Last week, I was on site at a client’s, conducting the final meeting of a planning engagement. As we discussed the next course of action, I began thinking about the dramatic increase in healthcare organizations’ Web needs over the past five years since I have been part of the Greystone team. I was reminded of just how far the industry has come in the sixteen years since the founders of Greystone.Net first predicted that the organization’s Web site would grow larger than a mere “marketing tool” to become an industry-wide tool for hospitals and healthcare organizations.
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The conversation continues about QR codes. According to Mobio™, QR barcode scanning in North America grew 1200% in the last half of last year. Quick response codes already make sense with consumer products for purchase information, competitive pricing information, coupons or discounts, but how are they relevant for healthcare? Relevance is the key question about how QR codes can work with your healthcare marketing strategy. Are you just adding QR codes because it’s a hot ticket right now, or do you actually provide a value added to your current or prospective patients?
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Wow, I cannot believe that the 14th Annual Healthcare Internet Conference begins on Monday! This year’s lineup of keynote speakers is very exciting, and I’m looking forward to many of the breakout sessions. The conference is a great time to come together and share experiences, ideas and get refreshed for the New Year.
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As I deliberated on a topic for this week’s blog, I ended up changing my course. I had originally planned to discuss the recent social media privacy issues that have been in the main stream media, and then ran across the article, Social Media Boosts Organ Donors.
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It seems, especially in health care, that we tend to get wrapped up in our day-to-day duties and the brainstorming and creativity of promoting our organizations online gets lost along the way. That’s why I feel it’s important to keep our eyes open in our everyday life and experiences, and draw ideas from places other than competitors and peers health organizations’ websites.
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Do your physicians actively participate on your healthcare organization’s Web site? We all know a Web site can be a powerful tool for our organizations. Unfortunately, getting that message across to certain areas of the healthcare organization can be a difficult task. Even for those who are lucky enough to be working in a Web savvy environment, finding physicians to participate can be an even larger challenge.
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A friend of mine could not get rid of a cold he has had for a couple weeks and decided to stop in a walk-in-clinic on the way home from work. He arrived at the office to find a 6 hour wait ahead of him for the evening. I started wondering how he could have avoided a long fix to the common cold (besides going to the doctor earlier before it became an extreme case). It would have been nice for him to be able to pull his phone out and look up the office number to call ahead, get directions or even see the “real time” wait. However, this organization did not have a site accessible for hand held devices. A mobile Internet site not only could have been another avenue for him to locate the organization, but also another way to provide easy customer service. Many of the organizations we work with have not created an external Internet site dedicated to hand held devices, such as mobile phones. My friend’s situation once again leaves me wondering why not?
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