COVID-19

Coming Together for Patients: 2021 Year in Review

Edward-Marx

// By Jared Johnson // 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. When considering everything that the industry went through and learned in 2021, it was a year that Read More

How Chatbots Helped One System Reduce COVID-Related Call Volume

Intermountain Healthcare Logo

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

Do Chatbots Speak Your Patients’ Language?

Jim-Samuel

// By Jim Samuel // Health systems have used chatbots on their websites for several years, and their usage increased with the COVID-19 pandemic. Now chatbot developers and health systems are looking to expand their use of chatbots into other areas of healthcare. If not implemented correctly, could chatbots increase inequity in our healthcare system? Read More

Empathy, Not Judgment, To Overcome Vaccine Hesitancy

Rose Glenn

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

University of Michigan Research Instrumental in Shaping Communications to Overcome COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy

Mary Masson

// By Brian Griffin // 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’s communications strategy is based on research that shows patients want empathy, not lectures or bullying. Healthcare providers on the frontlines Read More

COVID Accelerates Digital-First Strategy at Two Systems

Morgan Griffith

Bon Secours Mercy Health, a 50-hospital health system spanning seven states and Ireland, was in the midst of redefining the patient journey experience when COVID hit. “We’re one of the five largest Catholic healthcare systems in the U.S. — we have thousands of points of care and 60,000 associates. So, as you can imagine, making Read More

Texting: A Surprisingly Simple Strategy for Coordinating Vaccine Appointments

Luma Health

With the rush to get Americans vaccinated, organizations struggled to find the best way to contact patients to coordinate vaccine appointments, especially when demand exceeded supply. Adnan Iqbal, CEO of Luma Health, a San Francisco-based patient engagement platform, found many clients wanted to use the platform to get patients signed up at the appropriate time. Read More

Text Messaging Beats Out Email, Apps for Coordinating Vaccine and Other Appointments

Adnan Iqbal

// By Althea Fung // Within the first three months of 2021, Chicago’s Cook County Health scheduled one million COVID-19 vaccination appointments, using text messaging at scale.  With the rush to get Americans vaccinated, organizations struggled to find the best way to contact patients to coordinate vaccine appointments, especially when demand exceeded supply. Adnan Iqbal, Read More

During a Crisis, Focus First on Communicating With Internal Stakeholders

SVMHS logo

Among the many adjustments hospital and health system marketers have made during the coronavirus pandemic is placing a greater emphasis on internal communications. In many cases, the shift has been dramatic. Alan Shoebridge, director of marketing and communication at Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System (SVMHS) in west-central California, estimates that from the spring of 2020 Read More

Submit Your Entry to the 2021 eHealthcare Leadership Awards!

It’s May, and if you’re part of the digital healthcare marketing community, you know what that means… the Call for Entries for the 2021 eHealthcare Leadership Awards is officially open! What a year it has been. Last year around this time, we were hoping the worst was over and we could begin to get back Read More

Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System’s Internal Communications Strategy Kept Employees Connected During COVID-19

Alan Shoebridge

 // By Brian Griffin // Among the many adjustments hospital and health system marketers have made during the coronavirus pandemic is placing a greater emphasis on internal communications. In many cases, the shift has been dramatic. Alan Shoebridge, director of marketing and communication at Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System (SVMHS) in west-central California, estimates that Read More

eHealthcare Leadership Awards: Recognizing Excellence in COVID-19 Communications

surgical-oncology-webinar-squared

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // The past 12 months have pushed healthcare organizations to adapt quickly and build resilience to meet the ever-changing circumstances brought on by the pandemic. Communicators in healthcare organizations have had to continuously anticipate the pandemic-related information needs of their organizations and communities and create multidirectional, multiplatform, multichannel communications to Read More

Call for Entries for the 2021 eHealthcare Leadership Awards Is Open

ehla-logo-squared

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // It’s May, and if you’re part of the digital healthcare marketing community, you know what that means… the Call for Entries for the 2021 eHealthcare Leadership Awards is officially open! What a year it has been. Last year around this time, we were hoping the worst was over and Read More

Heading Off Misinformation With a Collaborative Approach

Tina Varona

The internet is rife with misinformation. During the COVID pandemic, when we’re all desperate for facts, getting the wrong information can have consequences for communities. For Hartford HealthCare, a seven-hospital health system serving Connecticut and parts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, a collaborative approach allowed the communications and marketing teams to disseminate valuable information across Read More

What Are the Top Digital Priorities as We Move Out of the Pandemic?

Ben Dillon Geonetric

We’re fortunate at eHealthcare Strategy & Trends to have a talented and dedicated group of advisors with diverse backgrounds and experience — senior executives from leading healthcare organizations, digital agencies, and consulting groups. So when we wanted to get a broad perspective on where things are likely to go as we move out of the Read More

As we come out of the pandemic, what are the top digital priorities for healthcare organizations as they get back to business?

John Halamka

Ask the Expert, with the eHealthcare Strategy & Trends Editorial Advisory Board // By Jane Weber Brubaker // We’re fortunate at eHealthcare Strategy & Trends to have a talented and dedicated group of advisors with diverse backgrounds and experience — senior executives from leading healthcare organizations, digital agencies, and consulting groups. So when we wanted Read More

Learn How One System Is Fighting COVID Via Digital Transformation

COVID-19 has disrupted American healthcare — killing more than half a million people, including more than 2,900 healthcare workers; challenging bed and equipment capacity; and canceling elective health services. But it also has sped up digital transformation of healthcare and brought to the forefront innovative approaches to how patients receive care. Providence, a Seattle-based 51-hospital Read More

How QR Codes Made a Healthcare Comeback in 2020

William Gagnon is senior director, digital at Boston Children’s

Last year, when every hospital had to pivot quickly to adapt to the realities of COVID-19, clinicians at Boston Children’s Hospital approached the digital strategy team for help. They wanted to see if QR codes could be used to facilitate in-hospital teleconferencing for COVID-19 patients. “They needed 500 and something [QR codes] for every room Read More

The Digital Team’s Important Role in COVID-19 Vaccinations

Zain Ismail, Henry Ford Health System

// By Jared Johnson //  Ask the Expert with Zain Ismail, Principal Transformation Consultant, Strategy and Digital Health, Henry Ford Health System This chapter of the pandemic is the time for nonclinical teams to shine, according to Zain Ismail, principal transformation consultant for the Henry Ford Health System. In particular, digital marketing and communications teams Read More

How To Encourage the Reluctant To Get Vaccinated

Three experts from Geonetric recently shared tips for overcoming community hesitancy and misinformation about getting vaccinated. “There’s a lot of interest in this topic,” says David Sturtz, vice president of marketing and business development. Sturtz, along with Stella Hart, content strategist and writer, and Tim Lane, director of digital marketing, reviewed data concerning people’s beliefs Read More

How Do We Change People’s Minds About Getting the Vaccine?

// By Wendy Stark Healy // The release of the first COVID-19 vaccines in mid-December made Geonetric’s webinar, “Support Your COVID-19 Vaccination Efforts with Your Marketing Strategy,” very timely. Three experts from the agency shared tips for overcoming community hesitancy and misinformation about getting vaccinated. “There’s a lot of interest in this topic,” says David Read More