Collaboration: The New Gold Standard for Successful Healthcare Organizations

The pandemic had a silver lining. It took a wrecking ball to the walls that have separated internal departments within health systems. Organizations battling COVID-19 had to break down the silos, join forces, and learn to collaborate in new ways. These newly acquired skills are valuable in a post-pandemic world as well.

Health systems that forge internal alliances unleash their collective strengths and leverage competitive strengths to lead their organizations and the industry in innovation and transformation.

This report is a collection of our best articles on the value of collaboration, with interviews from healthcare leaders who have successfully built coalitions, worked across departmental lines, and brought teams together to accomplish what their organizations needed most.

Download now »

Digital Tools Help HonorHealth Match Patients With the Right Level of Care

When you’re feeling unwell, symptom checkers — online triage tools that identify a range of conditions a user may have based on what the user is experiencing — can be helpful. These tools can encourage patients with potentially life-threatening conditions such as stroke or heart attack to seek immediate care and reassure patients with non-emergent Read More

Even Artificial Intelligence Could Not Predict What Was to Come

// By Jim Samuel // Learn how a South Jersey health system’s 2018 decision to adopt artificial intelligence and predictive analytics paid off during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. When South Jersey’s Virtua Health decided to add customer relationship management (CRM), artificial intelligence (AI), and predictive analytics to its technology toolkit in 2018, the Read More

How UNC Health Makes Site Search More Google-Like

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // Can AI make Find A Doctor functionality and site search work better for consumers? Think back to the earliest days of online search, when keywords first came to be. A typical call to action — in a TV spot or a print ad — would be something like this: Read More

How AI Helps Streamline Social Media Marketing

// By Althea Fung // Afraid AI is going to take over your job? Don’t be. “Marketers should … see AI not as a way to replace humans but to augment and enhance the important and necessary work we do,” says Lately.ai’s founder Kate Bradley Chernis. With more than 3.6 billion users worldwide, social media Read More

AI Helps Yuma Regional Medical Center Understand What Matters Most to Patients

// By Marlene Kurban // Using AI gives Yuma Regional Medical Center a better understanding of what its customers are saying about the medical center. It’s often very different from information collected on a paper survey. Artificial intelligence (AI) gives healthcare organizations the ability to gain a better understanding of customer behavior, needs, and concerns, Read More

HonorHealth, Loyal Team Up to Offer AI-Driven Symptom Checker

// By Althea Fung // Connecting chat functionality with symptom checking and online scheduling helps patients find the right level of care. When you’re feeling unwell, symptom checkers — online triage tools that identify a range of conditions a user may have based on what the user is experiencing — can be helpful. These tools Read More

When Evaluating Effectiveness of Marketing Initiatives, Don’t Stop at ROI

We were intrigued by the first two words of a presentation given by two marketing leaders from Ochsner Health at the 2021 Healthcare Internet Conference (HCIC): Beyond ROI. Healthcare marketers have learned that provable ROI, or return on investment, helps them make the case for increased investment. But what’s beyond that? So much more, it Read More

Helping Consumers Find Care Everywhere

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // At Northeast Georgia Health System and UPMC, improving access and making digital scheduling easier are top priorities. What does it actually mean for health systems to embark on a digital transformation journey? Among the priorities are making it easier for consumers to find and access the care they need Read More

What Are the Benefits of Doing a Website Content Audit?

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // “Ask the Expert” with Jeremy Dietz, Executive Digital Editor at Coffey Communications A website can be like a snowball, picking up more and more content as time goes on. Or it can be like your basement, a convenient place to store things that you’re not sure what to do Read More

Salesforce Gives Marketers Top Tips to Drive Growth in Email Marketing

// By Althea Fung // Email marketing is still the preferred channel for personalized communications among all age groups. Are you making the most of it? People often say that email marketing is dead, but that’s not true. A 2021 study by Bluecore and NAPCO Research found that email is the most preferred communication channel Read More

Northwell Health’s Technology Initiatives Proved Invaluable During COVID

When the pandemic hit New York City, Northwell Health became a proving ground for new technology solutions to help mitigate the extreme challenges. Having an agile in-house team capable of creating sophisticated new solutions is “a tremendous muscle for the organization,” says Emily Kagan Trenchard. Northwell Health’s homegrown native app, winner of a platinum award Read More

Beyond ROI: How Can You Use Your Marketing Data to Understand Patient Needs, Support Operational Growth, and Inform Business Strategy?

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // While many health systems struggle to consolidate data that exists in silos, Ochsner Health’s marketing team has succeeded in wrestling its data to the ground. Insights gleaned from the data are revealing opportunities for investment in new strategic growth initiatives. We were intrigued by the first two words of Read More

Northwell Health Takes Digital Patient Experience to New Heights

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // When the pandemic hit New York City, Northwell Health became a proving ground for new technology solutions to help mitigate the extreme challenges. Having an agile in-house team capable of creating sophisticated new solutions is “a tremendous muscle for the organization,” says Emily Kagan Trenchard. Northwell Health’s homegrown native Read More

Screening Campaign Helps Patients Get Back on Track With Their Care

“This past year was a year of transformation for UCHealth,” says Bill Altorfer of Cured. “Although such transformation during the COVID pandemic was challenging, it also gave rise to opportunities to improve patient experience in ways that weren’t initially on UCHealth’s strategic roadmap.” Here’s an excerpt from Altorfer’s new article: What began in the fall Read More

The Right Patient at the Right Time: How UCHealth Uses Automated Messaging to Drive Patient Retention

// By Bill Altorfer // UCHealth piloted triggered email reminders for breast cancer screenings, generating almost 1,000 mammogram appointments. This past year was a year of transformation for UCHealth. Although such transformation during the COVID pandemic was challenging, it also gave rise to opportunities to improve patient experience in ways that weren’t initially on UCHealth’s Read More

Position Zero: Google’s New Pole Position

If you’ve done a Google search over the past year, you’ve probably noticed something different at the top of some search engine results pages (SERP). It’s a featured snippet, also known as Position Zero, and it’s Google’s way of showing users what it thinks is the best answer to their search question. Position Zero provides Read More

When Zero Is More Than One

// By Jim Samuel // Taking advantage of Google’s Position Zero, or featured snippets, can be an effective way to enhance your brand and drive traffic to your website, particularly for mobile users. While it can be challenging to attain this coveted place in Google’s search results, with planning and effort, it is possible to Read More

Making Every Dollar Count When Budgets Are Limited

Connecticut is a small state with a large number of healthcare facilities to choose from — and now even drug stores turned health hubs are competing for the same patients. “There’s a lot of noise out there,” says Cathie Cannon, assistant vice president of health communications at UConn Health. “Consumers have a lot of options Read More

UConn Health Drives Service Line Volume in a Competitive Market with a Limited Budget

// By Jane Weber Brubaker //  Connecticut is a small state with a large number of healthcare facilities to choose from — and now even drug stores turned health hubs are competing for the same patients. “There’s a lot of noise out there,” says Cathie Cannon, assistant vice president of health communications at UConn Health. Read More

Using Data To Seamlessly Unite Two Systems

When South Carolina’s Greenville Health System merged with Palmetto Health in 2017 to create Prisma Health, the two systems did not know each other very well. They had different billing systems and different electronic health records (EHR). They even had different physician referral systems. “We didn’t know each other, and providers didn’t know what services Read More

How Prisma Health Used Teamwork and Data to Create a Better Patient Experience

// By Jim Samuel // When South Carolina’s Prisma Health merged in 2017, Nick Patel, MD, the chief digital officer, was charged with creating a unified digital presence. We wrote about it in 2019, and here, Patel provides an update. Prisma Health worked with a steering committee to reach consensus on key decisions regarding its Read More

The End of the Third-Party Data Era Is Coming Soon

If you use third-party data for your marketing, it’s time for you to start getting ready to do something different. That’s because new privacy laws around the world, as well as new measures from Apple and Google, will soon make using third-party data a thing of the past. Coming changes will give consumers more control Read More

2021 eHealthcare Leadership Award Winners

// By Jane Weber Brubaker // The eHealthcare Leadership Awards honor the very best websites and digital communications from a broad spectrum of healthcare organizations. Winners of the 22nd Annual eHealthcare Leadership Awards were announced on November 4 at a special presentation in Las Vegas during the Healthcare Internet Conference (HCIC) sponsored by Greystone.Net, our Read More

Assess How You’re Collecting and Using Your Healthcare Data

“From digital data streams to artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, the prevalence and use of marketing data is growing exponentially,” says Daniel Fell of Optum. “According to a recent State of Marketing report from Salesforce, the median number of data sources used by marketers grew 50 percent from 2019 to 2021. And the report showed Read More