How is the Economy Impacting Your Online Efforts?

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

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 into your hands quickly.

It’s not too late to participate in our first eHealth Insights survey!  Our topic is how eHealth initiatives and organizations are weathering the economic downturn.

How do things look so far?

Our preliminary results show that respondents are dealing with the economy fairly well.  While some organizations are seeing declining revenues and profitability, nearly as many are seeing growth in these areas.  Nevertheless, there is caution with conservative staffing and overall marketing investment levels.

Fortunately, investment in the Web and social networking is booming despite the overall cautious landscape.  Apparently, when the going gets tough, tough healthcare organizations are investing online!

So take 5 minutes and make sure your voice is heard!  We’ll close the survey on Thursday.

A Little Advice for High School Students

By Katie Halligan, Project Manager

The high school from which I graduated recently asked me to present at their career fair. I, of course, obliged. I was excited to have the chance to share a little about why I love coming to work each day and a few of the mistakes I made along the way.

On the three-hour drive home, I had time to think about what I was going to say. Home for me is a county-seat town in Iowa that has about 1,800 residents on a good day. I wanted to make sure the kids know that even though they grew up in a small town, there are many opportunities and many combinations of possibilities for them to explore. Kids shouldn’t be locked into the job paths five year-olds think of: doctor, firefighter, lawyer, business, engineer, etc.

10 Rules for Health Engagement

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

I’m a few days past the PRSA Health Academy, but there is one final session that I couldn’t leave without writing about. The session was conducted by Susan Isenberg of Edelman and Emily Downward of Edelman Digital.

Edelman has a new research product called the health engagement barometer which looks at “Health Info-entials” – health consumers that are informed, engaged and involved. Health Info-entials make up approximately 22% of the population in the U.S.

What’s so great about having an intranet anyway?

By Andrea LeHew, Project Manager

Sure, every hospital needs a Web site, but what about an intranet?  Is having an intranet for your employees truly worthwhile?  Really, what can an intranet do for your employees?  You hear about time efficiencies and cost savings, but what does that really mean?

Let’s take a look at a few Geonetric clients who have recently implemented intranets: Methodist Medical Center of Illinois (MMCI) and University of Colorado Hospital (UCH).  

Proving the Value

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

As hospitals are cutting costs, online programs are faring well in some organizations and quickly find themselves on the chopping block in others.  While the financial situation at each individual institution is clearly a factor, we often see – through the magic of hindsight – which online service groups laid the groundwork to secure their position in the long-term.

To proactively secure the position of your Web resources, it’s important to first understand why Web departments get cut:

• Your executives never really saw (or believed) the value you delivered
• Your online efforts were not connected to the organization’s key strategic initiatives
• Compared to a clinical service, anything marketing related feels optional

Although in many organizations, cuts are presented as “across the board,” this is often not truly the case and key functions and initiatives are, in actuality, not feeling the pain in the same way.  Don’t let that be your cop-out answer!

To learn how to address these challenges and how to adapt if cuts do hit your Web operations, make sure to attend our Webinar Thursday: Prove Your Web site’s Value in a Tight Economy.

Transparency is Hard When the News Isn’t Good

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

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.

PRSA Health Academy: Groundswell Author Speaks on Social Media

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

I’m currently attending the 20th Annual PRSA Health Academy meeting in Washington DC.  The opening speaker is Josh Bernoff, Forrester analyst and Groundswell author.

Bernoff mentioned that in times of trouble, word of mouth is the most important factor in decision making.  So, how do you put together a strategy for applying social media technology to our healthcare communications challenges?

Chasing the technology is a losing proposition.  Successful social media strategy begins with clear objectives.  This seems like a no-brainer – without objectives, you rarely accomplish anything meaningful.  That said, the current infatuation with much of social media is driven by a general “cool factor” and some fear of missing the boat on the next big thing.

The Groundswell book lays out tools and an approach to getting started:

Search it, Find it, Love it…Search Bookmarking

By Scott Youngblut, Application Developer

I constantly find myself searching the Web. I Google, I Wiki, and I search the corporate intranet, developer Web sites, eBay and more.  It seems as though I spend more time searching than I do examining the content returned by those searches. 

When I switched to Opera as my primary browser several years ago, I discovered the ability to bookmark searches.  It has increased my productivity several times over.  Luckily for Web-surfers, many common Web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Opera offer this feature. Unfortunately Internet Explorer (even IE 8 ) and Safari (4 beta) just don’t offer the ability to bookmark searches.

Co-Design with Moms in Mind

By Pete Wendel, User Experience Researcher

We just finished co-design (also known as participatory design) sessions with an amazing group of women—mostly moms. Moms of all ages and situations: young, old; single, married; just starting out with young kids, taking on a mother-like role as an adult-child caring for her elderly mother.  I love co-design sessions because people share remarkable experiences and stories. Though I am a father, a husband, and a son, these sessions gave me a renewed appreciation for what it means to be a mother: a dynamic care-giver whose role changes significantly over time, yet is always overseeing the care of others.

When it comes to healthcare in the home, moms rule over all. It’s a benevolent dictatorship that (usually) has everyone in a family looking to mom for any and all decisions when it comes to healthcare. This isn’t a shock to anyone, but it certainly can be a difficult burden to bear. This is especially true when it involves care for chronic illness or caring for elderly parents.

The Joel Test

By Matt Youngblut, Engineering Manager

Joel Spolsky gets it. He leads a software company that builds great software by hiring and building great people. In the process, he came up with “The Joel Test“, which, by his own admission is his

“own, highly irresponsible, sloppy test to rate the quality of a software team. The great part about it is that it takes about 3 minutes. With all the time you save, you can go to medical school.”

It is a simple test. 12 yes-no questions. It can help potential hires determine if this is a place they would like to work. Here is how Geonetric scores: