to get started,” she says in a warm voice with a confident and professional tone. “As a lifestyle health coach, I can tell you a good program starts with a health risk assessment. So, we have some questions about your Read More
Determine Your Fitness Age Quickly Measurement of your aerobic fitness level can be difficult, if not impossible, on your own. But researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology came up with a simple, low-tech way to estimate your “fitness age,” which is how well your body functions physically relative to how it should Read More