Welcome to the Greystone blog! Those of you that know us, know that we truly believe that the use of the Internet — as a business tool — in hospitals is imperative, yet, quite frankly, extremely underutilized. Hospitals are notoriously slow to change and accept new things, especially when it comes to electronic medium. Yes, there are many of you that are doing great things, and it takes those pioneers to continue to advance the state of the state. But there are still many of us that are struggling to justify the resources just to have a Web site. For the past few years, we’ve observed such a tremendous growth in the use of social media for healthcare. Web 2.0 is not the future anymore, it’s here. Whether we like it or not; whether we are prepared for it or not; it is here, and not going away.
Many of our clients have launched blogs of their own, and we’ve encouraged many more to begin. We’re excited to finally be “drinking our own Kool-aid,” so to say. This year’s Healthcare Internet Conference blog was our first attempt with blogging, and while not a traditional blog in many ways that blog has gone a long way in meeting its goal of providing a platform to begin to network and build community among the people planning to attend the conference (our 11th annual) in November. This blog will be more of a traditional blog in that it will have frequent posts in a variety of topic areas relevant to hospital and health system Webmasters and Web strategists and we welcome and encourage comments. Please engage. This will only make the blog better.
This blog is not a sales or marketing platform for Greystone services or for any other vendor. We have a Web site for that purpose. This blog is a way for us to share what we are seeing in the industry and as we work with hospitals and healthcare systems nationwide. It is also an opportunity for you to engage, learn and think a little more about our ever-changing healthcare environment.
We encourage and invite guest bloggers (including other vendors) to post. Please view our contributor guidelines and send us your post. We are excited to see where this endeavor will take us and look forward to some interesting discussions regarding healthcare and hospital Web activities!
Let the blogging (and learning and sharing) begin!