Yesterday I had a pleasure to participate in a panel on "Engaging New Media", hosted by PRSA Health Academy.

The audience consisted mostly of marketing people from hospitals, health plans, biotechs as well as from PR agencies. By the dearth of institutional presence in healthcare blogosphere you might think this group of people would not be very familiar with, open to or serious about getting involved into blogs and social media.

But I was very pleasantly surprised!

To kick off the panel, Paul Costello, who is Executive Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Stanford University Medical Center, asked how many of the attendees considered themselves pros in "New Media". No hands went up. Next question - who considers themselves totally new to the field? Still no hands.

One could interpret this as reluctance to acknowledge novice status, but the smart questions from the audience showed that is not the case. My assessment is that healthcare PR professionals are acutely aware about "open media", are actively trying to figure out what to do about it, but few if any have a complete game plan in place. There is a natural progression of involvement here:

• Lurk: Start reading and monitoring blogs
• Engage: Reach out to bloggers, directly or via commenting
• Create: Establish permanent open media presence

Most are still at "Lurk" or "Engage" phases, but seem to be keen on moving forward!

Now let me give a quick summary of the perspectives of my fellow panelists (top of my memory):

• Matthew Holt: Health care strategist and author, The Health Care Blog
  Matthew largely shared my perspective, though talking in greater length about the role of blogs in policy debate and being a bit more skeptical about the pace of change blogs will cause. He is known to be somewhat of a skeptic :)
• Amy Hughes: Healthcare PR manager, Cisco Systems, Inc.
  Technology companies are of course deeper in new media than healthcare counterparts. This makes their healthcare PR groups New Media pioneers. But even at Cisco they still do not yet have a healthcare blog, though they are active in outreach [NOTE: Cisco does have non-healthcare blogs].
• Dr. Harold Itskovitz, MD: Medical doctor that trains seniors on deciphering information from the Internet
  Dr. Itskovitz represented the voice of caution, speaking out for the need to ensure healthcare information trust and integrity. Yet it was very telling that his horror story example was not about a blog but Mayo Clinic! So much for trusted authority.
• Paul Costello: Executive director, communications and public affairs, Stanford University Medical Center
  As moderator, Paul did a great job making sure all key issues get covered and shared a very telling example about a recent controversy at Stanford Medical that could have been avoided if they had a blog and got the information out in time.

I did my usual thing pretty much reiterating the key points you can find on this blog. What was quite telling is that my talk about the world changing did not seem to put off or disturb the audience - as I oftentimes ran into over the last year. The attendees seemed to have been in pragmatic mood about how to ride the new wave.

Of course, it is a long road from taking the first step to becoming truly effective in the New Media. But help is on the way. And did I mention the Healthcare Blogging Summit 2006 :)

Last but not least, among the audience there was Amy Tenderich of Diabetes Mine fame to whom we referred quite a few questions. She should have been on the panel, since it is the patient bloggers who will drive the most profound change in the system!

Finally, I want to thank Weber Shandwick Worldwide and Jack Morton for sponsoring, hosting and inviting!