// By Ed Lamb // Piedmont Healthcare, a full-service health system based in Atlanta, GA, currently directs about 10 percent of its annual marketing budget to social media outreach. While that commitment of advertising dollars to creating messages for Facebook, Twitter, and other digital networks already far outstrips the average of 2 percent across the Read More
// by Grace Jones // Starting a hospital blog can often seem like a daunting task. What should we name the blog? What topics should it be about? Who is our audience? How often should we post? These are all good questions to ask when starting a blog. Yet none of them matters if you Read More
by Jennifer Redmond Only in this day and age would a high school student’s tweets garner the attention of White House staffers and earn a spot in national headlines. But that’s exactly what happened as the hashtag #ThanksMichelleObama made its way up the trending charts in mid-November 2014. Accompanying the sardonic hashtag were unappealing photos Read More
by Peter Hochstein Lynn Ricci faces a problem that many hospital marketers might wish for. At the Hospital for Special Care (HSC) in New Britain, CT, where Ricci is Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, patient traffic for a recently added autism center is growing so fast that the hospital is scrambling to keep Read More
by Joan Trezek “I changed doctors because we just weren’t communicating.” “I really like my doctor; I feel like I’m important and being listened to.” While phrases like patient engagement and shared decision making weren’t much in evidence a few years ago, they are very popular in today’s healthcare environment, where comments from both ends Read More
by Dan Fredricks Humans are absolute social beings. We have evolved this trait over hundreds of millennia to ensure our success in the two major aspects of life—survival and reproduction. Understanding that we have been hardwired by evolution to be profoundly social is a major advantage to healthcare marketers. This knowledge will enable you to Read More
by Daniel Fell Healthcare marketers face a virtual smorgasbord of communications channels (digital and otherwise). Software tools, strategies, and tactics are being thrust on them every day by a marketplace constantly in flux and possessing an endless supply of new ideas and must-have marketing solutions. Sifting through the vast number of options and deciding where Read More
by Sheryl S. Jackson How does a healthcare marketer cut through the noise of all of the advertising and promotional messages directed at consumers today? Obviously, the answer involves sending the message through the right media at the right target, but some health systems are adding a new tool to the marketing mix—brand journalism. “This Read More
// By Joan Trezek // While healthcare managers, consultants, and physicians may differ on a number of healthcare issues, it’s a safe bet they agree on how consumers generally begin the search for a physician: They ask a trusted source—family, friend, or frequently their primary care physician if they need a specialist. Once a few Read More
by Corinna Underwood A patient portal—an online hub that allows patients to log on to the Internet and have full access to their health information through a secure website—is an essential means for a practice to achieve maximum patient engagement. It also offers an easy way for patients to stay in touch with caregivers, make Read More
by Cheryl L. Serra What can you do with five minutes? As healthcare marketers are discovering, you can pack a lot of tears and tissue-grabbing—or guffaws, giggles, and sing-alongs— into five minutes. Healthcare organizations are increasingly turning to the power of video to showcase the emotional aspects of what they do, leveraging the relatively short Read More
by Jennifer Busick In an episode of the TV series “Northern Exposure,” the fictional Alaskan hamlet of Cicely is tapped to participate in a drug trial. Residents line up to collect bottles of identical pills, one of which is an investigational new drug that may (or may not) prevent the common cold; the other, of Read More
by Lisa D. Ellis An innovative pairing of Google Glass and QR codes is transforming the way physicians “see” patients—and is ramping up the cutting-edge delivery of clinical care. Using technology in innovative ways Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), which is a major teaching hospital for Harvard Medical School in Boston, has long been Read More
by Ted Balowski Having an effective Web presence is critically important for a hospital or healthcare organization, but how should that presence appear for a brand with more than one location? Is it a good idea for a brand with multiple locations or offerings to consolidate efforts? In the past decade, there have been profound Read More
Ask The Expert with Jenny Halasz If there’s one thing as loud as the bustle of a hospital ER, it’s the cacophony of voices declaring that they finally have the secret to ranking first on Google. With a constant stream of opinion, from professionals to laypeople declaring themselves expert, it can be very difficult to Read More
by Tomy Ames In the last month’s issue of eHealthcare Strategy & Trends, we left off when things were getting good: The importance of context when it comes to looking at your key performance indicators (KPIs). This month, we’ll examine how to determine appropriate categories so that you can accurately assess your site’s successes and Read More
by Brian O’Neill Healthcare providers and payers have intrinsically known for years the importance of effective communication to high-quality care. But, truth be told, the system hasn’t always worked as well as it should. Primary care physicians have their challenges in communicating with specialists (including hospitalists). Physicians and nurses don’t always talk to each other Read More
by Lin Grensing-Pophal While there are still those who believe Pinterest is just a site to save pretty pictures, some users are getting creative in practical ways and finding that Pinterest is more than just a “pretty page.” Medical practices are on the list. They’re using Pinterest for everything from patient and provider education to Read More
by Lisa D. Ellis In today’s fastpaced healthcare environment, two innovative hospitals are finding new and exciting ways to leverage web-based technologies—both to strengthen their own internal strategies and also as vehicles to share research, training, and lessons learned within the broader medical community. Nicholson Center’s commitment to education The Florida Hospital Nicholson Center in Read More
by Peter Hochstein A surgical team in blue scrubs stands silently in a circle under the intense lights of an operating room. They reach out to hold hands. Then one of them speaks: “Lord, we invite you to be the center of everything we do this morning. We ask you to be our hands and Read More
by Jane Weber Brubaker When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law in March 2010, it simultaneously ignited a firestorm of disruptions to established but unsustainable care delivery and reimbursement models and opened abundant opportunities for healthcare innovators. A new generation of digital health entrepreneurs has emerged to meet the challenges of healthcare Read More
by Tomy Ames While all good online marketing specialists employ some type of analytics reporting, oftentimes these one- or two-page automated reports contain only the typical key performance indicators (KPIs) for the entire site or section. KPIs such as visits/sessions, visitors, page views, pages/session, average session duration (time on site), and bounce rate can be Read More
by Lindsey Sharp A hospital website, in and of itself, generally won’t bring patients in the door and create long-standing doctor-patient relationships. However, when you combine a strong content marketing strategy with strategically placed calls-to-action (CTAs), you not only educate and engage visitors but also connect them with the people and services at your facility Read More
by Brian O’Neill With healthcare reform bringing millions of newly insured patients into a system that already sees shortages in primary care physicians and select specialties, the industry is being pressured to become ever smarter about how providers, insurers, and patients themselves communicate and interact. Fortunately, affordable electronic communication tools are available today that support Read More
by Jennifer Busick Here’s the problem: You need a way to get critical healthcare information about a patient to a healthcare professional—or a group of healthcare professionals. Maybe a nurse needs to know that vital test results are ready. Perhaps an emergency room physician needs a neurosurgery consult. Or, perhaps the need is as simple Read More