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
WEBSITES Details of Healthcare Reform for Consumers is the focus of www.myHealthCareReformed.org, which is presented by CaroMont Health and The Gaston Gazette, both of Gastonia, NC. The home page features a large banner that rotates five messages of individuals and families who are now benefiting from insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The site Read More
Nash Health Care www.nhcs.org There is nothing subtle about this site for a North Carolina provider. It generally doesn’t follow conventional navigation, and everything seems to be in the viewer’s face. But the site grabs attention to draw visitors in and forces them to pay attention. The home page – in fact, numerous pages – Read More
by Scott Zimmerman There is no question that collecting outstanding balances is a challenging process. Not only is it difficult to allocate time for staff members to repeatedly contact patients to obtain payments, it is also crucial to not alienate patients in the process. However, collecting self-pay balances electronically can take the pressure off staff Read More
Ask The Experts with Mark Gothberg and Michele Von Dambrowski We have covered strategic marketing and business development subjects for nearly 30 years – with an added focus on Web and digital communications since 1999. A lot has changed during this time, but we have observed recurring issues that have limited the effectiveness of marketers, Read More
by Sheryl S. Jackson User-Friendly, Customizable Program Helps Employers Reduce Healthcare Costs Hospitals and health systems are not the only organizations focused on reducing healthcare costs and improving outcomes. Employers are also concerned about rising insurance costs, along with lost workdays when employees’ medical conditions prevent them from working. Susquehanna Health, a four-hospital integrated system Read More
by Mark S. Gothberg OSF HealthCare is an integrated health system comprised of eight hospitals in north central Illinois. Service lines are structured to serve consumers at every hospital, but the market areas of many of the hospitals overlap. Consequently, hospital service-line marketing efforts are confusing and even frustrating for many consumers, inefficient from a Read More
by Theresa Jacobellis Personal computers, tablets, and smartphones bring a world of information, commerce, and communication to millions of users wherever they may be. Now, this technology is helping healthcare providers overcome the barriers of cost, distance, and inconvenience to deliver checkups and urgent care to people in their homes, places of business, and retail Read More
Ask The Expert with Ted Balowski With the healthcare Web environment rapidly changing, new technologies are constantly emerging and are being adopted in varying degrees by demographic target groups. Now, four generations have unprecedented access to healthcare information and the providers that deliver it. According to a 2013 survey by Econsultancy, four in 10 global Read More
by Mark S. Gothberg “There is no industry more likely to be affected by analytics in the next five to 10 years than healthcare,” wrote Jeanne Harris, co-author of the seminal book, Competing on Analytics. Kevin Fickenscher, MD, president and CEO of the American Medical Informatics Association, said in the June 17, 2013 issue of Read More
by Kaysha Kalkofen Hummingbird, Google’s new search algorithm introduced at the end of September 2013, has marketers in every industry scratching their heads. According to Google’s search chief, Amit Singhal, Hummingbird is the biggest algorithm change since 2001. Hummingbird pulls from different data points so that search results are more refined and conversationally sequential. It Read More
by Mark S. Gothberg “Four years ago our administration looked at our online presence and urged us to do more, to learn as much as we could and try different things,” says Doreen Pichotti, senior marketing analyst at UC Davis Health System, which serves the greater Sacramento, CA, area. “Since then, our online advertising as Read More
Texas Health Resources – Well-Being www.texashealth.org/well-being Organizations increasingly promote community health, although those efforts usually focus on disease prevention and identification/treatment. This special section takes on the broad and important area of overall well-being, and tackles the job nicely. The site consists of two parts. One part addresses the dimensions of well-being: healthy behaviors, emotional Read More