The North America International Auto Show kicked off in Detroit this week with industry and press events, opening to the public this weekend. You might be wondering with that has to do with healthcare, mobile or strategy. Well – there’s a lot to learn from an event like this. It’s a venue for the auto manufacturers to showcase their products and concepts. With thousands of people attending, it’s one big marketing event. A large majority of the world’s auto manufacturers are there, side by side creating a great comparison shopping opportunity for consumers. This is interesting to consider – what would you do if your hospital were in that type of venue? How would you differentiate your hospital from your competition?
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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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Meaningful Use – what a powerful phrase! In the context of healthcare, it’s tied tightly to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the use of certified EHR technology. Healthcare organizations across the nation are moving down the path of demonstrating meaningful use of electronic health records, congratulations on your progress! Meaningful Use does matter, but let’s take a step back for a moment and consider the words “meaningful use” in a broader sense. Just as important as the technology is how we work to make its use meaningful. We like to think in broader terms and incorporate meaningful customer-centric uses into our Web planning. With the explosive growth of mobile devices, mobile applications and Web technologies, this concept remains very important. Just as with EHRs, meaningful use of any technology is enabled by understanding the need, collaborating with a cross-functional team on a solution and working together to ensure it is successful.
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Hello my friends –
Prediction came true: the Convergence is here!
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We are pleased to release the conference brochure for the 14th Annual Healthcare Internet Conference, which will be held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas beginning November 15-17, 2010. It took a ton of work to get the program in place, but it was also a lot of fun. Download a copy of it from our Web site. We think it is offers a wide and strong variety of educational and network opportunities.
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I do, and so do 63.2 million others.
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One of the things that we have blogged about consistently on this site is the need to set up a version of your Web site for visitors using mobile devices. Since this is such a hot topic in the industry right now, we decided to do a little research. Ultimately, we found that only 1 in 5 hospital / health system Web sites currently have a mobile-friendly version of their Web site. The most popular reasons cited for not creating such a site are “not enough of a priority” (55%) and “shortage of time and/or FTEs” (45%).
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Basketball fans know Charlie Villanueva, a Milwaukee Bucks forward, as a solid but not spectacular NBA player who helped UConn win the 2004 NCAA National Championship. He is also known by some for his work as a spokesman for the NAAF (National Alopecia Areata Foundation), which supports research into the autoimmune skin disease from which he suffers.
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Let’s end the suspense right now: I’ve been married to Julie for more than 31 years, and would never choose my phone over her. Most days, at least.
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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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