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:

Are We Defining Meaningful Use Or Defining EHR?

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

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 feeling that the workgroups aren’t really defining “Meaningful Use,” but rather, they’re trying to define “EHR.”

A Farewell

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evalgelist

My buddy Craig died last week.

I spend a lot of time looking at the healthcare system at a macro-level. Statistics about how the system is a mess. How we’re failing to do right by our patients. Zooming out to this level allows one to be dispassionate about the situation. The unacceptability of what’s wrong with healthcare today. I’m reminded today that every statistic represents a real person dealing with the mess we’ve created.

Craig’s passing was a surprise and then again it wasn’t. He had a lot of years of hard living behind him and his body was paying the price.

Give Your Web Site a Social Life!

By Casey Hansen, Front-end Developer

It is no secret that Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter are changing the way we communicate online. Rather than relying on email, we now spend time finding friends on Facebook and typing message we can squeeze into 140 characters on Twitter. Communications are changing, which opens up a new set of avenues for you to reach your visitors.

Integrating social media into your Web site’s design is an integral part of making the delicate dance of site visitor relations work. If you want people to respect your Facebook page, for example, it needs to fit with your overall Web presence. There are several ways you can help people  get involved with your social media efforts and many of them are related to your Web site design. Let’s take a look…

Much Ado About Twitter (And Why I’m Un-following Hundreds of my Tweeps)

By Ben Dillon, Vice President, & eHealth Evangelist

By now, you’ve likely heard of Twitter.  Although most online-connected people have heard of it, I find the majority don’t really know what Twitter is or frankly don’t understand the attraction.

This doesn’t surprise me.  I was one of them.

Nine Years

By Eric Engelmann, President & CEO

Nine years ago, Genesis Health System in Davenport, Iowa, took a chance and hired Geonetric to implement a newfangled “Content Management System” with a series of applications designed specifically for hospitals.

Since then, Genesis and Geonetric have done some amazing work together. Here are some highlights:

• Launched two complete redesigns,
• Created one of the nation’s first bariatric patient blogs,
• Put urgent care wait times on the Web site,
• Constructed an advanced policy and procedures system, and
• Developed a comprehensive intranet.

The goal has been to keep Genesis ahead of its competitors, and the long standing relationship between Geonetric and Genesis has made this possible.

Genesis is Live on Portal!

By Angie Brunow, Senior Project Manager

Yesterday was an exciting day at Geonetric. After months of work from our product team, client service team, and really all employees at Geonetric, we launched a new Web site for Genesis Health System with the newest version of our VitalSite Patient Portal. It’s the first site we’ve launched with our advanced portal and we’re thrilled to introduce it.