August 7, 2009 – 12:15 pm
When asking hospitals what makes a good Web site, we often hear terms like “interactive capabilities,” “easy to use” and “has lots of content, especially educational content.” While these aren’t necessarily wrong, it’s what’s not on this list that’s disappointing.
Imagine asking Michael Dell about what it is that makes Dell.com “good.” Or Jeff Bezos about what makes Amazon.com a “good” Web site. Of course it has to be easy to use. But strategically, the thing that makes dell.com or amazon.com ... Read More >>
I just finished reading Why the healthcare system doesn’t want electronic medical records on Techdirt, and I have to say, I don’t buy it. The article proposes that some vast conspiracy designed to fleece the public through deliberate inefficiencies is at the root of the pushback against going digital.
I’ve spent a more than dozen years now in various places within the healthcare landscape and I can tell you we’re not organized and coordinated enough to pull something like that off.
In all seriousness ... Read More >>
As blue-ribbon committees begin to flesh out what the vague terms of the ARRA/HITECH initiative are intended to represent, they’ve triggered quite a lot of discussion. Discussion of what does or does not constitute “Meaningful Use,” when various pieces of this definition might kick in, how many hospitals and physicians could potentially meet the 2011 criteria if they started right now and if some of the recommendations will ever be a good idea.
As I watch all of this, I can’t help ... Read More >>
The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we do things. Take buying a car, for example. You can get loads of information about a given car model: service histories, user ratings, and what other people are actually paying for the car. This information empowers consumers . In negotiations, information disparity is the greatest tool available. Taking that advantage away from the dealer fundamentally changes their bargaining position.
Much of the talk about the potential of bringing pricing transparency together with consumerism in ... Read More >>
Every now and then, I have one of those days and frustration is at the center of it. Often, that frustration is due to the pace of change in the communications industry.
“But wait,” you say, “the Internet is moving so fast that we can barely keep up! For goodness sakes, we’re on Web X.0 now!”
Somewhere, someone has moved on to that. Amongst mainstream organizations (and particularly in healthcare), however, we’re still nibbling at the edges of the Web, social media, etc. We’re ... Read More >>
This week, I’m attending the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) World Conference. Yesterday I listened to the President and COO of Best Buy talk about internal communications. His passion for and belief in the power of communications and the importance of transparency was especially inspirational, as those are common goals at Geonetric. Two comments that intrigued me:
We’ve recently launched our new survey – eHealth Insights. In past years, Geonetric has run a huge annual survey for collecting data from online professionals in the healthcare industry. Unfortunately, with the industry changing as fast as it does, our insights began to feel dated before we got our results out the door.
eHealth Insights surveys are very short (less than 5 minutes to complete). We will conduct them several times throughout the year so we can hit topical items and get actionable information ... Read More >>
Hospitals have been embracing transparency initiatives over the past few years, but those who have been most enthusiastic generally have a good quality story to tell. What happens if you don’t have that stellar story? What if, truth be told, the story is flat-out bad.
In that case, transparency takes some serious nerve.
And with that in mind, I got a great laugh out of this “article” on hospital transparency.
By Eric Engelmann, President & CEO
It’s always interesting to be the patient once in a while. I had my annual physical this morning, and my doctor happens to be at a hospital that’s going through a big EMR upgrade, first implemented just a few days ago. Both the nurse and the doctor I saw sighed noticeably when sitting down at the application, and of course when I casually asked about the new system, neither had anything positive to say about ... Read More >>
By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist
I presented a webinar yesterday on crisis communications as they relate to financial crises – layoffs, construction stoppages and the like. While the webinar was well attended and received, one question was asked again and again:
“Yes, we’re dealing with financial crises, but at the moment, I really need your thoughts
on what we should be doing to communicate about swine flu”.
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