2010 eHealth Articles
Is eHealth the Answer? How Technology Will Impact Clinical Outcomes
We all know the healthcare system in its current state is broken. It’s too expensive to sustain. It’s getting more costly every day. And its overall outcomes are subpar. Fixing any one of these problems could be accomplished with a fairly straightforward approach. Fixing all three concurrently requires a more fundamental re-engineering of the healthcare system.
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The Best Never Rest: A Year of Software Upgrades in Review
Over the past year, we’ve made some major enhancements to VitalSite, our content management solution. Using our iterative development process we release a host of new features every 90 days – and over the course of a year that adds up to a lot of new developments!
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Hospital Marketing and I.T. – Irreconcilable Differences?
The curtain rises to the scene of a psychiatrist’s office. Dr. Ben* leans back in his chair wearing a smoking jacket with an unlit pipe in his mouth. He ushers in a disgruntled looking pair, one fidgeting with a new iPad, and the other clutching a portfolio containing the creative concepts for the hospital’s new integrated marketing campaign.
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Building the Right Tool for the Job
Visit any healthcare organization's website and you'll find much of the same functionality: information about care providers and services, addresses and directions to various facilities, and perhaps some upcoming events or news items. Geonetric's eHealth Benchmark Survey confirms this - more than 80 percent of respondents have the top ten site features on their sites.
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Health Reform is Coming - Are You Ready?
As the saying goes, "may you live in interesting times." If you work in healthcare today, you certainly have interesting times ahead as we enter into perhaps the most dramatic period of change our industry has ever seen.
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The Best Path to a Valuable Patient Portal
As meaningful use creates increasing focus on patient portals, we're hearing rumors and questions about the lessening importance of the traditional website. Or worse yet, that I.T. - working with a software vendor - owns responsibility for the hospital's patient portal, and marketing - working with an agency - manages the organization's website.
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Building on Your Success
Healthcare marketers don't need a newsletter article to know that we work in an industry that is constantly changing. Part of that has been the evolving nature of healthcare - innovative surgical procedures to explain, better machines to tout, modernization of buildings and rooms to promote. Part of that has been shifting patient demographics and changes in how consumers shop for healthcare. Part of that has been the explosion of new channels to deliver messages - not just a website, but online marketing to make sure health seekers find that site, plus a host of social media outlets to master.
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The Hard Problem that Defines Your Brand
Here is something that's hard to do well: Create a unified online experience for every visitor to your website. Consumers don't realize that this range of experiences may involve multiple entities, dozens of information systems, and a multitude of departments.
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Clinical Trials as a Healthcare Marketing Tool
In our recent eHealth Benchmark Survey, nearly 60 percent of respondents indicated they currently have clinical trial features on their website...or plan to add them in the next six months. Clinical trial information is detailed and often includes extremely technical content, so why are so many organizations adding trials to their consumer-oriented sites?
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Email to the World: "Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated"
With a marketing mix bursting at the seams with Web 2.0, social media and mobile technologies, email just isn't as sexy as it once was. But as I've mentioned before, nothing is as sexy as results, and email continues to deliver on that front.
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The Case for Mobile Communications in Healthcare
As if you didn't already have enough channels for connecting with health consumers - Web, email, patient portal, and a seemingly endless flow of social media platforms - there's another one to add to the list: mobile communications.
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The Value of Iterative Development
Evaluating a software platform against your organization's current needs is relatively simple when compared to anticipating how that software will serve your needs years into the future. It can be very challenging to take a long-term view when your organization's evolving goals are combined with rapid changes in the industry, technology, and consumer behavior.
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Get Ready for Social Search
Where did you begin the last time you looked for a new primary care physician (or a specialist to cure your unsettling, Internet-diagnosed affliction)? Turning to friends, family, and acquaintances for their recommendations is a common solution. Whether you're seeking a good restaurant, hotel, or hospital bed, the people in your social network are a key source of information.
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A Social Path to Community Support
Social media is about more than being social, it's about building a community, and often around areas of related interest. When it's your real-world community you're trying to engage, social media provides an excellent set of tools.
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Engaging Site Visitors is a Long-Standing Quest
Over the past month, I've been talking with many hospitals and health systems about their online goals (through our Ask Ben consultations) and have consistently been asked about ways to use the Web to promote a service or center of excellence. It's exciting to see many organizations are interested in promoting the specific initiatives that bring patients in the door.
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Building (Digital) Bridges from Hospital to Physician
Consumers are demanding a more active role in making healthcare choices. This is one of the most significant changes taking place in the industry and one we've talked about extensively via our webinars, whitepapers and articles. However, consumers aren't the only constituents that hospitals must target to develop business. Hospitals are placing renewed focus on improving physician relations and physician sales.
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