May 2008

Don't Believe the Hype?

But Don’t Let That Stop You Promoting It ;)

A sobering case study for CDHP/HSAs. Financial services company T. Rowe Price adopted its consumer-driven health plan in 2004. You’d think they’d succeed, given the 5,000 financially savvy U.S. employees and a sophisticated benefits program already in place.  Enrollment in the plan hit 8 percent the first year, not bad.

Enrollment remained flat for three years, then rose in ’08 to 9 percent - too low to produce substantial savings. What could (maybe) make a difference? More incentives and tools for consumerism. A majority of consumer-driven plans today are stagnating like T. Rowe Prices. The most common plan designs don’t contain the seeds for their success.

It’s telling that when Towers Perrin wanted to quantify cost savings from CDHPs in a recent study, it found the CDHP landscape too small to do a credible survey.  PR folks at vendors or companies succeeding in CDHP’s may have a media story in that success, going against the grain of poor performance through the solutions or approach that you offer.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on May 30, 2008 at 11:12 AM
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Calling All IT Geeks

A new AHIMA study says the HCIT workforce needs to expand considerably in coming years to meet demand. The study states that while there are 108,390 HIT professionals available in the U.S. today, providers will need an additional 40,784 to support widespread EMR adoption. The 40 percent increase is because when hospitals move from having no EMR to having EMRs, they need 0.082 IT staffers per bed compared to 0.2 IT staffers per bed.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on May 23, 2008 at 9:07 AM
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Search and Destroy

A quick commercial on a new service the Agency is offering, search marketing. Search marketing is changing marketing. Google prints money from their search advertising business. It's inexpensive, effective and very measurable.

However, many companies treat search marketing as a stand-alone initiative. Figure out some keywords, search engine optimize (SEO) the site, maybe run some pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns to generate leads. Inevitably, without any strategic context, the initiative putters out.

There's another, smaller group of companies that are navigating this roadblock by tightly integrating their search marketing programs with public relations. They tap the PR team to develop messages, turn those messages into keywords, use articles and other PR content to optimize the site and blast out strategic PPC campaigns coordinated with media campaigns.

This "surround-sound" approach hits key audiences with the same messages from two of the most influential sources out there--media (both traditional and social) and Google search.

Schwartz is sitting at the crossroads of PR and search marketing. For quite a while we've been optimizing releases, providing keyword advice and even figuring out compelling offers that will convert into qualified leads.

Today, we're diving in with a full-fledged search marketing offering. We believe PR and search marketing services fit naturally together. Contact me if you'd like more info.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on May 21, 2008 at 12:05 PM
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CEOs Support Wired for Health Care Act

Today brings a guest column on healthcare quality and technology by Maria Ghazal, director of public policy with the Business Roundtable, an association of CEOs of leading U.S. companies with $4.5 trillion in annual revenues and more than 10 million employees.

Health IT Will Save Lives and Money - First We Need Policymakers to Wire Us for Health Care Quality

Imagine if every few days a passenger plane crashed while travelling across America. There would be a massive outcry over safety standards and America would want answers…the airline industry would be investigated, held accountable and would make the necessary changes to ensure air travel is as safe as possible. Shockingly, the equivalent is happening in the healthcare space and no one seems to notice. Every year as many as 98,000 people die due to preventable medical errors, the equivalent of a 747 crashing every two or three days, and yet there is no public outcry, no call for reform and no alteration to our current health care system.

This must change. I work for the Business Roundtable – an association of CEOs of leading U.S. companies such as Verizon, Aetna and General Motors – who are pushing Congress to recognize that the cost we currently pay for our outdated system, in both human lives and dollars, is unacceptable. Based on both their business experience and their insights from insuring more than 35 million Americans, Business Roundtable CEOs believe that utilizing health information technology, more commonly known as health IT, will provide better quality of care while saving money and ensuring the security of private medical information.

 

Continue reading "CEOs Support Wired for Health Care Act" »

Posted by Shawn Whalen on May 19, 2008 at 1:46 PM
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Support Your Local HCIT Events

Here in Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council’s  Healthcare/IT Summit is being held Thursday, June 5, 2008, at the Hyatt Regency in Cambridge.

Is the Consumer the next big HealthCare IT Buyer?
Opportunities & Obstacles

Thursday, June 5, 2008
8:00-11:00am Program
7:30am Registration

Register here.

According to MTLC, during the past 18 months, we've seen significant investment in patient-centric healthcare technology solutions from major IT vendors such as Microsoft (HealthVault), Google (Google Health), IBM (Center for HealthCare Management), Intel (Digital Health Group), and Apple (iPhone as healthcare platform -- Kleiner Perkins is investing $100M into companies developing new applications for the iPhone).

MTLC has convened a panel of thought leaders from the IT community to brief us on their investments and their vision for the healthcare IT market. They've also assembled a panel of healthcare CIOs and IT buyers to give their perspectives on these investments.

Participants:
- Michael Barrett, President, Critical Mass (moderator)
- Patrick Boyle, Vice President, America's Healthcare & Life Sciences, IBM
- John Halamka, CIO, Care Group/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
- Paul Mattes, Managing Director, US Health & Life Sciences, Microsoft
- Dan Nigrin, CIO, Children's Hospital
- Gary Sevounts, Senior Director, Global Healthcare Solutions, Symantec
 

Posted by Shawn Whalen on May 16, 2008 at 1:19 PM
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Care Management Thoughts

At the recent World Healthcare Congress there was much talk about health plans and care management. In the increasingly competitive payor market differentiation is important, so some insurers are looking to move beyond disease management to “care management.”  This focus on member care comes with longer term cost savings that go beyond comparatively simple utilization management.

Executing this care management beyond marketing pabulum requires a combination of new technologies, particularly in the data analytics and evidence based medicine realm, as well as more aggressive communication with members via HRAs, PHRs, clinical content and more health/wellness programs.

Some health plans are doing better than others in particular slices of the care management spectrum, but few have brought it all together in an integrated fashion. While outsourcing certain simple functions such as transaction processing remains an answer for many, the wisdom from WHCC attendees favored a holistic in-house effort to achieve care management.

The risk and reward of care management resides with both insurer and provider, as the specialized networks can gain from pay-for-performance initiatives aligned with different populations.

For the healthcare marketers, consider that the care management topic will be growing in popularity in the media. As more plans and vendors discuss care management, media will seek examples of approaches, tools and end users. This could mean a PR opportunity for you.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on May 12, 2008 at 2:55 PM
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Health Editors Talk

A quick note to healthcare marketers, PR Newswire is offering a complimentary webinar on Thursday, May 8, 1:00 pm EST, on how to pitch top health editors.
 
Panelists include:

- Valarie Basheda, Managing Editor, WebMD
- Susan Cowen, Health Tab Editor, Houston Chronicle
- Carol Gentry, Editor, Florida Health News
 
They’ll discuss:
- How health reporting has changed in recent years
- Current and future trends in health and medical reporting
- How to truly get journalists' attention
- Pitching a feature: What to do - What to avoid

Click here to register. 
 
On another topic, I wanted to applaud the Consumer Focused Healthcare blog for covering the interesting topic of medical misdiagnosis and second opinions in their interview with Evan Falchuk of Best Doctors. The interview is here.   It’s worth a listen to.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on May 7, 2008 at 9:34 AM
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Health IT Week, June 9-13

Healthcare IT marketers should be aware that Health IT Week is June 9-13 of this year.  The week will feature a number of events in Washington, DC, along with possible media attention. Vendors who are HIMSS corporate members can become partners for free in Health IT Week, which means your logo gets to be on the Health IT Week Web site and you can leverage the Week for your own marketing purposes.

Following is more information on Health IT Week.

Continue reading "Health IT Week, June 9-13" »

Posted by Shawn Whalen on May 6, 2008 at 3:57 PM
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