Articles

For some time now I have been on the video bandwagon. Video is the ideal platform for effective, authentic storytelling. As I said in a recent article in eHealthcare Strategy & Trends (February 2013):

“There exists a clear opportunity within the healthcare industry to more effectively engage consumers online using video. As Marie Gross of Signature Healthcare points out, the move to well-crafted physician videos is a necessary reaction to the changing appetite of consumers, who want to know more about their healthcare providers. “We believe that the physician videos we’re producing help us to capture and retain the consumers’ interest while responding to their need for a greater depth of information about their potential healthcare provider,” Gross says. Recognizing this opportunity, production companies such as WebOuts and On-Site Studios are developing solutions that make it easier for marketers to produce professional-quality videos at a reasonable cost. The convergence…

Blog post by Colin Hung

Over the past 3 days I have been actively following the Stanford Medicine X conference (#MedX) through Twitter and via the live feed of the plenary sessions. I have never been to #MedX (I’m hoping to go next year) but from what I have seen and from what many others have said – this conference sets the standard when it comes to (a) patient involvement, (b) taking care of attendee needs and (c) meaningful presentations.

In just a few years, Larry Chu (@LarryChu), has established #MedX as THE CONFERENCE to attend for patient advocates, researchers, physicians, nurses, IT folks and of course, for patients themselves. In fact, this year’s event had the highest ratio of patient participants: 35% (picture from Janet Freeman-Daily).

At #MedX, patients are not just passive participants. Patients, REAL patients, make up a significant portion of the presentations and…

One of my problems with the way businesses (healthcare and other) have come to use social media platforms is that they treat them as if they are mass marketing vehicles. Wrong. These are powerful niche vehicles – and they are good for two way communication. I ran across this infographic (below) last weekend. It purports to share with us the best and worst times to post on social media. Honestly, they don’t have a clue. The best time to post is totally dependent on who you are communicating with. If you’re speaking with physicians, they are often on social media between 5:30am and 6:30am and then again late in the evening. Many moms access their social media accounts before everyone gets up in the morning (before the craziness starts) and after the kids go to bed at night.

I would also point out that on a platform like Twitter you…