2009 eHealth Articles
Aiming for the Right Target
The Web is an interesting marketing communications tool in that it's immediate. As a result, there can be an unfortunate tendency to substitute speed for accuracy or thoroughness. It's easy to fall into the philosophy of "just get something out there." It's the "Ready-Fire-Aim" approach.
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Creating Success Begins by Defining Success
If you're challenged with communicating the value of your initiatives, it's important to ask yourself, "How am I measuring success?" Could it be you're measuring success by your own standards, and not those of your boss or the CEO?
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Stay Relevant: Tie Web Goals to Corporate Goals
What is it you want to accomplish with your site, and why? If you begin with the questions, you can then develop a successful strategy that contains the right goals, a plan for meeting those goals, and a process for communicating success.
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What's In a Number?
The truth is, not all data is equally valuable. And it's not about choosing Google Analytics versus Web Trends. The really critical piece is doing something to turn the data you collect - from whatever tool you choose - into usable information.
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Patient Centered Medical Home
The patient centered medical home (PCMH) creates a partnership between patients, their families, and care providers using a centralized, comprehensive electronic record of the individual's health information and services provided.
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eHealth Gets More Meaningful
The good news is that the health consumer is a key audience being addressed as part of the stimulus bill. As a result, this is a great opportunity for eHealth. Unfortunately, too many organizations are approaching this as an information technology project.
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The Changing Landscape of Online Communications
As website usage by health consumers has grown, the sophistication of online communications within healthcare has increased, and organizations are beginning to develop similar strategies to segment their online efforts.
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Take the Site Out of Your Website Strategy
Today, the destination website is only one aspect of the overall experience consumers have online, and Web strategy must grow to acknowledge that the "Web" encompasses more than one channel of communication.
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Patient Portals: Facilitating Change that Matters in Healthcare
Payment reform and universal coverage initiatives are rather like putting a cover over a bad piece of furniture. It looks better and it's easier to sit on, but the wood is still rotting. At the same time, other industry pressures are increasing the demand for meaningful change.
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Understanding User Experience for Portal Design
Given the complex and dynamic nature of patient portals, and the fact we're actively engaged in designing and evolving our patient portal, a number of our clients have asked us to share our thoughts on ensuring the design, development, and deployment of a successful portal.
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Five Reasons Why Social Media isn't a Waste of Time
The thought that social media is a waste of time is common, most often among the higher-ups. And often, they're right - playing with social media is much more fun than "Whatever You're Supposed To Be Doing." How can you attach social media to accomplishing critical strategic priorities?
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A Social Affair: It's Not All About You
Some organizations approach building a social media community just like they'd approach filling seats in an auditorium - the more people there to listen to what you have to say, the better. If you're viewing Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as nothing more than a new broadcast channel, you're missing the point.
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Selecting a Vendor: How to Get The Best Outcome
Successful shopping requires different purchasing decisions match the products or services desired. You don't buy a shirt in the same way you purchase a car. And you don't select a vendor partner for your online initiatives in the same way you choose anti-virus software.
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Your Resources Determine Your Direction
When planning your online initiatives, your resources and infrastructure are two items that determine your direction. However, they are generally the most difficult items to capture and communicate in the process.
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Cuts Happen: Dealing with Layoffs & Slashed Budgets
Maybe you're already making sacrifices, or perhaps you're concerned that more bad news is imminent. When it's your staff and budget that hits the proverbial chopping block, the only option is to have a plan for responding, communicating, and making changes that will allow your department to move forward.
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Planning for Success During Economic Uncertainty
As Web and eHealth professionals, we know intrinsically that we deliver value far beyond our costs. But since it's notoriously difficult to prove true marketing ROI, how do you make sure your budget doesn't become a target?
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Controlling Your Message in an Economic Crisis
Whether hospitals are freezing budgets, cutting staff, reducing service line offerings, or closing clinics - the economy is giving all of us ample "opportunity" to review, and perhaps implement, our crisis communications plan.
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Online Crisis Communications: Beyond the Website
Now is a great time to ensure your crisis communications plan contains a strategy for communicating difficult messages and includes the new media channels your stakeholders are using.
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A Letter to Web Managers Everywhere
If your site is like most hospital websites, I know your little secret. You spent lots of time designing navigation and writing content. Your site search was an afterthought. HALF of all users are search-inclined - and you give us indigestion.
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Understand Your Users and Improve Your Site Search
Far too often search engines/results are designed out of gut instinct rather than a true understanding of site visitors. When visitors' searches fail, it leads to frustration and that frustration leads to finding other options.
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Five Great Times to Use Search Engine Marketing
In today's economy, there's little doubt your hospital's marketing budget is wearing a big red target as a 'non-essential' expense. When does it make sense to shift some of your precious dollars to search engine marketing (SEM)?
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Understanding Online Metrics and Crafting an SEM Business Case
One of the benefits of search engine marketing (SEM) is the ability to track different success metrics. Unfortunately, knowing which performance indicators to monitor, and what insights they're telling you, isn't always clear cut.
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Go Organic: Search Engine Optimization
In our work with clients, it is common for their sites to receive more than half of their traffic through search engine referrals. In other words, a search engine strategy is essential to any Web traffic growth initiative. And you can't talk about SEO without first understanding how search engines work.
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How to Make 2009 the Year of SEO
This is the time to start thinking about search engine optimization - fresh year, fresh start. You have twelve months of pure potential and, if you have an effective plan in place, you can make this year your site's "year of SEO."
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