Are We There Yet? The Healthcare Social Media Conundrum

My question is: When will we reach the point where the majority of marketing and communications professionals within healthcare understand and use social media to advance their organization's business goals? I'm not talking specifically about marketing departments. This applies to people involved in physician relations, referring physician marketing, physician and employee recruitment, and so much more. Through marketing conferences, webinars and industry publications, healthcare marketers have received a barrage of information about the relevance of social media to their professional lives. However, I'm not sure that this same communication has reached other parts of the healthcare organization with the same level of intensity and impact. It amazes me that this remains an uphill battle.

A week ago I attended the Physician Strategies Summit, produced by the Forum for Healthcare Strategists. It was an exceptional conference. The attendees seemed eager to learn and actively engaged the speakers with great questions. And several of the presentations were superb.

The conference was largely attended by professionals who work in the physician relations arena, rather than traditional service line or institutional marketers. One of the things that surprised me (why am I ever surprised?) was the relatively small number of individuals tweeting from the Summit. (I've grown accustomed to seeing conference attendees with electronic devices in hand.) I know that the number of people tweeting is not the best measure of social media adoption or sophistication, but it does seem to be an indicator that these professionals may not have traveled as far down the social media adoption continuum as some others. While I was keeping track, I noted 17 people contributing tweets or retweets during the sessions. However, of those, only a handful were actual conference attendees. The others were people following the Twitter stream long distance. Below is a snapshot of the Twitter analytics from the the end of Day Two of the conference:



Below is a screen shot of a TweetReach report showing data for the 50 most recent tweets at the time of the report (Monday, Feb 20, 10am). It tells a similar story: very few people tweeting during the sessions.



I don't know the answer to my initial question, and I acknowledge that social media is not the silver bullet for marketers in our industry. But social media platforms, integrated with traditional marketing tools, can allow for a level of engagement not previously achieved through old school marketing tactics alone. We are now several years into this communications revolution. And every time I think I've seen my last Social Media 101 presentation (good riddance), I find that I have wrongly assessed the state of our industry, and Social Media 101 is still relevant.

Of course, as I write this, I am preparing to lead a Social Media 101 workshop for a gathering of dentists in North Carolina. As I've noted in at least one prior blog post, I have a dental phobia so this should be really interesting. What will it be like facing an entire room full of dentists? Perhaps they fear social media as much as I fear being in the dentist's chair! I look forward to welcoming them to the world of Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so much more! The world of consumer engagement!

Great Story Telling Linking Technology to Care

GE Stories: Healthcare

I've seen the GE Healthcare television commercial where they united the employees who make sophisticated diagnostic technologies with cancer survivors who have benefited from the technology. Below is a long-form version of that video. It is incredibly well done. GE recognizes that technology is relevant because of the impact it has on real people. Connecting its employees with survivors lets us know that there are caring, motivated people behind the technology. In the end, it is much easier to relate to them rather than some multinational corporation. With this video, and others like it, GE gives itself a human face.

The Two Physicians Who Rocked the Physician Strategies Summit

I just returned from attending the Physician Strategies Summit in Orlando, Florida, where I sat in on a number of informative presentations. However, two presenters absolutely stole the show: Wendy Sue Swanson, MD (@SeattleMamaDoc) and Russell Faust, MD (@RussellFaust). I have long been an advocate of bringing the voice of the patient and the physician to these conferences. Physician liaisons, recruiters, and healthcare marketers can all benefit from exposure to ePatients and physician thought leaders.

Both Dr. Swanson and Dr. Faust are early adopters of social media, and both have embraced blogging as a channel through which they can engage and educate patients. Dr. Faust's blog can be found at http://www.boogordoctor.com. He is a pediatric ENT surgeon, who has an integrative, holistic approach to care. Dr. Swanson is probably better known as Seattle Mama Doc, a mom and pediatrician who maintains a busy medical practice while writing the Seattle Mama Doc blog for Seattle Children's Hospital. In her spare time she flies around the country giving passionate keynote addresses.

I recorded some of Dr. Swanson's talk on my Flip Video Camera. Roughly 30-minutes of her presentation appear below. One of the lessons we all can learn from Dr. Swanson, and she spoke about this at the Summit, is the way she uses Twitter. She was careful to point out that not only does she share content on Twitter, but she also spends a significant amount of time just listening. She uses Twitter to find out what research is being talked about, what drug recalls are making news, and what kind of information her patients may be taking in (and reacting to). Through Twitter, Dr. Swanson tracks the health conversations of the day and gets a feeling for what may be causing concern for parents. In my opinion, this makes her a better doctor, able to anticipate patient questions and concerns. She is also better able to counter misinformation that they've picked up online - and there's a lot of that out there. Enjoy Dr. Swanson's presentation:

Untitled from Dan Dunlop on Vimeo.

Need to Know: 5 Women in Health IT

Guest post by Katie Matlack, Medical Market Analyst, Software Advice

You want irony? Try this: the Kaiser Family Foundation <http://www.kff.org/womenshealth/upload/women-and-health-care-a-national-profile-key-findings-from-the-kaiser-women-s-health-survey.pdf> reports that we women are the ones making the health care choices for the kids in 8 out of 10 families. Yet women are far and away the minority gender in the world of health IT leaders. Health IT is one of the most important segments of health care, during a time of great change. If women are the ones who’ll be where the rubber hits the road when it comes to the future of health, why aren’t more of us, more involved, in determining what that future of health looks like?

While this is by no means the definitive list, I’ve done some research on the women who ARE making their mark in HIT. I list five to know below. They’ve been included both for their individual accomplishments and for the attention I think that’s due in the areas of health IT where they’re active.

Regina Holliday - The Patient Advocate

Regina <http://reginaholliday.blogspot.com/> uses art to lobby for attention to be paid to patients; she became a patient advocate after witnessing her late husband’s struggle to receive appropriate care for kidney cancer. She paints at big-time medical conventions, reminding attendees that Meaningful Use (MU) requirements of new electronic medical records programs--oft discussed today in the context of government payouts--were created with the intent to improve patient care and save lives. And she reminds us that electronic health records (EHRs) should be clear and transparent. Why does an artist get top billing in a piece on information technology? Because her point--the that the goal of the technology is to make it easier for people to be and stay well--is, well, pretty important.

Judith Faulkner - The Veteran

More than three decades ago Judith Faulkner started a small company, Epic, that has today grown into the provider of the EHR software for most of the largest hospitals in the US. Epic <http://www.epic.com/> is also the system used by Kaiser Permanente, the biggest care provider in the country that’s not an arm of the government. And it’s in the running to be the solution used by the Veteran’s Administration (VA). Given that Faulkner is staunchly against an effort to have all EHRs move towards becoming interoperable with one another, this last fact has some folks mighty alarmed. Faulkner is still involved in any major company decision and drives the company’s unique corporate culture, and she’s got a seat on President Obama’s Health IT Policy Committee that’ll be making recommendations on “development and adoption of a nationwide health information infrastructure, including standards for the exchange of patient medical information.”

Susannah Fox - The Researcher

She’s responsible for studying what goes on at the crossroads of technology, health and the interwebs, as the Researcher on Health and Health Care for the Pew Internet Project. So Susannah Fox brings us some mighty interesting data <http://www.pewinternet.org/Experts/~/link.aspx?_id=E26587FE8FDB443A8610ECB87E635F94&_z=z> about the habits of Americans when it comes to how many of us look online for health information (59 percent), what specific kinds of health information we seek (specific diseases or conditions, treatments or procedures, and doctors or other health professionals), and who we seek it from (increasingly, from other people who might have conditions similar to ours). Fox blogs regularly on e-Patients.net [http://e-patients.net/] and is helping researchers understand the habits of patients so that health IT can better meet those needs.

Halle Tecco - The Connecter

The company she co-founded has yet to celebrate its second birthday. Yet Tecco’s Rock Health <http://rockhealth.com/> --an accelerator “powering the future of the digital health ecosystem” by providing capital and mentorship to health startups--has funding from giants like Microsoft and Quest Diagnostics, and two of its “graduates” have secured additional funding from other investors. Tecco was chosen because of the power of her idea: that innovators could put tools and systems out there that could rejuvenate healthcare, make it not “just okay” but make it really rock. She was also chosen because she shows you don’t need to have gone to medical school to make a big impact in medicine: Tecco’s background is in tech and business.

Amy Sheng - The Inventor

Sheng also co-created CellScope <http://www.cellscope.com/> , Inc., with Erik Douglas, less than two years ago. CellScope uses optical attachments to transform smartphones into diagnostic-quality imaging systems. In the right hands, this technology has the potential to transform lives: in the developing world it can be used in village clinics, while here in the US consumers can use the CellScope to access expert diagnosis and advice. Sheng’s work demonstrates the great potential for telehealth solutions to break down the barriers separating developing countries from high quality health care.

Have I left anyone important off the list? Please email me at katie@softwareadvice.com with your suggestions and feedback. I sincerely appreciate it!

Katie Matlack is the Medical Analyst for Software Advice, where she writes about electronic health record system <http://www.softwareadvice.com/medical/electronic-medical-record-software-comparison/> options and other HIT topics on the Software Advice blog <http://blog.softwareadvice.com/> .

Healthcare Awards Madness!

It is that time of year when my team is entering our work for healthcare clients in a variety of award competitions. If you've never done this on a large scale, let me tell you that entering these competitions can be a monumental undertaking. It becomes particularly daunting when you are submitting entries representing a number of different hospitals and health systems. Some of the competitions (Lamplighter Awards for example) have gone to entirely electronic submission processes. That is wonderful, yet still time consuming, but not nearly as labor intensive as some of the competitions using old school methods. By old school I mean that every entry has to be printed out, trimmed, and then spray mounted to art board (which also has to be cut to size). TV commercials and videos have to be burned to DVDs and radio spots burned to CDs. Additionally, two copies of the entry form have to be attached to each submission. Then the entire group of submissions are boxed up and sent via FedEx (or your carrier of choice) to the sponsoring agency. (To think that we pay for the opportunity to do all of this!) The whole process involves a ton of materials, time and agonizing coordination. So why do we do it?

• Winning awards is affirming. We work hard all year and it is nice to have our work put to the test.
• Our staff enjoys the recognition. The people who create the advertising (art directors, production artists, copywriters) rarely get recognition or props for their work. In fact, they spend most of their time making edits and tweaks to accommodate requests from clients and account people. It is rare that the work goes unscathed. The final product is often the result of a series of compromises that waters down the original concept.
• Our hospital clients like the recognition. And they deserve the recognition. Just like my team, they are constantly responding to feedback from numerous internal clients who want to add their insights and put their thumb print on the campaign. It is a huge victory when we all come together and produce something award worthy!

Below are a few photos of the awards submission process at Jennings. Two members of my team worked late into the night, pulling the bulk of the entries together for this particular competition. We'll be doing it all over again next week for another national healthcare marketing competition.

Brand Experience & Organizational Culture: Recruiting Physicians Online

Today I presented, together with my colleague Kevin Robinson of Southwestern Vermont Medical Center, at the Physician Strategies Summit in Orlando, FL. Kevin and I presented on the importance of the online brand experience when recruiting physicians. In short, what does your online presence, in all of its forms, say about your organization and its values? Below is the PPT presentation which you can also find by going to my slideshare site: http://www.slideshare.net/dandunlop.

Brand Experience & Culture: Recruiting Physicians Online

View more presentations from Jennings (Dan Dunlop)

People You Should Meet at the Physician Strategies Summit

Today in Orlando is the start of the Physician Strategies Summit, jointly sponsored by the Forum for Healthcare Strategists (of which I am a member) and the Postgraduate Institute for Medicine. I'm attending the conference, and speaking on Tuesday morning. One of the thing I always do at these events is make a point of connecting with industry colleagues over the course of the conference. I find that the networking and conversations are often more enriching than the session - even with really solid educational sessions.

Here's a list of a few of the people that I recommend you introduce yourself to while attending the Physician Strategies Summit:

• Dean Berg, Digital Strategist at Anicca Media, LLC - You can follow Dean on Twitter: @deanberg.
• Russell Faust, MD, Chief, Pediatric ENT, St. John/Providence Health System, Ascension Health Michigan and Chief Medical Officer, Annica Media, LLC
• Wendy Sue Swanson, MD - Keynote speaker, pediatrician, blogger
• Kevin Robinson, Communications Director, Southwestern Vermont Medical Center - Kevin is my co-presenter on Tuesday
• Linda MacCracken, VP, Product Management Healthcare & Science, Thomson Reuters
• Gabrielle DeTora, Interim Chief Marketing Officer at Mercy Health System
• And of course, Dan Dunlop (yours truly). If you see me wandering around aimlessly, please stop me and say hello. One of the benefits of attending events like this is the opportunity to meet peers for the first time.