Help! My brain is full.
This was an extremely common refrain at the 13th Annual Healthcare Internet Conference. I can’t tell you how many times I heard some version of this expression during conversations in the hallways or during concurrent sessions. With so many first-time Conference attendees this year (in fact, this was our best-attended conference ever!), I am not sure how many were prepared for three days full of case studies by peers, speeches by industry visionaries, and networking with some of the most successful hospital Web site managers in the country.
There are many, many hospital and health system web administrators who returned home from Las Vegas last week with a long list of ideas that they are just itching to implement. I can only imagine the number of emails, discussions, and meeting requests that went gone last week as a direct result of something learned at the Conference. Whether these discussions are about how to implement “easy wins”, such as Kelly Faley of Sharp Healthcare’s local flu level monitor; or about important processes to implement, such as the crisis plan suggested by Shel Holtz; or about challenges to long-held assumptions such as relationship between Social Media and hospital web site offered by Shel and Lee Aase, these types of interactions are the real take-aways from the Conference.
For me personally, the Healthcare Internet Conference is a yearly reminder of just how important a role we all play in shaping the future of healthcare. It is extremely motivating to learn what others have done to succeed, and to feed off of their energy. I have my own list of action items based on what I heard at the Conference, which revolve around getting healthcare marketers the information the information they need to make better decisions. For example, I plan on expanding and improving a simple survey Greystone.Net did last year about budget changes in light of the recession. Several attendees referenced this study in their presentations, and it is clear that having data on this topic was a huge benefit to them.
By showing that hospital/health systems were cutting budgets but continuing to invest in their Internet presence, that particular survey proved that the Web site is no longer viewed as a luxury item by hospital administrators, but as an essential, core platform. In fact, if there was one overriding lesson from the Conference for all of us, it is that we must continue to challenge common assumptions, and replace them with new ideas. No less a medical luminary than Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) once commented that “your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.” Here’s to all the scrubbing that went on last week in hospitals across the country. Let the light shine in!