Health Camp Minnesota

Health Camp Minnesota: “Health care – Technology – social Media. A conference created by and for health care delivery providers, and payers, and medical device producers in Minnesota.”  Video reviews.

Most interesting insights (from my perspective):

Keynote:

Lee Aase (Manager of Syndications and Social media for the Mayo Clinic). 
Social Media University, Global

Lee mentioned that he was “navigating hierarchy and impacting innovation” at Mayo. He also made an interesting point: “you can be so strategic that you can not actually do anything, but it is still important to see the larger picture.”

• Social media is the defining trend in communications in the 21^st century
• Social media will dramatically affect every industry
• Health care organizations should engage with social media. Health care is not unique…

One curious point that I saw during Lee’s presentation was social media search for unique material that can be used online, rather than “planning and producing campaigns.”  In many cases, the company found an advocate and used the story or video rather than trying to “create” something. One satisfied patient found through social media was used later in print campaign.

Charming example: an old couple playing piano in the atrium of Mayo clinic. More than 4 million views on YouTube…

Blogging… difficult to get physicians to write. Easier: interviewing physicians on video. Video is used to pitch to journalists also. Important; getting flip cameras and training staff how to use them. How is legal reacting?  Mayo legal counsel is on Twitter…

How to deal with negativity: not that many negative comments – people on Facebook in particular rarely post something negative – they are using their own name and will not criticize without a good reason.

Mayo uses WordPress!

Sharing Mayo Clinic (blog for patients to share stories)  

Mayo clinic employees social media policies are easy to find.  

Mayo clinic presentation can be found at SMUG site.   

Panel I 

David Moen, MD, medical director of care model innovation, Fairview; Colleen McGuire, vice president-communications, IHC Health Solutions

Clinicians are less nervous about social media than PR, Marketing, and Legal… but physicians may not like the situation when a patient comes with a folder of collected information… However, this is a culture issue, not technology issue.

Health care challenge is to recognize the opportunity. Health care is a business… how would we pay physicians who use social media for their time? 

Who will pay for the online communities where patients can communicate?  But… if we can demonstrate lower costs and improved outcomes, maybe an interested party can be found…

Problem with public perception of health insurance companies. Only 7% of people “like” health insurance companies.

E-mail test:

• Wellness e-mail sent from insurance company – little response
• The same e-mail sent without identification that it was an insurance company – much higher response

(I heard about similar results from research done in the past by other insurance companies.) 

Interesting: Health Camp conferences discuss cost in US and access in Canada… and nobody is happy with their system….

Pannel II

John Reid, chief executive officer, AbbeyMoor Medical, Mary Halet, Regional Director  for the National Marrow Donor Program; Pat Kullmann, moderator, CEO, CG3 Consulting.

Prostatic stent promotion through a humorous YouTube video became an unexpected success for a small b-to-b company.

The video also lead to an article in Star Tribune. 

John Reid his earlier fears to become a joke of the industry, but the success of the video definitely worth the risk.

The original idea of the video was that young people would watch and forward to their uncles, etc. However, YouTube audience could be 45-55 years old (based on Mayo research).

Interesting: the company provides online training sessions (could not afford sales force) and physicians do sign up… even older physicians participate.

National Marrow Donor program employs 2 FTEs to listen and use social media; it is a ”deliberate” use of the channel.

iMobile Health  provides access to patient-physician community via iPhone. The service is subscription based, but has a free trial.

 Panel III

Tamara Young, Ph. D.  – Health Scoop, Chris Boyer - Health Grades,  and Chris Bevolo  – moderator.

The question about negative reviews… Health Scoop receives 4:1 positive reviews.

Interesting note: a class of students joined the session. Students were not shy to ask questions, and one of the questions was built on applying Netflex functionality to some of the health care rating sites. The new generation (when they start using health care information online) seems to expect features and usability with which they are already familiar through consumer sites. 

     

There are many sites grading physicians… the most important factor, however, is which content shows up on Google searches…

Very good event!  When is the next one? 

AMA – The future of Health Care Marketing

The future of Health Care Marketing was another informative session from AMA Health Care SIG series. 

Interesting points:

A couple of decades ago health care and marketing were incompatible. Even now, “What is the role of marketing?” is still debated in health care.

In health care, most marketing efforts are focused in the areas where consumer can make a decision, maternity care for example. HealthEast employs 120 physicians and over 450 refer patients to the organization.

Many information systems in health care organizations were designed for financial purposes, not marketing. It creates additional difficulty.

Not long ago quality of health care was not an issue – patients assumed that the quality was high and did not express any desire to “shop” for health care services. Now, 30% of patients claim to be interested in evaluating quality of health care services; most of these patients either have a health condition themselves, or have somebody in the family with health conditions.

A decade ago an internet was used to supplement the primary media sued for health care promotions. Today the Internet is the primary media. “We hardly do anything without creating a microsite.” Microsites are used as an additional call to action and reinforcement of the message that can not be fully communicated on the web site itself. HealthEast had to face constraints of cuts and over last two year cut 43% of staff and costs.

HealthEast promotes some of its facilities as “destinations,” for example; Woodland is positioned as an orthopedic destination. A facility is appropriate as the destination center if it has not only high quality care, but also a high patient satisfaction rate.

The nature of health care will remain episodic and transactional; it is important to establish the relationships with the patient, to become a “partner.”

What kind of improvements patients seek based on the surveys?  A few years ago hospitals were evaluated on a “hotel service” – quality of food, etc. Now, patients changed their views, but the patients requests are still simple:

• need to be acknowledged as an individual
• the treatment needs to be explained to the patient
• the patient needs to be introduced to everybody who will be involved.

HealthEast is trying to fulfill these requirements through recruitment and hiring.

HealthEast pays attention to the architecture to improve the healing process. Research shows that hospital surrounding can speed up healing and reduce the need for pain medication. The interior of the building has soft colors and aesthetically pleasing (including light fixture in the patient rooms). Natural light is used as much as possible and most rooms have wonderful view. The hospital uses wooden elements which were also known to help healing process. The portion of the room with outlets for the equipment is designed as a wooden panel – the outlets hidden in the wall. Patient rooms are private, with space for the family and shortest possible distance from the bed to the bathroom to decrease patients’ falls. 

Marketing News published a detailed article describing the campaign to introduce the new hospital. The campaign is credited for 0.5% increase in market share in October and November 2008; budget for the campaign was $825,000. St. Joseph’s CyberKnife Center received 40% increase in patients during last year – year and a half.

Interesting – the stories were posted both on YouTube and Vimeo, and not surprisingly YouTube videos were more popular.

Think Different

Think Different - half day conference with a fabulous lunch was offered by Silverlink in several cities. The conference was very interesting; however, as a marketer, I did not find anything new… Silverlink president mentioned that a couple of reactions to the event were:

• Marketing in healthcare? Can it exist?
• You are not doing it yet?

The conclusion for me was simple: if I love and understand marketing, my clients may “think different.” I need to take this fact into consideration when I am trying to suggest approaches which have been successful in other industries. And, I should not get frustrated…. I am not alone

Interesting point from the conference:

• While 25 years ago megatrends were important; we live in the time of explosion of choice and need to pay attention on microtrends
• Microtrends can contradict each other (obesity and low-calorie diet)
• To understand microtrends we need to be comfortable with two contradictory ideas in our heads and respect human complexity
• Example of a microtrend: young women treat doctors “as consultants at best” and want to make their own medical decisions
• Example of a microtrend: working retirees (ads targeted to retires usually show people in leisure activities, what may not be the right approach)
• Segment targeting is more successful than general targeting (what seems to be obvious); microtrending should lead to microtargetting
• In health care identity group changes quickly (after a diagnoses the person may immediately change identity group)
• Public health environment is shifting: before – “quick fix or die;” now – chronic conditions.

 

Economist: Evolutions
The situation will get worse before it can get better

• Consumers are looking at social networks for information and support (particularly younger consumers)
• Social computing is used particularly by people with certain diseases (especially socially stigmatized conditions)
• PHR – 75% of consumers never heard or don’t know what it is
• For many consumers, wellness involves trading something concretely good for something abstractly good
• Incentives are needed for people to achieve wellness results (the additional reward is needed)
• Interesting: a parallel in financial industry – consumers use credit cards with rewards much more than traditional credit cards, even if the basic benefit is the same. People who want credit cards for rewards spend more and less delinquent
• Wellness reward program should be tailored to the person
• Health care web sites are considered less usable than web sites of other industries and less enjoyable
• Pick one segmentation and stick with it… changing segmentation often is not helpful…
• Health care is not differentiated product, except for the communications… the communications can be the differentiator