Consumer Engagement

Empathy: The Key to Creating Meaningful Digital Experiences for Consumers

Kyra Hagan

// By Kyra Hagan // Gaining an understanding of what drives the choice-making and loyalty of healthcare consumers is complex. What we do know is that consumers’ expectations for healthcare interactions are being shaped by the personalized and convenient experiences they have grown accustomed to in other industries, like retail, hospitality, and banking. As a Read More

Alexa, Can You Help Our Patients and Still Stay HIPAA-Compliant?

Emily Kagan Trenchard, associate vice president of digital & innovations strategy, Northwell Health

The market for voice-controlled smart speakers is hot. The percentage of U.S. Wi-Fi connected households with devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home was up to 12.1 percent as of the end of November, after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, comScore reported. If that doesn’t get your attention, consider the growth rate between June (8.1 Read More

Alexa, What Are the Early Adopters Up To?

Jane Weber Brubaker

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // The market for voice-controlled smart speakers is hot. The percentage of U.S. Wi-Fi connected households with devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home was up to 12.1 percent as of the end of November, after Black Friday and Cyber Monday, comScore reported. If that doesn’t get your attention, consider Read More

Cherry Garcia, Chunky Monkey, and Your Healthcare Organization

What do Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, Time Inc., and other consumer brands and products have in common with your healthcare organization? More than you might think, when it comes to digital consumer engagement. Everyone knows Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. In fact, just thinking of the name may make you drool for a pint Read More

iPad Check-In Solution Provides Myriad Marketing Benefits

Sometimes a technology solution adopted by healthcare administrators and clinicians produces unexpected benefits for marketers. CHRISTUS Physician Group, with operations in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and New Mexico, wanted to streamline patient check-in during office visits and improve collection of outstanding balances. To achieve these goals, the organization piloted, then implemented, a digital patient check-in solution Read More

Patient Check-In Tool Drives Benefits for Marketers

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Sometimes a technology solution adopted by healthcare administrators and clinicians produces unexpected benefits for marketers. CHRISTUS Physician Group, with operations in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and New Mexico, wanted to streamline patient check-in during office visits and improve collection of outstanding balances. To achieve these goals, the organization piloted, then Read More

How Accessible Is Your Website?

Jane Weber Brubaker

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // What if 20 percent of your website visitors were prevented from fully engaging with your content, or found it just too frustrating to spend much time on your site? Web design has come a long way toward making digital experiences more consumer-friendly, personalized, and mobile-friendly. But unless you’ve experienced Read More

The Intersection of AI and Healthcare

chat bot with billing agent for piedmont healthcare from Loyal healthcare

The media, including social media, are buzzing about AI, or artificial intelligence. As of this writing in late November, the top trending article on Facebook is “Facebook Is Using Artificial Intelligence to Spot Suicidal Tendencies in Its Users.” On LinkedIn, it is “Where Will AI Increase and Decrease Costs in Healthcare?” Is AI just the Read More

From a Nonfunctional Website To Digital-First

City of Hope Logo

“When Lisa Stockmon arrived at City of Hope National Medical Center in 2014 as chief marketing and communications officer, she was on a mission to transform the venerable comprehensive cancer center into a national brand and an international digital marketing powerhouse,” says Robin Snow, founder and principal of Aefinity Interactive, LLC. “She had the experience Read More

City of Hope’s Digital-First Transformation

Robin Snow

// By Robin Snow // When Lisa Stockmon arrived at City of Hope National Medical Center in 2014 as chief marketing and communications officer, she was on a mission to transform the venerable comprehensive cancer center into a national brand and an international digital marketing powerhouse. She had the experience to do it, having completed Read More

The Front Door Is NOT Your Hospital’s Website: Why Reputation Management Matters

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Hospitals and health systems think of their websites as the digital “front door” to their organizations, but before consumers get there, search engine results could steer them away to competitors with higher star ratings and more positive reviews. Reputation is everything. The sheer number of places consumers post information Read More

Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic: Two Award-Winning Websites

Jane Weber Brubaker, Editor of eHealthcare Strategy & Trends

Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic are ranked #1 and #2 in the country respectively by U.S. News & World Report. But that doesn’t automatically mean that their websites will live up to their stellar clinical reputations. But they did, according to the 2016 eHealthcare Leadership Awards judges. These institutions were the only two to garner Read More

eHealthcare Leadership Awards: A Closeup Look at Two Platinum Winners

Jane Weber Brubaker, Editor of eHealthcare Strategy & Trends

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic are ranked #1 and #2 in the country respectively by U.S. News & World Report. But that doesn’t automatically mean that their websites will live up to their stellar clinical reputations. But they did, according to the 2016 eHealthcare Leadership Awards judges. These institutions Read More

Are You Meeting Healthcare Consumer Expectations?

Insights from New Study of Healthcare Consumers’ Digital Experience // By Becky Barney-Villano // Retail has done it for years. Restaurants have, too. Even the banking industry is now meeting consumer expectations for on-demand services with such capabilities as mobile deposits, and complicated mortgages are being closed with a few clicks from a smartphone. Healthcare Read More

Website Engagement: What It Means and How To Achieve It

Dagmara Scalise, AVP strategic services and healthcare practice lead, Primacy

“As the virtual front door to your organization, your website is perhaps the most important marketing platform outside of your onsite patient experience and actual physical environment,” says Dagmara Scalise, AVP strategic services and healthcare practice lead, Primacy. “And yet, if you’re like most, there’s a good chance it’s outdated, unwieldly, or worst of all, underperforming Read More

Think You’re Not in the Customer Service Business? Think Again.

Kyra Hagan

“Outside of healthcare, customer experience drives business,” notes Kyra Hagan, senior vice president and general manager, marketing & communications at Influence Health. “Retailers and hospitality providers have realized explosive revenue growth and brand loyalty by deploying best practices in customer engagement. Unfortunately, the healthcare industry has fallen behind by not truly treating prospects and patients Read More

Website Engagement: Marketing Doublespeak or Reachable Goal?

Dagmara Scalise, AVP strategic services and healthcare practice lead, Primacy

// By Dagmara Scalise // As the virtual front door to your organization, your website is perhaps the most important marketing platform outside of your onsite patient experience and actual physical environment. And yet, if you’re like most, there’s a good chance it’s outdated, unwieldly, or worst of all, underperforming on your marketing goals. (Assuming, Read More

Learning to Treat Healthcare Consumers Like Customers

Kyra Hagan

// By Kyra Hagan // Outside of healthcare, customer experience drives business. Retailers and hospitality providers have realized explosive revenue growth and brand loyalty by deploying best practices in customer engagement. What are those best practices? World-class customer experience requires tightly integrating cross-channel data to bridge digital and in-person encounters. Unfortunately, the healthcare industry has Read More

Ask the Expert: Rolling Out a Brand Overhaul

Nick Ragone, chief marketing officer of Ascension

Nick Ragone is senior vice president and chief marketing and communications officer at Ascension, the largest nonprofit health system in the U.S., with 2,500 sites of care in 24 states and the District of Columbia. He leads the “One Ascension” effort from the marketing side. “We decided as an organization that we really needed to Read More

Pandora Powers Targeted Reach to Healthcare Consumers for Hartford HealthCare

Hartford HealthCare

About one-fourth of the U.S. population listens to Pandora. That’s 82 million active listeners every month. Pandora’s free, ad-supported personalized music streaming service generated more than $1 billion in advertising revenue in 2016. Healthcare advertisers like OhioHealth, featured in a recent eHST article, are getting impressive results on Pandora. We were intrigued. We wanted to Read More

Delivering a Consumer-Centric Quality and Safety Experience

Amber Welch, director of digital content for Ochsner Health System

// By Amber Welch // Need to book a hotel? Customer ratings and reviews are just a click away. Shopping for a car? You can easily compare features and overall quality on Consumer Reports. Looking for a new yoga class?  Read the reviews. But what about choosing a hospital, perhaps the most important purchase in Read More

What Is Ascension’s Marketing Vision for the Future?

Nick Ragone, chief marketing officer of Ascension

Ask the Expert, with Nick Ragone // By Jane Weber Brubaker // Nick Ragone is senior vice president and chief marketing and communications officer at Ascension, the largest nonprofit health system in the U.S., with 2,500 sites of care in 24 states and the District of Columbia. He leads the “One Ascension” effort from the Read More