User Experience (UX)

Virgin Pulse Acquires Welltok: Q&A with Christopher Michalak, CEO

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// By Jane Weber Brubaker // In recent years, the healthcare industry has been moving away from its traditional focus on episodic care toward wellness, prevention, and population health. The recent acquisition of Welltok by Virgin Pulse in October 2021 underscores that this movement is coming from multiple directions. Welltok and Virgin Pulse have primarily Read More

Overcoming Pandemic-Related Team Communications Challenges

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“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,” writes Jared Johnson of the Healthcare Rap podcast; he is also a member of the eHST Editorial Advisory Board.  Here’s an excerpt Read More

Podcasts: A Key to Content Creation

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// By Wendy Stark Healy // Podcasts are a win-win. They provide great information to the community, engage potential patients, and help organizations market their services with versatile content that can be reused. Versatile podcasts can stand on their own as a popular source of content, but they are also a great way to stoke Read More

Coming Together for Patients: 2021 Year in Review

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// 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

Tips To Prepare for Google’s New Core Web Vitals Algorithm

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Google is changing its search algorithm this month. Is your team prepared? With the new algorithm, called Core Web Vitals, Google will implement a new set of metrics that take into account page experience in search ranking. “Core Web Vitals is really getting at the overall experience of your page. Are users able to see Read More

How Cleveland Clinic Prepped for Google’s Core Web Vitals Algorithm

Amanda Todorovich

// By Althea Fung // Google is changing its search algorithm in June. Is your team prepared? With the new algorithm, called Core Web Vitals, Google will implement a new set of metrics that take into account page experience in search ranking. “Core Web Vitals is really getting at the overall experience of your page. Read More

Unleash the Dragon and Up Your Social Media Performance

// By Amy Houck // When creating a social media campaign, a few simple steps can optimize social media performance. Following the DRAGON Method will put healthcare marketers on the best track to success: Duplicate top-performing ads. Retarget website visitors. Actively test new copy and creatives. Get rid of poor-performing ads. Optimize and repeat. Never Read More

Healthcare Technology Gets a Pandemic-Related Boost

Dave Wieneke, healthcare innovation leader at PK

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced hospitals and health systems to quickly adopt new technology that has changed how Americans receive healthcare. One change has been a dramatic increase in the adoption of telehealth, says Dave Wieneke, healthcare innovation leader at PK, an international experience engineering firm. One large telehealth provider, Wieneke says, talked of experiencing Read More

Building Connected Healthcare Experiences One Step at a Time

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// By Jim Samuel // What has changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic — and what hospitals and health systems should know about moving from a basic online presence to a fully open digital front door. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced hospitals and health systems to quickly adopt new technology that has changed how Americans Read More

Best Practices for Creating a Multilingual Healthcare Website

Matt Hauser, senior vice president of content solutions at TransPerfect

The number of people in the U.S. who speak a language other than English is growing. One in five U.S. residents age 5 and older speaks a language other than English at home. That number has more than doubled since 1990. In the nation’s largest cities — New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, and Read More

How Cone Health’s New Site Puts Patients First

Matt McKinney, assistant director of communications at Cone Health

North Carolina’s Cone Health has roots in the denim industry. The system’s benefactors, Moses and Bertha Cone, started Cone Denim, and the surrounding community has maintained strong ties to its textile heritage. And while denim may be the literal fabric that started this Greensboro-area health system, Cone Health also knows it has strong ties to Read More

Patient Well-Being at the Center of Cone Health’s Website Relaunch

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// By Melanie Graham // North Carolina’s Cone Health has roots in the denim industry. The system’s benefactors, Moses and Bertha Cone, started Cone Denim, and the surrounding community has maintained strong ties to its textile heritage. And while denim may be the literal fabric that started this Greensboro-area health system, Cone Health also knows Read More

New Mobile App Increases Engagement and Access

Shane Davis, director of information technology at Hardtner Medical Center

In early 2018, the team at Hardtner Medical Center was searching for an innovative way to engage patients and increase usage of its patient portal. It had tried emails, advertisements, flyers — even billboards. But one tactic it hadn’t tried yet was a mobile app. “We needed to figure out a better way to promote Read More

Hardtner Medical Center Opens New Digital Front Door in Rural Louisiana

melanie-graham-2019

// By Melanie Graham // In early 2018, the team at Hardtner Medical Center was searching for an innovative way to engage patients and increase usage of its patient portal. It had tried emails, advertisements, flyers — even billboards. But one tactic it hadn’t tried yet was a mobile app. “We needed to figure out Read More

Why Digital Accessibility Is a Crucial Component of Patient Care

“[W]e must acknowledge the unmatched role of hospitals and health systems as caretakers of our communities,” says Keir Bradshaw, executive vice president of MERGE. “Digital accessibility goes beyond mere compliance measures. It’s a way to extend care to the community just as compassionately online as we do on-site.” Read on for an excerpt of Bradshaw’s Read More

How Your System Can Leverage the Benefits of Voice

Nate Treloar, president and COO, Orbita

Over the past 25 years, healthcare marketers have experienced several waves of digital disruption, from the adoption of the web to SEO, social media, and mobile devices. The latest wave? Voice. But voice assistants are not just a trendy marketing tool — they can provide many benefits for patients, health systems, and clinicians: Patients are Read More

Digital Accessibility: Why It Should Be a Matter of Culture, Not Compliance

// By Keir Bradshaw // Statistics paint a realistic picture of why healthcare organizations need to make their websites and other digital assets accessible to those with disabilities. For starters, there’s the fact that disability affects just over one in every four people1 living in U.S. communities. From a pure business perspective, hospitals and health systems simply can’t afford to shut the digital front door on 26 percent of their potential patient populations. Then Read More

How Health Systems Can Prepare for the Voice-First Future

// By Melanie Graham // Over the past 25 years, healthcare marketers have experienced several waves of digital disruption, from the adoption of the web to SEO, social media, and mobile devices. The latest wave? Voice. But voice assistants are not just a trendy marketing tool — they can provide many benefits for patients, health Read More

How To Merge 24 Sites Across Two Separate Health Systems

Evelyn Meneghin, assistant vice president of interactive services, RWJBarnabas Health

Anyone who has worked in healthcare communications and digital marketing understands that a website relaunch project can be a daunting task. But one that involves merging 24 existing websites across two separate health systems sounds downright intimidating. In early 2017, that’s exactly what the RWJBarnabas Health web team was facing. They were on the hook Read More

What Consumers Really Want From the Healthcare Experience

Each month, NRC Health surveys American consumers about their healthcare experiences and preferences. And every month, the data seems to point to the same conclusion: Consumers want healthcare organizations to stop acting like healthcare organizations. The NRC survey polls more than 500,000 Americans and 100-plus healthcare CEOs. It also includes more than 300 face-to-face interviews Read More

Site Redesign Focuses on Accessibility for All

Spaulding Rehabilitation Network Home Page Screen Capture

When you consider accessibility at a hospital or clinic, the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network in Boston, Massachusetts, is an excellent example. The buildings where patients receive treatment are easily accessed by people of all abilities, and the staff works hard to accommodate everyone who steps through Spaulding’s doors. But accessibility is about more than just the Read More