July 2008

PR Plug

A quick plug today for some of the great work that our healthcare IT practice has been doing here at Schwartz.

The new iPhone 3G has provided great guerilla PR opportunities for consumer medical software clients who’ve developed apps for the phone.  ePocrates, an early partner of Apple and one of the first to use the SDK, was featured in the Wall Street Journal’s iPhone piece the day of the launch on July 11.  Healthcare content company A.D.A.M. developed the Symptom Navigator for iPhone, which was written about in the New York Times “Phone Smart” column, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, PC World, and dozens of trades and blogs.

This month’s launch of American Well, the online healthcare marketplace, garnered coverage in USA Today, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, and many trade media and online outlets.

I’d be happy to talk with any healthcare IT PR practitioners on how we went about these campaigns.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on July 29, 2008 at 11:26 AM
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Putting Money Where Their Mouth Is

I don’t write too much about government bills and initiatives for healthcare IT, because it’s just so much hot air until a bill passes or money is ponied up. However it is worth mentioning that Health & Human Services’ Secretary Mike Leavitt announced 12 communities that will participate in a national Medicare demonstration project that provides incentive payments to physicians for using CCHIT-certified electronic EHRs to improve the quality of patient care. The five-year project is expected to improve the quality of care provided to an estimated 3.6 million people.

Chosen among a field of more than 30 applicants, the communities selected include Alabama, Delaware, Jacksonville, Fla., Georgia, Maine, Louisiana, Maryland/Washington, DC, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Pa., South Dakota, Virginia and Madison, Wis.

Financial incentives will be provided to as many as 1,200 primary care physician practices in the selected communities that use certified EHRs to improve quality as measured by their performance on specific clinical quality measures. Total payments under the demonstration for all five years may be up to $58,000 per physician, or $290,000 per practice.

If you are a PR practitioner for one of the EHR vendors who have participating doctors in these communities, it’s a good opportunity to leverage the project. Promote to the media how your EHR solution is helping move the country toward the National Health Information Infrastructure. Demonstrate the ROI and payment incentives your software is delivering to your customers in the form of a case study pitched to the healthcare IT trades and local media. Encourage trend stories on the project which could include your customer reference. For more ideas, feel free to contact me.

 

Posted by Shawn Whalen on July 22, 2008 at 11:13 AM
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Analyze This

Continuing My Occasional Series on PR Strategy and Tactics

Today I step away from the usual healthcare IT issue discussion to explore analyst relations (AR). As I’ve mentioned before, Gartner, Forrester and Health Industry Insights (see links in Blog Roll section) are the big three, followed by boutiques such as Datamonitor, Frost & Sullivan, AC Group, HIMSS Analytics, Manhattan Research and some others.

Forrester’s recent AR e-newsletter (subscription available for free on their site) has some interesting insights worth sharing: “Big AR teams can obviously undertake more work than small ones, but all AR teams, regardless of size, must still use skillful management if they are to achieve their aims. For example, a Forrester survey shows that bigger teams reach out to more analysts and generate more analyst-driven marketing collateral, but achievement of targets for analyst evaluation leaderships, and other positive print, does not come easier as teams get bigger. Meanwhile, single-person teams, which make up more than one-third of global teams and more than half of regional teams, have an additional challenge -- fragility -- because their very survival is at stake.”

“Although most AR teams report through corporate communications or the chief marketing officer (CMO), many drift aimlessly before they get there. Along the way, other bosses exert their self-interest and expect a greater contribution to sales -- even though this is very tough in practice. AR managers can simplify their tenure and maximize the chances of personal success by assessing the pros and cons of each reporting line and migrating AR to either corporate communications or the CMO in a controlled fashion. Once there, they'll find less pressure to deliver sales contribution, which need not mean they avoid it altogether; instead, they can choose the best time to use sales contribution to demonstrate over-delivery against easier targets.”

Posted by Shawn Whalen on July 19, 2008 at 11:34 AM
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Dialing Health

There has been much hoopla over the new iPhone 3G.  As we all know, healthcare is one of the most popular topics among consumers, and new iPhone enables consumers to access many new healthcare applications. One of the more interesting ones is the A.D.A.M. Symptom Navigator.

The Symptom Navigator, which is free, matches medical symptoms with relevant assessments and appropriate treatments. Consumers are presented with an image of the human body and they click on the affected area of the body to receive a menu of related symptoms. After selecting a symptom, the user is walked through the possible causes, home care, when to consult your doctor, and what to expect from your doctor.

Healthcare IT PR pros with applications for the iPhone should consider promoting them to the media in trend stories on healthcare apps. When you have referenceable doctor or consumer customers for the app, consider case study pitching.

 

Posted by Shawn Whalen on July 15, 2008 at 12:59 PM
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Doctor.com

The latest twist on telemedicine came last week from yet another online care virtual consultation launch, this time TalktoaDoc.  Much like American Well’s launch a few week’s ago, TalktoaDoc combines VoiP-based video, voice and text to enable patients to consult real-time with docs.  Variations on this theme include MDwebLive, ConsultaDoctor, Teledoc, OrganizedWisdom Health and others.

Fees vary to the services. TalktoaDoc charges $2.98 per minute after the first minute.  Physicians receive 55 percent of the fees charged to the patient. American Well works through the health plan (at this point, Hawaii’s Blue Cross Blue Shield.)

It will take six to eight years for such services to reach any critical mass, based on how much money health plans think they can make. Payors, as they are doing with PHRs, will power adoption slowly but surely.  RelayHealth for example is working with heavy weight Aetna for e-mail consultation systems and reimbursements. These early tests and ROI analysis will fuel future growth in the more sophisticated online systems.

Posted by Shawn Whalen on July 11, 2008 at 11:12 AM
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Blue PHRs

Locally here in Massachusetts Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts partnered with Google Health to enable members to import their claims data into their Google Health profile.  BCBSMA says that members with Google Health PHRs will be able to share data with healthcare providers who currently don't have access to their data.  Also, they can download medical records and prescription history from other connected providers.

This move echoes my past sentiment that it will be the health plans who make PHR adoption a reality.  Prepopulation of data is key. Witness the success of ActivePHR. Otherwise PHRs will go nowhere except for those individuals highly motivated via medical condition.

Continue reading "Blue PHRs" »

Posted by Shawn Whalen on July 7, 2008 at 4:52 PM
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Quit Your Whining

Kudos to the North Carolina Medical Board for wanting to post doctors' malpractice information on its Web site. And thumbs down on the state’s physician association for opposing it, claiming it could be misleading.

The Better Business Bureau has long served a role in helping consumers make decisions about what vendors they should use. The public is intelligent enough to understand the context and weight for individual plans.  Egotistical doctors don’t think so however.

Actual malpractice payment amounts or patient names aren’t disclosed, according to the article in the Raleigh News & Observer. The Web site would note that malpractice payments don't always suggest negligence, and that some specialties draw more lawsuits.  North Carolina says that about four percent of the state’s doctors are on the malpractice list.

Doctors need to face the inevitable tide of quality and cost transparency. They are vendors like everyone else. North Carolina is the 23rd state to disclose medical practice information.

Continue reading "Quit Your Whining" »

Posted by Shawn Whalen on July 2, 2008 at 10:43 AM
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