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Kudos to the NY Times for an engaging piece about infertility.  With bright, compelling photos of the women in their homes and an audio accompanyment, it’s remarkable how well the piece works online.  After all, aren’t they a newspaper?

This is exactly the kind of content health consumers want to read — real stories, decisions, and backgrounds of people making healthcare decisions.  How easy would it be for your hospital to do this?

I was fascinated by this article about the challenges of healthcare content startups. No so much about why such companies exist, but in hearing about how the general market views “patients” and “consumers” and what implications that has for healthcare institutions.

After an afternoon discussing the challenges of establishing a health content startup, the final panel at EconHealth got to deals: who’s buying and who’s investing in what. ContentNext publisher Rafat Ali moderated a discussion among a group of dealmakers, from the perspective of investors, bankers and would-be buyers.

– Interest areas: Esther Dyson: “The way I divide the market is into the arms merchants and the establishment… what’s been missing: there’s been professional content and there’s user generated content, which may or may not be valuable or reliable… and then the third thing is the content about the users.” It’s the third thing that’s exciting to Dyson, who is an investor in 23andMe, the know-your-own-genes startup. “I think it’s this area that’s so exciting… Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is really, really well positioned, as is Google.” With all these things, there’s a question on whether users are aware of these new tools. Morris R. Levitt, Managing Director-Life Sciences, Desilva+Phillips, noted that the big buyers of these startups are either PE-backed platforms or major consumer media firms, like MSO. The problem: “When I listen to a lot of these specialty things, I find that a very low percentage of things are of interest to these organizations.” Most of them aren’t up to scale. Women are particularly valuable, since in many households, said Levitt: “women are the chief medical officers.”

I know many hospital CMOs who might bristle at the last conclusion, but it underscores a complete lack of thinking about providers in this conversation. Are we the only company in the US who is looking at the issue this way?

Follow the link for more above.

My wife and I have been watching the latest wave of reality TV shows — Oprah’s Big Give, etc. — and I thought, with all the new rankings of hospitals and physicians out there, perhaps we could combine the two.

I title it “America’s Next Top Surgeon” and it would go something like this.

We pick 10 nationally ranked surgeons (thanks, Castle Connolly) and run them through a series of surgery-related challenges — Surprise! Today you’re a nurse; Surprise! Today you operate without lighting! — while judges look on and score the results: “When you told that family their terminally ill father wasn’t going to make it, I just didn’t feel the sincerity I’d hoped to.”

For judges, I’m thinking Steve Case from Revolution Health, Kerry Hicks from HealthGrades, and maybe Randy Jackson from American Idol since he had gastric bypass surgery. (”That closing technique was off the hook, dawg!”)

At the end of every episode, one surgeon would be excised from the show: “I’m sorry doctor, it’s time to hang up your scrubs.”

The winner would get a 64-CT scanner, da Vinci robot, and a Gamma Knife.

ABC, CBS — give me a call. We’re talking at least 13 share points.

From our sister blog, adamcontent.com, is this post about what consumers actually want.  (Hint: It’s not 64-ct scanners.)

http://adamcontent.com/hospital-patients-want-convenience/