Driving In Traffic

It is with a great Hoorah! that I’m excited to announce that Our Pal’s Place: Promoting the Adoption Option blog is up and going.

For those of you who don’t know, I am on the board of Our Pal’s Place, a no-kill animal shelter and education center in Metro Atlanta. My focus within the organization has morphed a bit since our first meetings almost 4 years ago. Now, my job is to develop a development and marketing strategy. I for the last 7 or 8 months I’ve been a big yapper about the role of blogs in our organization. The road to this day has been quite intriquing.

In the beginning, there was some skepticsm about blogs because of an experience that some of our board members had after they went to New Orleans for Katrina animal rescue efforts. At that time, a few bloggers drew them into a fire fight by highlighting some of the events that had occurred. Subsequently, they did not want our blog to be an organizational firestorm.

However as we have taken small steps, many of my colleagues have taken the time to learn a little bit about blogs and to visit and read a couple. The biggest winning features of blogs was that it was a way to keep people informed without having to constantly e-mail people. The idea that people could subscribe to feeds and get information on demand and in a preferred format was quite appealing to folks who got tons of e-mail for work.

We’re still working on some of the technical stuff. We decided to use wordpress due to cost issues as well as the ability to interface it with our domain. I use wordpress here so I was familiar with making edits to the template, but I’ve had to have help with some of the coding and permissions. Thankfully our web guy is a great friend, knowledgable, and has suffered me well. There is some tinkering to do, but I’m feeling ok about what we’ve got up now.

So for those of you who would like to offer some constructive tips, please drop by the OPP blog and come back here to leave me a comment on how to make it better.

Gracias Senors and Senoras-

A few months ago I wrote about Healia.com a health search engine: Here and Here I spoke with Tom Eng and Craig Husa about the thoughts behind the development of Healia.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Tom stating that they have worked out a number of the kinks in Beta and will be launching Healia to the public on Monday, September 18th.

Tom says that they have made several improvements in this latest version. They include:

• We have enhanced the accuracy and performance of our filtering algorithms
• We are offering additional filters to allow people to filter by the topic of the document when they submit a disease or drug-related search (Try searching on a disease and rug name to see how they are handled differently)
• We provide a “Suggested Result” from a reference site for disease and drug-related searches
• We detect and provide expanded equivalents to common medical abbreviations and acronyms (try searching on ACL or CVD for example)

Now I’ve used Healia a good bit since discovering it and have noticed a few good improvements since my last review.

1. They have enhanced the color scheme a bit. The colored tabs and sidebars are visually helpful and the color choices are pleasant.
2. They have added an “attributes” footer to each of the results. I find the reading level notations helpful. However, I’m not quite sure what some of the other notations (”privacy policy”, “For text browsers”) means.
3. The tabs do help to well categorize the results. This will definitely cut some time off of researching.

However, I still wish that when you clicked on a result that it opened it up in a separate window. I have on several occaisions exited out of a window and had to go and search for the same topic again. I’m afraid this will eventually lead to people navigating away from Healia and opting out for using whatever search engine has been loaded in their toolbar.

Oh guys… do you have any plans for a Firefox Add-on? Boy that would be great and I would quit griping about opening results in a separate window.

Oh yeah… a whizzy Healia Search widget that can be added to blogs and small practice websites would be great too. I know it would get my Blogging Doc off my back as he asks me weekly about how he can add it to his blog.

Anyway, for those of you dropping by DIT– steer on over and give the new and improved Healia a spin.

Tags: Healia, Tom Eng, search engine, health information

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There is an event to be held On October 6, 2006 here in Atlanta called “Laugh and a Glass”. It will benefit the Reaching Out Foundation who provide assistance to individuals and families with cystic fibrosis.

The event will feature improv by Dad’s Garage, dessert, drinks and live music. Click here to learn more or purchase tickets.

Also check out my post that includes the whole story about how I learned of this great event and organization.

Today, I stood in the same place that I learned about and watched on TV the terrible events of 5 years ago. Somehow I was transported back to that place in time where all I really wanted was for the world to just stop– not come to an end kind of stop, but a a kind of stop that would prevent any more malice or evil. I suppose somehow I naively thought that if it stopped then the evil would pass, just like a bad mood, and we could all go on about our lives.

I did not know anyone lost that day. I honestly cannot imagine what it is like for those of you who did. That day was so surreal to me. Yet for those who lost someone, I cant imagine how their souls screamed that day.

5 years later, I sit astounded at the changes that have occurred in our thinking and in the conduct of our day to day lives. I also sit here pretty pissed off at the planners and their minions and of how they robbed our children of their innocence on that day. Its ok to take mine, but I really want more for the next generation.

I also sit here thankful. Thankful that the kind human spirit can never be quelled or squelched by malice and hatred. Cause when bad things happen, we all have the choice to be transformed in good ways by tragedy. We sure as hell don’t have to like it, but as my grandmother always said, “You can handle it well or handle it poorly. Either way, you are going to have to handle it.”

For me, that day reintroduced me to my priorities and values that I had lost touch of with the complacency and noise of life. The days and years that have followed have set me on a path toward trying to keep them in the forefront of my life every day.

The 2996 Project asked bloggers to remember the victims of 9/11. I learned of the project too late to participate. However, please take a moment to read a few of the posts. Remember the person that died that day and please say a prayer, send good thoughts or think of kindly in your heart their family, their friends and their communities.

Dennis F. Levell is remembered at Health Psych

Amy O’Doherty is remembered at Spare Change

Karen Helene Schmidt is remembered at The Zero Boss

Chris Michael Kirby is remembered at Miss Kelly

Barbara A Shaw is remembered by Rhondi Adamson

Thomas J Kennedy is remembered by Issa’s World

Lisa Frost is remembered by The Holding Pattern

Never Forget!

tags: 2996 9/11,

This week has been a blur of things that needed my attention. Subsequently, I have been a bit of a procrastinator on writing this post. It’s not that I don’t care about the issue. Its just that I wanted to make sure I had the time to write a proper post.

Last week I chimed in on the discussion (key posts: here, here, here, here, and here– be sure to read the comments too) in the blogosphere on JupiterResearch usurping the term “Social Marketing” to describe a new business line that focuses on giving advice about marketing thru consumer generated content, such as, blogs, podcasts, myspace, and other emerging social media tools.

After thinking about it and realizing that Fard Johnmar was right “Clarity is King”, I wrote Nedra at Spare Change a short e-mail as I was headed out the door for Labor Day festivities suggesting that a chart be crafted to illuminate others about the differences between the two versions of “social marketing”. And while I was frolicking on Labor Day break, Nedra was hard at work crafting this chart and creating quite a lively discussion about the differences between the two versions of social marketing.

Here are my thoughts on the whole issue:

When one looks at the big picture, most would agree that the practice and discipline of marketing is changing because of the emergence of blogs, myspace and other social media tools. This fundamental change or expansion of how products, services and brands are promoted is more about method (aka using Web 2.0 technologies) rather than philosophy and theories that provide the foundation for the discipline of marketing. I am convinced that corporate marketers and those marketing for the adoption of healthy behaviors or for a cause will be more successful if they make efforts to understand and capitalize on influence of social media tools.

To date, the term Social Marketing has been adequate to describe the branch of the discipline of Marketing that is concerned with changing health behaviors and promoting change to address specific social concerns and ailments. This, in my view, was because we lacked the tools and resources to create global and profound changes. The most successful campaigns have been those that utilized expensive TV commercial marketing during prime time– The Crying Native American Man for stopping littering still resonates with me. Not every cause has the resources to undertake this sort of campaign to change behavior and there are places in the world that people did not have TVs or electricity. Eventhough not everyone has a computer and some still do not have a steady supply of electricity, the affordability and penetration of these enabling Web 2.0 technologies make them widely accessible and used by a huge group of people. So much so, not participating is beginning to signal the death knell for certain nonprofits and causes.

Some have argued that the traditional notion of Social Marketing has lost its umph because the emergence of social media has muddied the semantic waters. To a certain extent, I agree. Others trivialize Social Marketing because, to date, its successes have come in under the radar when compared with the long touted product campaigns of Nike and Apple. With the emergence of the CDC’s National Center for Health Marketing and the organized push they are about to embark upon to meet the goals of HealthyPeople 2010, things are about to change for the better.

However, if my thoughts are right– which they may not be and everyone is welcome to help me refine them through civil discussion— all marketers are going to be utilizing the new technologies and social media platforms. Perhaps it is then wise if we all work diligently to be more clear about what we say we do.

I think the brave, thoughtful, introspection efforts of Nedra, Craig and others are a good step in that direction. Too bad silence has fallen over the camp of the other Social Marketing.

Tags: social marketing, social media marketing, health marketing, cause marketing, Jupiter Research, Jupiter Kagan, National Center for Health Marketing, marketing, Web 2.0

The 15th Edition of Health Wonk Review is up at Insureblog.

Bring a good bottle of wine and drop by for some “tasty vittles!”

Thanks for the hospitality, Henry.

I’m a little late to the game, but in the August 20th edition of Medical Economics Neil Chesanow discusses physician blogs. According to the article, there are several types of physician bloggers:

• the diarist
• the pundit
• the educator
• the entrepreneur

These are just the ones that Chesanow covered. I think there are many more.

• the colleague
• the content expert thought-leader/author
• the advocate
• the hometown doc

Please feel free to leave a comment and add to this list.

Tags: physician blogs, blogs, blogging, medical blogging, Medical Economics, Neil Chesanow

What is a medical advocate, you ask… A medical advocate is a person who helps patients navigate our complex, fragmented healthcare system. With last week’s announcement by Wellpoint about their widespread launch of consumer driven health plans (Read my thoughts here), it is likely that this service industry is on the edge of becoming really huge. Just this week, The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article that highlighted the growing medical advocate industry.  According to the article, more and more employers are adding this service to their benefit menus.  According to the article:

Health Advocate, which is contracted by employers nationwide, has increased its client list from 10 businesses in 2002 to 1,700 today, the Inquirer reports. Large corporations pay a $1.25 monthly fee per employee, and small businesses pay $4.95 per employee.

Typically being highly trained nurses, medical or patient advocates assist patients by finding and getting appointments with the best doctors for certain diseases/illnesses, translating complex doctor speak so that patients are empowered to make good health decisions, working with the patient to complete complex insurance certification processes, promoting healthy lifestyle changes, and handling claims and billing problems– just to name a few things.

The benefits to employers likely are worth the small monthly cost as they enable the worker to focus on his or her job. So in essence, the productivity of the employee is preserved.  Additionally, patient advocates also create the potential of saving the company hard healthcare dollars by reducing the risk of misdiagnosis, unnecessary procedures, office visits, and duplicated services.

With the patient empowerment and self-education requirements of consumer-driven health plans, patient advocates do fill a very real need.  They will also likely help physicians and facilities bridge the gap that will occur as patients begin to switch to these plans. With their ability to really recommend facilities and providers, facilities and medical practices would be wise to be proactive in developing plans to coordinate and collaborate with patient advocates.  Afterall, they will likely help in reducing some of the obstacles of care and reimbursement, as well as, encourage patients to follow treatment plans and take action to improve their health.

Tags: patient advocates, healthcare, consumer-driven health plans, patient empowerment