MedTouch Blog – Making Healthcare Interactive

ALL DAY CONFERENCE: Weds October 28th

Just because travel budgets are tight doesn’t mean you shouldn’t miss out.  Together with NESHCo, MedTouch brings you its first virtual conference.

Join us for a full day of topics that are hot on everyone’s mind right now. We’ll bring you all the goods on social media, search marketing, quality and transparency and we’ll cap it off with our finale session jam packed with information on making it all happen in the current recession.

Date: Wednesday, October 28
Time: 9:30 am -3:30 pm

Technical Needs: Just a computer and a phone

Cost: Pick one session, two sessions or stay all day. All for one low price.

$59 per log in for NESHCo members
$79 per log in for non members

Speical: $59 for everyone — use discount code MedTouch when registering.

Register: Click here.

Schedule at a Glance

Session Descriptions

9:30-10:45 am The Convergence of Healthcare and Social Media

Social media continues to be a hot topic but it can be overwhelming to determine what your organization wants to be in this social media world. Kel Kelly from Kel & Partners will begin with a Web 2.0 overview to offer a road map for social media strategy — everything from what social media is, why you should care and how you can get started. Then there will be a panel discussion of strategies for hospitals that want to harness the power of social technologies like blogs, social networks and YouTube. The panelists will discuss how to integrate social media into your communications plan through the review of case studies and dos and don’ts.

11:00 am-12:15 pm How Search Engines Continue to Transform Consumer ExpectationsWith 80% of Americans searching for health info online, search engines are influencing the healthcare conversation like never before.  This session will review the latest research on the intersection of health and search, explore why consumers are increasingly turning to online resources, and discuss how healthcare organizations can swim upstream to get out in front of key issues, such as quality ratings.  We will also offer tactical opportunities of reaching into the clickstream of search traffic and finding local consumers to you as well as how to pick battles you can win!

12:45-2:00 pm The Quality Mantra in Health Care

Quality has become a “mantra” in the health care field.  A great deal of time, effort and expense is being spent by provider executives on improving quality, measuring quality – and using quality as a comparative differentiator.  This strategic emphasis is creating marketing challenges for provider executives.  The rise of pay-for-performance and transparency initiatives has placed acute pressure on hospitals to track and elevate performance on a whole host of quality metrics.  In this presentation, we will review the quality movement and its implications for marketing and competitive strategy. We will also provide a few best-in-class examples of communicating care quality and leveraging transparency through external advertising, public relations, and community outreach efforts.  We will examine different ways providers use price as a marketing strategy including the pro’s and con’s of different approaches.  Finally, we will provide case examples of where quality and public quality ratings were used successfully as part of a marketing strategy – and where those efforts failed to achieve desired goals.

2:15-3:30 pm Marketing in Tough Economic Times

Research shows that recessions trigger rapid changes in market share – and those changes benefit marketers who sustain their media budgets during the downturn. The temptation may be to hold off on spending until the economy begins to revive but rather it’s time to keep your organization in the forefront of your consumers. So how do you make more out of your marketing and public relations efforts in these tough economic times? This panel will discuss marketing tactics during a recession, grassroots marketing efforts and making the most of free PR and media relations.