Author Archive
Pain Free Physician Directories
Friday, September 4th, 2009
MedTouch Summer Webinar Series: Free Healthcare Webinars
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
Travel budget cut? No problem. We’re bringing you a summer full of the best educational content available. The best part? It’s all free. Think of it as a staycation for your mind.
#1: Turn Traffic Into Appointments
Why Search Matters
With 80% of the American population performing healthcare research online, web marketing has gone mainstream. Search engines offer an unprecedented opportunity to reach people looking for services your healthcare organizations provides. By analyzing and increasing your search traffic, you can improve your organization’s profile online while driving transactions. This forty-five minute webinar is perfect for anyone struggle to keep up with their changes in search traffic and results.
Register: Wed, Jul 8 2pm EST | 1pm CST | Noon MST | 11am PST
Register: Thurs, Jul 9 Noon EST | 11am CST | 10am MST | 9am PST
#2: Best Practices in Social Media
A Research Update
As of June, 250 hospitals in the US are using social media. But to what purpose? And how are they measuring results? This presentation – based on careful research rather than opinion – will highlight the best tool for healthcare organizations to generate traffic, what media children’s hospitals can exploit better than anyone else, and why crisis communications is a 24×7 job in a completely new way. You’ll also learn why senior leaders demand ROI for these projects, how to provide it to them before asking for funding, and how this will dramatically change your staffing needs.
Register: Tue, Jul 14 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
Register: Weds, Jul 15 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
#3: The Good, the Bad, the Very Ugly
An Introduction to the Specific Challenges of Healthcare Website Design
Designing and reorganizing a website for a healthcare organization involves overcoming specific brand, organizational, and technical requirements. In this insightful webinar lead by our own Interactive Developer, you will come to appreciate the three essential principles of good web design, understand how to work within and around organizational barriers, and deliver a successful, attractive, and useful project.
Register: Tue, Jul 21 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
Register: Weds, Jul 22 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
Register: Weds, Jul 22 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
#4: The Future is Closer than You Think
Why Your Organization Needs a Strategic Plan for Your Website and What You Can Do About It
Why Your Organization Needs a Strategic Plan for Your Website and What You Can Do About It
Most healthcare organizations have five year strategic marketing plans, but few have comprehensive, goal-oriented, multi-year plans for the web. Despite the rapidly changing technology, it is to possible to have a true Internet strategy and develop a road map that delivers measurable value to your organization. Come hear about how several MedTouch clients have used this process to unearth opportunities and deliver highly visible results to the organization.
Register: Tue, Jul 28 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
Register: Weds, Jul 29 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
#5: How to Run a Successful Bid Process
The Art and Science of Writing Excellent Web RFPs
If you’re going to issue an RFP in the next few months, you need to attend this webinar. In just forty-five minutes you’ll learn the six mistakes nearly every RFP writer makes and how to avoid them. More than that, we’ll share with you how to finesse the best RFP possible out of your organization, how to run the process with minimal time and maximum result, and why you should or shouldn’t hire an outside consultant to manage the process.
Register: Tue, Aug 4 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
Register: Weds, Aug 5 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
#6: One, Large Television
Why Web Videos Matter More than Ever
The web is a screen-based medium, not a word-based medium. With the advent of broadband Internet access, the way people access information has fundamentally changed. YouTube is the second most popular search engine, eclipsing Yahoo in recent months for Internet searches. For hospitals in particular, online videos provide a mechanism for reaching and engaging their communities in novel ways. This webinar will outline why videos matter more than ever, illustrate best practices in healthcare, and propose four concrete steps you can take to take your Internet presence to the next level.
Register: Tue, Aug 11 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
Register: Weds, Aug 12 3pm EST | 2pm CST | 1pm MST | Noon PST
Fastest Growing Metro Areas: How will Healthcare be impacted?
Friday, June 5th, 2009Raleigh, Provo UT, and Fort Myers are going to double in size in the next 15 years.
New York, LA, and Chicago — the 1, 2, 3 of largest metros — are only going to grow by 10%.
Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta (4, 5, and 6) will grow about 50%.
As the Boomers retire to warm weather states, the change and impact to healthcare delivery services will be two fold. First, end-of-life care in these metro areas will boom, which has mixed financial results. Second, the migration of Boomers out of other (Northern/Mid-West) cities will reduce the baseline procedures that most healthcare systems rely on to stay in the black. (Heart, ortho, neuro, cancer, and peds/OBGYN.)
This suggests that we’ll see a clear two-tier health system emerge in the most rapidly growing cities — new buildings, new technology, new delivery mechanisms but likely only for those who can pay for it.
Speaking at AMA Houston Tomorrow: Direct Marketing to Physicians
Thursday, June 4th, 2009Our own Matthew Dillingham will be speaking at the AMA Houston event tomorrow, “Direct Marketing to Physicians.”
Here’s more about the event. You can still sign-up at the door!
How do you break through the 200 marketing messages physicians receive each day?
At our June Healthcare SIG meeting, a panel of four experts will discuss the challenge of getting your message to physicians. They’ll describe the use of on-line and in-person tools and techniques to reach physicians. Hear directly from a pharmaceutical representative about how best to capture the interest and attention of busy physicians. Learn tips and techniques to help you develop more effective direct-to-physician programs.
Program Format
Each expert will provide a 15-minute presentation that is followed by a panel discussion with audience participation in the form of questions and answers. The discussion will be moderated by Vickie Alleman, a former healthcare marketer and author, with more than 20 years experience in marketing to physicians.
Attendees Will Learn:
- What’s new in on-line marketing to physicians
- How to utilize social media and mobile technology for business communication
- How to get to the decision maker; meeting with physicians and clinical staff
- The use of old fashioned grass roots marketing efforts
Panel
Mathew Dillingham – MedTouch
VP, Client Services and StrategiesAlicia Garza – Pharma Representative and Trainer
Anna Dragsbaek – Houston Area Immunization Partnership, Executive Director
Julie Chance – Strategies by Design
Healthcare Relationship Building Coach
Well Tumbl’ed: Excerpts
Thursday, February 26th, 2009Will the effort to reduce health care costs by comparing treatments ultimately undermine the relationship between doctors and patients?
Requiring hospitals to adopt electronic medical records would reduce their own costs for treating Medicare patients. But for the government to capture the savings, it would in turn have to reduce what it pays the hospitals.
Social media adoption is going up for all generations, said Mr. Owyang. The fact that boomers are increasingly using these tools is a clear indication that it’s not just a fad, he said.
Of the demographics Forrester tracks, the gracefully aging segment is the largest — a hefty 100 million consumers in the United States. That’s billions each year spent on travel, cars, gadgets and more. But the trick for advertisers hoping to attract older consumers, Mr. Owyang said, is to engage them in a way that isn’t too complicated or requires an excessive amount of effort.
MedTouch Appoints New Director of Interactive in its Growing Houston Office
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009MedTouch, the Online Marketing Experts for Health Care, Continues to Deepen its In-House Expertise with a New Senior Appointment
HOUSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–MedTouch, the leader in transforming healthcare organizations online, announced that Christina Brinch Clark has joined the Houston office of the firm as Director of Interactive.
Ms. Clark comes to MedTouch from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, where she served as Program Manager, Web Content for the world’s premier cancer center. During her tenure, Ms. Clark oversaw the Internet Services content team and supported the institution’s public and private websites, which consisting of over 15,000 pages and generating nearly 25 million views a year.
“Having worked inside of one of the world’s best healthcare institutions, I am eager to help all of our clients surpass their goals,” said Clark. “I am excited by the vision of progress MedTouch embodies and working alongside our clients to make that a reality.”
In her new role, Ms. Clark will work to ensure clients take their existing sites to the next level, cost-effectively managing their content, developing online communities, and extending into the social networking arena.
“We’re fortunate to be growing in this climate and hiring Christina is the latest example of our ongoing commitment to providing the highest possible level of industry expertise and client service,” said Paul Griffiths, CEO of MedTouch. “As healthcare organizations wonder how to take the next step in online marketing beyond simply having a website, we have a wider array of services to offer.”
President Obama: “We Must Address the Crushing Cost of Health Care.”
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009Text from President Obama’s Address to Congress:
…We must also address the crushing cost of health care.
This is a cost that now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds. By the end of the year, it could cause 1.5 million Americans to lose their homes. In the last eight years, premiums have grown four times faster than wages. And in each of these years, one million more Americans have lost their health insurance. It is one of the major reasons why small businesses close their doors and corporations ship jobs overseas. And it’s one of the largest and fastest-growing parts of our budget.
Given these facts, we can no longer afford to put health care reform on hold.
Already, we have done more to advance the cause of health care reform in the last thirty days than we have in the last decade. When it was days old, this Congress passed a law to provide and protect health insurance for eleven million American children whose parents work full-time. Our recovery plan will invest in electronic health records and new technology that will reduce errors, bring down costs, ensure privacy, and save lives. It will launch a new effort to conquer a disease that has touched the life of nearly every American by seeking a cure for cancer in our time. And it makes the largest investment ever in preventive care, because that is one of the best ways to keep our people healthy and our costs under control.
This budget builds on these reforms. It includes an historic commitment to comprehensive health care reform – a down-payment on the principle that we must have quality, affordable health care for every American. It’s a commitment that’s paid for in part by efficiencies in our system that are long overdue. And it’s a step we must take if we hope to bring down our deficit in the years to come.
Now, there will be many different opinions and ideas about how to achieve reform, and that is why I’m bringing together businesses and workers, doctors and health care providers, Democrats and Republicans to begin work on this issue next week.
I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year.
Inauguration Day
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009We’re streaming CNN.com at our offices! Back to regular blogging soon!