Not unlike the grass root movement of the '60's hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets. This time it is the virtual streets of social media where  the raw voices of people are fighting their battle. This time the cause is healthCARE.

The Questions: What would you do if you were charged with developing a national healthcare policy that could impact millions of people? How would you involve citizens, the healthcare community and other stakeholders to ensure that their ideas and questions were heard and discussed? That was the challenge facing the Health and Human Services Department as it prepared for an important Leadership Forum on pandemic preparedness.

Those little search spiders sure do love indexing blog posts. With fresh content, HTML codes and relevant inbound links blogs & search engines go together like waiting rooms and 5 year old Reader Digests (only kidding!). The result is that blogs frequently rise about traditional websites like in Google, Yahoo! and MSN in rankings. As of 3-27-07 Technorati (a search engine that tracks blogs and pages with RSS feeds) was monitoring 72.7 million blogs.

What happens when the search is for something more serious than pet care or Anna Nicole Smith or even healthcare marketing information? What happens when you are searching for medical healthcare information? Do you click on a blog or on a website? How do you determine the trustworthiness of the information?

Fard Johnmar, Envision Solutions was curious too. He wanted answers to two questions:

Social media marketing is more than creating a blog, taping a podcast or a filming a vlog. It is a "relationship marketing" philosophy that has its roots in 360 degree branding and moments of truth where each customer touch point reinforces building trusted relationships with your customers/patients. 

AstraZenca gets it. And in a print ad. My favorite lines -  "We'll be the first to admit we don't have all the answers. But as a pharmaceutical company, we recognize that when you trust us to help you, we feel we owe you the same trust in return." The ad is tagged: "Healthcare for people. Imagine that."

To me this implies mutual respect. Good marketing does not = customer manipulation. With its content rich website, AZandME.com, the company reinforces its positioning. - "This web site, AZ&Me, is our first step toward realizing our goal of creating a more personal, more positive healthcare experience. Are we there yet? Certainly not we've only just begun. What we are wondering now is, where do we go from here?"

AstraZeneca, glad you asked. You've taken the first steps in understanding that the new world of marketing means creating trusted relationships with customers/patients. How about a step into social media tactics with a blog or a series of podcasts or a vlog program that bring your static web content to life? Need a few ideas on how to make it happen? Attend the Medical Blog Network Healthcare Summit next April. (wink)

Let's take a tip from AstraZeneca. As you develop your marketing plan for 2007, consider what you can do to ensure that your customers/patients know that you trust and respect them. So very bloggy!

Fard Johnmar, Healtcare Vox, pulls no punches in his new Free eBook, Envision Solutions E-book: From Command & Control To Engage & Encourage: A New Healthcare Communications Strategy For A Social Media World. He kicks off his theories with a powerful statement.

The healthcare industry will have no choice but to engage and develop social media if it is interested in helping people find accurate and helpful information online.

Nick Jacobs, President and CEO of Windber Medical Center & Winder Research Institute is not a risk taker.

Oh sure, he was the first hospital admistrator to launch a blog. Oh sure, he believes that the healthcare system (or facility) should *not* be built for the convenience of employees or physicans. Oh sure employees who didn't get it have been kindly shown the door. Oh sure, his work in healthcare is perceived as innovative.

Perhaps some people would consider Nick Jacobs a risk take. But Nick Jacobs simply thinks of himself as a guy who has taken the road less traveled .. and that has made all the difference to the lucky people who have come into contact with him and with Windber Medical Center.
 
Toby Bloomberg: There is a debate in the healthcare industry on the "word" to use for people who are in need of medical attention. Patient or Customer. At Windber Medical Center what do you call the people who come to you for care? How is that reflected in the way WMC's cares for and services those "people"?

To the regular readers of The Medical Blog Network, I'm sure I'm talking to the choir when I say healthcare marketing is changing. Words like branding, segmentation, advertising and promotion have slowly crept into the vocabularies of administrators and even docs and nurses. 

In a world of thought exchange words are important. When a physician gives advice she/he he understands the specific words, along with tonality, are critical in helping the person comprehend the situation at hand. Words are powerful. They can help heal or they can inflict greater pain. 

I have two  questions for healthcare providers.

One: Who is your patient?

Two: Who is the decision maker and/or key influencer?

Frequently the answers to those questions are not the same person. Chances are the person making the decison and/or a key influencer is a woman. A mother. A daughter. A wife. A granddaughter. A niece.

The U.S. Department of Labor reports that women make three-quarters of health care decisions for their families and are more likely to be the care givers when a family member falls ill.

First, let me set the record straight, I believe that RSS (Real Simple Syndication) will become an important communication channel for marketers to reach customers and stakeholders. Quickly. Efficiently. Easily. However, I do have some concerns about the impact RSS might have on obtaining strategic marketing objectives.

How will reading your content only in a news reader (a la Bloglines) influence a prospective patient or customer who never clicks into the more robust environment of your website? 

Bill boards/outdoor. Radio ads. Print ads. Healthcare fairs. Brochures.  Word-of-mouth. Direct mail. Websites. eMail. Blogs. How
do your patients find out about your services? Once they do, what
is their decision process to select your practice or facility? How much of this process can you and do you influence?