Are you an Effective Communicator? Says Who?

By Linda Barnes, Vice President, Marketing & Communications

In a session at the IABC World Conference, the speaker shared an interesting statistic.

• 86 percent of executives say, “Yes, I’m an effective communicator.”
• 17 percent of their audience (polled on exit) agreed.

Ouch!

Safeway – Successfully Influencing Health Consumer Behavior

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

We’ve had an active discussion going about how to motivate consumers to make good decisions about their health when managing their health or chronic disease. So when I heard that Safeway has managed to freeze the growth of their healthcare spending over the past four years through the implementation of a corporate wellness program, I couldn’t wait to see how they accomplished this.

Safeway is a large retail grocery chain with roughly 200,000 employees. They are self insured, spending approximately $1 billion per year on healthcare.

As a self insured employer, Safeway had the flexibility to design their own benefits plan and they did so following a set of understandings (I’ll post more specifics from the presentation by Steven Burd, Chairman and CEO of Safeway, at the World Health Care Congress. if I’m able to get his slides).

The Difference Between Vision and Strategy in Healthcare Reform

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

In our business, the greatest risks and opportunities that we experience are due to the major changes in the industry we serve: healthcare. It’s with this in mind that I’m attending the World Health Care Congress in Washington, D.C. this week.

Personally, I’ve been surprised at how aggressively the Obama administration has proceeded with a dialogue on healthcare reform. I truly believed this topic was too politically charged to deal with so early in the term. Clearly I was wrong.

The opening panel this morning examined the issue of achieving universal health coverage from three perspectives: the new administration, the California experiment that has failed to pass and the Massachusetts framework that is now providing coverage for nearly 98 percent of its residents.

HIMSS – How different is dark blue and light blue?

By Deb Rolfes, Market Strategy Manager

Dennis Quaid knows firsthand the difference between these two colors. One color indicates 10 units of the blood thinner Heparin while the other color represents a much larger amount of the drug. As we all know, the wrong color-a potentially deadly dose- was given to his twin babies. At HiMSS09 Sunday, Quaid shared his heart wrenching story of a father, a husband and now an advocate of the prevention and reduction of errors in healthcare.

HIMSS Has Begun

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

I walk into HIMSS this year with a mixed set of expectations.  With the public pull-out of several major vendors and the weak attendances we’ve seen at other conferences this year, I’m curious to see how attendance sorts out at HIMSS.

But, I’m more excited about the educational sessions at HIMSS than I’ve ever been !  In most years, there has been little in the way of consumer-facing technologies represented in the sessions.  This year it’s overflowing! 

New Site for Adventist HealthCare

By Sandra VanWyk-Fancher, PMP – Vice President, Operations

Last night Adventist HealthCare launched version 2.0 of their Web site on VitalSite 5.

When we started the project, one of our goals was to keep the user experience as clean as possible while providing a rich, robust site. Take a look at the site and I think you will agree this site is simply amazing.

Physicians Gagging on Social Media

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

An Associated Press article brings to light a new trend amongst doctors panicked over online ratings by patients – gag orders.  According to North Carolina-based Medical Justice, a company that provides standard waivers and social media monitoring services for physicians, “Published comments on Web pages, blogs and/or mass correspondence, however well intended, could severely damage physician’s practice.”  Undoubtedly true.  In fact, that’s that point.

Congress validates executive fears that spending money on marketing qualifies as “Idiotic Abuse”

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

And you thought your marketing department had an image problem!

Too often, businesses view marketing as a cost center and an easy target for financial cuts.  A “nice to have” capability rather than the critical business function that it truly is.  When the financial situation at an organization gets tight, most marketers are forced to justify their existence by clearly demonstrating the value they deliver.  And many of us are successfully arguing that in a downturn, continuing to market effectively can both help you weather the economic turmoil and leave you ahead of the game when things improve.

And then congress attacks Northern Trust Company for continuing its marketing!  Northern Trust, for its part, seems to get it.  The decision to continue to work to keep clients happy and attempt to attract new business was clearly evaluated and the bank is unrepentant.

And kudos to the marketing staff over there for building that kind of support from executive management.  It’s a goal for all of us to strive for.

My eHealth – Hot Health Trends for 2009

By Anne Ohrt, HR & Event Coordinator

Redbook has been magically appearing in my home mailbox over the past year.  I don’t usually have much time to read non-work related material but on a recent flight home from Las Vegas, where I had the opportunity to attend the Customer Based Marketing for Healthcare Strategists conference, I was afforded some quality magazine time. 

In the January 09 issue, Redbook identified the Hottest Health Trends for 09. Number seven on their hot list was Putting Your Health Info Out There. “Out There” meaning on the Internet and the ability for individuals to have personalized online access to medical records, flag personalized drug interactions, set up appointments, and also have online communications with preferred medical professionals. 

HIMSS President and CEO, Steve Leiber Shares Thoughts on HIT in ARRA

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

We have an economic stimulus package now and we’re all trying to figure out what’s in there and what it means. You can debate the pros and cons of the new legislation as it relates to job creation, but it’s certainly a lot of money and it’s certainly going to have a dramatic impact on healthcare IT (HIT) for the next several years.

Steve Leiber, President and CEO of HIMSS presented what we know thus far about HIT funding in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) at the Iowa HIMSS Annual Advocacy Day on Monday.