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Consumer-driven healthcare also drives new approaches
to communication
The
consumer-driven movement in healthcare emerged first with
broader choices in health plans and then evolved to consumer
demand for specific drugs and treatments. Now, it has erupted
into an era in which hospitals must compete with 30-minute (or
even zero-minute) guarantees for ER service and resort-style
amenities on maternity floors, employers offering
consumer-directed Healthcare Spending Accounts, and consumers
going online not just to evaluate their symptoms but also to
evaluate hospitals and individual physicians on the quality of
their care and their costs.
As in other arenas, consumers share information and
discussions in a whole new range of social networking spaces,
from blogs and wikis to chat rooms, online interest groups,
text messages and other extended word-of-mouth resources. With
consumers driving the healthcare process, healthcare
communicators are finding they must adopt new approaches to
reach the real decision-makers, traditionally the physician,
but now more often the patient and families.
"Public relations practitioners in the healthcare field
today must become active members of many more communities-not
just the locality in which they work but online communities
where their facilities' brand image is really shaped and
propagated," says Airfoil Account Manager Kevin Sangsland.
"Marketing healthcare may involve explaining technological
innovations in consumer language and describing how new
technology impacts patient care. Video tours of facilities and
processes, animated graphics to explain procedures, and
proactively contributing to influential blogs or Web sites all
may be part of today's marketing strategies. Communicators
should become involved in the creation of online tools that
guide patients in their decision-making, and they should
establish relationships with the true influencers for their
marketplace-whether those are a trusted blogger, an online
information forum or a community agency to which healthcare
consumers consistently turn."
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Online tools allow consumers to take the temperature
of the healthcare environment
Just as consumers have transformed the
retail industry, travel agencies and entertainment companies
by demanding online alternatives to their conventional
brick-and-mortar relationships, consumers now are
substantially changing the way employers, providers and
insurance companies provide healthcare information. A study
released this month by Thomson Healthcare of Ann Arbor, Mich.,
reports that more than 90 percent of executives from large
employers, health plans and government health agencies believe
"it is a priority for their organizations to ensure consumers
have information tools that help them make sound healthcare
decisions."
Almost half of the 301 executives surveyed said
consumer-decision support tools are one of their
organization's top five priorities. When asked to rank the
importance of various online tools, their three top choices
were:
- Cost calculators showing consumers their personal
financial liability for specific treatments
- Personalized communications on healthcare quality and
costs
- Applications enabling consumers to choose physicians and
hospitals based on location, quality or cost
information.
Conversely, a 2006 survey by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Association found that 86 percent of consumers valued quality
information first, compared to just 47 percent who searched
first for cost of treatments.
Whatever their reasons, consumers are using these tools on
a variety of healthcare-related Web sites and sections that
understand the importance of the new levels of access demanded
by the public.
For example, The Leapfrog Group, formed by large employers,
rates hospitals in localities across the nation on four
criteria: use of computerized physician order entry, ICU
staffing, experience with high-risk treatments, and progress
on 27 procedures to reduce preventable medical errors.
Consumers can enter a ZIP Code and find a comparison of
hospitals in that geographical area, based on the criteria.
Health Grades issues star-based ratings of hospitals and
enables consumers to purchase reports on individual
physicians.
The National Association of Health Underwriters offers an
online database with detailed, locality-by-locality options
and regulations related to employer-based health insurance
coverage, individual coverage and assistance for obtaining
health coverage.
"With detailed information and rankings on quality of care,
costs and physician ratings at their fingertips, consumers are
controlling their interaction with the healthcare community in
much the same way that they now control once obscure
interactions with mortgage brokers, fashion designers or
computer manufacturers," says Airfoil Account Director Leah
Haran. "Healthcare groups must develop and focus their
communications in ways that these tech-smart patients and
families find valuable, substantive and competitively
advantageous.
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Trusted.MD: Physicians try a dose of social
networking
In a recent
article in Government Health IT, reporter Judy Welles
noted that "the health care industry-often accused of lagging
behind the rest of the business world-may now be in the
forefront in the use of information technology." She cited a
number of blogs that have gained popularity among medical
professionals and consumers alike, including The Health Care
Blog and Diabetes Mine. Consultant and public-health professor
Craig Lefebvre declared in the article, "We're entering an era
where blogs have become the new credible source of health
information because much of it is coming from people like
yourself."
Of particular interest, Welles suggested, is the blog
Trusted.MD, which she called "one of the earliest attempts to
create a more robust health care media platform" using social
networking. She quotes its founder, Dmitriy Kruglyak, as
asserting that "social media is the next-generation
marketplace for health care."
Even the Web address of Trusted.MD implies something quite
different for physicians, with the profession-specific URL of
http://trusted.md, its front
page carries blogs from any number of contributors, some
anonymous but many of them physicians with profiles available
on the site. They discuss everything from standards for
health-information exchange to how to choose the right doctor
online to diagnosing obstructions from round worms.
The blog also offers columns on topics of interest to
physicians and enables visitors to find, submit and rate
health and medical stories. Finally, it provides summaries of
and links to many other blogs by and for health professionals,
including physicians and nurses, among others.
"Blogs rapidly have become a practical and popular way for
healthcare professionals to share their experiences, best
practices and concerns," says Airfoil Account Director Keith
Donovan. "They are the foundation of a social network that
makes considerable sense to a public and business sector that
is moving toward full computerization of data and
communication. Soon the bedside robot may be revealing his own
stories of 'Doctors I Have Known Remotely.'"
Keith advises that healthcare organizations may wish to
consider contributing to sites like Trusted.MD where they have
the opportunity to project thought leadership and further
build the trust of both their patients and their
colleagues.
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Airfoil will provide comprehensive services for
developer of EMR solutions
gloStream, developer of the gloEMR
electronic medical record solution, has called on Airfoil for
a comprehensive public relations program that incorporates
media and analyst relations, awards management, a speakers
bureau, event and trade show support, and marketing
communications. The company, based in Bloomfield Hills,
Mich., offers a secure, easy-to-use EMR application that
features single click access to patient data, voice
recognition technology and a robust document management system
that streamlines workflow and maximizes efficiencies for
physician practices. gloStream is the most recent client
addition to Airfoil's expanding healthcare
practice.
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New
professionals in business-to-business group bring technology
expertise
Tara Thornton has joined Airfoil
as an account executive supporting the agency's programs for
Microsoft and other B to B technology clients. She supervises
and executes regional media relations activities and conducts
outreach to regional and trade journalists, as well. Tara
previously was an account executive for GSW Worldwide, an
advertising agency in Columbus, Ohio, where she implemented
programs for the Eli Lilly neuroscience account. Earlier, with
Edelman Public Relations in Chicago, she worked on accounts
for Pfizer in the arenas of infectious disease and oncology.
She is a graduate of Ohio University with a bachelor's degree
in English.
Tasha O'Berski has been named as an assistant
account coordinator in the business-to-business practice area,
supporting media relations, communications and research
efforts for Microsoft, NPower Michigan and other
technology-based accounts. Previously, Tasha held public
relations internships with Lapides Publicity Giragosian, Roush
Performance Products, and The Greater Lansing Amateur Hockey
Association. Tasha earned her bachelor's degree in journalism
from Michigan State University in 2006.
Jennifer Cattini recently became part of Airfoil's
Operations team and serves as human resources specialist. Her
responsibilities include recruiting, new-hire orientations,
the performance-review process, policy development and
benefits administration. Jennifer came to Airfoil from New
World Systems, a software-development company where she was
human resources coordinator. Previously, she held human
resources positions with Staffing Services of Michigan and
Human Resources Employment Service.
Ericka Gardner has joined Airfoil's Operations unit
as a staff accountant, providing financial and accounting
assistance to the agency's controller as well as to account
staff. She comes to Airfoil from work as an
accountant/financial analyst in the automotive and
information-technology arenas. Ericka graduated from the
University of Detroit Mercy with a Bachelor of Arts degree in
accountancy.
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