Topics

EHR Best Practices Offered by Cleveland Clinic

Jane Weber Brubaker, Editor of eHealthcare Strategy & Trends

by Jane Weber Brubaker Cleveland Clinic was an early adopter of Epic’s electronic health record (EHR) beginning in 2000. In 2012, Cleveland Clinic launched MyPractice Healthcare Solutions, a branded version of the Epic EHR platform, to share best practices with other organizations. “Part of Cleveland Clinic’s mission is to share its experience and model of Read More

A New York Hospital Reaps Innovative Ideas from Hackathon

by Mark S. Gothberg A hackathon, where different groups of software designers and developers collaborate on specific projects for one day or up to a couple of weeks, has been around for many years. This past March, NewYork-Presbyterian sponsored the first hospital-focused hackathon in New York—and one of the few centered on healthcare anywhere. The Read More

What Are Best Practices for Physician Directories?

Ask The Expert with Mark S. Gothberg There is no more important feature on a healthcare organi­zation’s website than its doctor directory. This directory is often the critical first step for con­sumers to begin a relationship with a physician and develop a long-term association with a health system. For the millions of newly insured Americans Read More

Healthcare System Develops Hub to Congregate Its Mobile Apps

Cheryl Serra

by Cheryl L. Serra This month Intermountain Healthcare will begin promoting Intermountain Health Hub, a container application and nine applications that launch from within it. The apps and a mobile responsive patient portal also included in the container will allow users to learn about health-related issues and complete tasks related to their healthcare on their Read More

Is Your Appointment Booking System Ready for the 21st Century?

by Kris Rusch Scheduling medical and dental ap­pointments can be a source of frustra­tion for patients and providers alike. Patients often complain of long lags between the time they realize they need to see a practitioner and the date of the next available appointment. For people wanting to see specialty care pro­viders, the next available Read More

My Internet … Personal Solutions, May 2014

Travel Insurance With summer vacations just around the corner, some thought about travel insurance is in order, especially if you are planning an expensive trip or going to an exotic destination. Insurance coverage options generally fall into three broad categories – trip cancellation, emergency medical care, and medical evacuation to a healthcare facility, with the Read More

Healthcare Turns to Open Source Software

by Glen Doss A growing number of healthcare or­ganizations have turned to open source software to help manage their websites. Open source software is a collection of tools and technologies that are free to use, modify, and share. Two of the most popular open source plat­forms are the Drupal and WordPress content management systems. Both Read More

Web Takes … May 2014 Picks

Athens Regional Health System – Wellness www.athenshealth.org Wellness is a hot topic as healthcare organizations transition to popula­tion health management and value-based payment. But even the best sites continue to just integrate well­ness information with health infor­mation, health resources, or health library sections. Such is not the case for this website for a Georgia pro­vider. Read More

eNews Pulse, May 2014

RESOURCES Social Media Analytics Tools Adopted by 61 Percent of Marketers, finds a study conducted by Demand Metric and sponsored by NetBase. The major cited uses of analytics were for campaign tracking (60 percent), brand analysis (48 per­cent), competitive intelligence (40 percent), and customer care (36 per­cent). Other key findings in the study were: Social Read More

Aurora Health Care Creates a Best-of-Class Patient Portal

by Mark S. Gothberg “This is the story of taking an off-the-shelf, out-of-the-box tool – the Epic pa­tient portal – and making it a branded, differentiated, and best-of-class portal experience,” says Cindy Moon-Mogush, senior vice president of communications at Aurora Health Care, an integrated system that serves eastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Although the organization Read More

eNews Pulse, April 2014

WEBSITES Resources for Caregivers of Loved Ones with Rare Diseases launched at www.rarecaregivers.org. Sponsored by the Caregiver Action Network, the site is not intended for patients. New Website About Lung Cancer Screening at www.checkmylungs.com. Spon­sored by Scottsdale (AZ) Medical Imaging, the site features an assess­ment tool to help site visitors deter­mine if a low-radiation CT Read More

Web Takes … April 2014 Picks

Centegra HealthSystem www.centegra.org This beautifully designed site for an Illinois system has great navigation. There are lots of little touches that make the site stand out. Will consumers use a hospital that doesn’t take their health insurance? Almost never. But many hospital websites fail to indicate to visitors what insurance plans are accepted. Such is Read More

PinnacleHealth Creates Three Paths to Consumer Engagement

by Mark S. Gothberg “People always talk about how great Amazon.com is and how all websites should be like it. But a healthcare site shouldn’t be like Amazon, where a consumer buys a book and then browses the site for other things of interest to buy. People have very specific interests in healthcare, and a Read More

My Internet … Personal Solutions, April 2014

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

What Are the Top Web Design Trends Today? Not Just Responsive Design

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

Marshfield Clinic Spins Off Information Services Group

Jane Weber Brubaker, Editor of eHealthcare Strategy & Trends

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

Focus on Social Business, Not Social Media

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

Web Takes … March 2014 Picks

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

Building an Intranet Squarely Focused on Employee Engagement

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

My Internet … Personal Solutions, March 2014

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

Protect Your Investment With Usability Testing and Eye Tracking

// 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

Video Visits Between Patients and Doctors Gain Traction

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