The New-and-Improved GeoVoices

Yay! We have upgraded our GeoVoices blog and moved it to our own host.  Please update your bookmarks and RSS readers with our new address.

You can find the new blog at http://geovoices.geonetric.com/

Update your RSS readers to follow this RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/geonetric/blog

My Experience Interning at Geonetric

By Katy Heater, Internal Projects Intern

I spent last summer and the start of this one working at a local tanning salon, giving an even tan to young teenagers.  I thought it was a good job but I was mistaken.  I was soon given the opportunity to work at Geonetric, which is on the opposite side of healthcare. Rather than potentially causing health problems by supporting tanning salons, I began working in an industry that makes people aware of how to fix health problems.  I had no idea how important this job was going to be to me. 

My only problem: I was terrible with computers.  I was granted the title of Internal Projects Intern.  I spent many days testing forms, adding content to Web sites, and answering phones.  Although my tasks seemed small, I feel like I helped a lot.  There are so many things to do and so little time to do it all.  Anything that would help, I signed up for.

Popularity: Who Needs It?

By Michelle LeCompte, Content Strategist

Although most of us figured out that popularity was overrated as soon as high school was over, now that we’re all hanging out on the social media campus, it may be time for a reminder.

A recent (paraphrased) Doonesbury cartoon made the point perfectly:

Teenage son: “Cool beans! I just hit 1000 followers on Twitter!”

Dad: “Uh-huh. And which of these pals will help you move or loan you money?”

While the teenagers at my house share the son’s perspective, I tend to relate more to the dad’s perspective. Yes, a big group of friends and followers casts a great social glow, but would you invite any of these amigos to dinner, a movie, a study date? Heck, how many would even know where you live – let alone expend the energy to get there?

Breakfast of Champions

By Kevin Barnes, QA Assistant

It’s well known that Geonetric is a uniquely great place to work. From free espresso and cereal, to the Geonetric walking club, I enjoy many perks that most companies don’t provide. These small extras eventually become routine, which makes it all the more impressive when Eric Engelmann, our CEO, manages to surprise us. 

I came into the office this morning to find my CEO cooking breakfast for the entire company, 64 people – that’s a lot to cook breakfast for.  It is no small task to cook pancakes, sausage and eggs for an entire company. That’s why Eric brought his 5-year old daughter Mallory to help. She counted the blueberries for the pancakes and cracked the eggs, while Eric cooked. In the end the food was fantastic, and having pancakes served by the CEO is a nice reminder of why Geonetric is a great place to work.

What Makes a Good Hospital Web Site?

By Eric Engelmann, President & CEO

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 “good” is that the Web sites are intricately tied to executing business strategy. Both of those companies used the Web site as core, critical parts of how they delivered on their missions.

Practicing What We Preach…Finally

By Kelly Hidlebaugh, Online Communications Manager

New Geonetric.com site reflects how much we’ve changed

Bullet-proof project management. Strategic guidance. A world-class Web presence.

Geonetric promises all that – and more – to clients. But over the past four years, we’ve been growing too fast to make our own site live up to those standards.

When Geonetric.com was last redesigned in 2005, we had a few dozen employees and a handful of loyal clients – and no one had ever heard of Web 2.0 or “meaningful use.” Four years later, we’ve tripled in size, we have clients all over the country, we’re creating dynamic social media strategies, and we’re building patient portals that extend the doctor-patient relationship far beyond hospital walls.

During all that phenomenal growth, Geonetric.com struggled to keep up. The number of pages increased rapidly, but with no strategy and little oversight, our own site gradually descended into something resembling chaos.

Report Available: How Hospitals are Weathering the Economic Downturn

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

Healthcare organizations have been pinched by the economy in ways that they’ve not experienced in decades.  Shrinking service margins are causing overall caution in new investments in both marketing and information technology (I.T.).  Despite this caution, spending on online communications channels continues to grow.

These are the findings from our first eHealth Insights survey.  The full report is now available, “Proceeding with Caution: How Hospitals are Weathering the Economic Downturn”.

And keep your eyes open for our next eHealth Insights Survey on patient portals.

Could Healthcare Assemble a Twelpforce?

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

Customer service in healthcare is challenging.  The difficulty comes from hospitals in general being a complex system.  There are a lot of disconnected entities that need to work together in order to get something accomplished.  But when there are problems, it’s often tough to determine where the actual issue is hiding, let alone find someone who can sort it out and make it right.

Look at a typical surgery, for example.  In addition to the surgeons, who are likely not employed by the hospital at which the surgery is performed, you have nurses (who are employed by the hospital), anesthesiologists (who aren’t) and during recovery, you may be monitored by a hospitalist (who is).  Add to that the surgical suite itself, ambulance company (if used), and let’s not forget your insurance company… yeah, it’s getting a little crowded. 

So when you get a stack of unintelligible bills, none of which quite align with the others, where do you even begin?

Social Media Strategy – Should You Develop One?

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

I’ve heard from several people as I prepare for this week’s Webinar “Building Real Relationships: Creating a Strategy for Your Social Media Efforts”, that I’m on the wrong path.  “You shouldn’t create strategies for a particular social network site,” intoned one co-worker, “strategies are for audiences.”

Of course, I understand this is the case, but I’m always fearful that once something is relegated to being “tactical” with little or no out-of-pocket cost to get started, it leads organizations to dive in without any plan whatsoever. 

Why Has EMR Been So Hard?

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

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 though, the problem is very real. But it just doesn’t derive from anything so pernicious as a raw profit motive.  It’s much more about misalignment of incentives.  Let’s look at this in a different way: