10 Things Hospital Leadership Need To Know About Social Media And Marketing

Building any brand can be difficult, but in the US, hospital identity and branding are paramount to success within a community. By listening to patients, getting feedback on wants and needs, engaging individuals and creating new incentives, a better reputation, greater trust and improved health outcomes can all be achieved.

Below are 10 things hospital leadership should keep in mind when thinking about marketing and strategy in 2014 and beyond. 

1. In 2013, it was estimated that 62% of emails were opened on a mobile device. Checking email is the top mobile activity among smartphone and tablet users. More people in the world own a mobile device than a toothbrush, so using email to inform patients about new services, community events and preventative care tactics is a must.
2. The brain processes visual data 60,000 times faster than text. Additionally, 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual. Whether it’s growing your brand identity or improving medication adherence through visual instructions, images are key to interacting with, informing and empowering patients.
3. Surprisingly, Grandparents are the fastest growing demographic on Twitter.  Not only does this indicate that it is here to stay as a social media platform, but it’s a great place to target our aging population who consume the majority of our health services.
4. In 2014, more than 50% of Internet users, or 102.5 million people in the US, will redeem a digital coupon. There are many new partnerships with retail clinics, pharma companies and other service providers that can use coupon-like strategies for patient cost-savings and adherence.
5. The number of devices connected to the Internet now exceeds the number of humans on earth.  So don’t forget to market on multiple platforms and for many different devices. Top sites include Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.
6. Social media influences 93% of shoppers final purchase decisions. Further, 90% of consumers indicate that they trust peer recommendations. Therefore, previous patients are your greatest allies. Their reviews online matter more than you think.
7. More than 78% of US Internet users research products and services online, and every month, there are more than 10.3 billion Google searches, with most people clicking one of the top four links. What your top hits say about your organization, your providers and your quality of care can influence your bottom line.
8. Targeted, content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing, and, per dollar spent generates about 3 times as many leads. When creating a marketing strategy for a particular service line, service, or physician group, think about exactly who needs to see what ad and what information they will be looking for.
9. Consumers that receive email newsletters from companies spend 82% more with those companies. Think about what that says for brand loyalty following engagement, and about the ability of constant, relevant engagement. Patients are consumers, and like email, newsletters keep them informed.
10. 70% of people surveyed claim they would rather learn about a hospital or company through articles rather than direct advertisements. Therefore, not only are advertising campaigns important, but so are the patient experience testimonies, community reviews and Forbes articles that highlight the work being done inside and outside of your hospital.

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An Engineering Feat Gives Hearts Extra Life

With the release of their new HeartAssist5 heart pump, ReliantHeart is making real-time, personalized feedback possible for the millions of Americans suffering from heart failure. The new technology allows for real-time, remote monitoring of implantable devices, years of added life for patients, and flexibility to travel without a physician nearby. With a staggering projected 46% growth in heart failure by 2030, advances in heart failure innovation are on the forefront of changing medical treatment, policy, device research and physician reimbursements. Further, with heart failure and disease disproportionately affecting minorities in the US, advances in length and quality of life could be huge strides for medical equality.

Heart Failure In America

Approximately 7.5 million people in the United States currently suffer from heart failure, a figure that is increasing over time as more people survive heart attacks and various other heart conditions. According to the Heart Failure Society of America, an estimated 400,000 to 700,000 new cases of heart failure are diagnosed each year, with deaths averaging 250,000 annually, more than double since 1979. Even worse, an estimated one half of heart failure patients die within five years of diagnosis and 20% within the first year.

With a waiting list for heart transplants at an overwhelming 3,736 at publication, and less than 2,500 hearts donated annually, the need for a bridge between heart failure and transplant is literally life and death.

LVADs

Left ventricular assist devices (LVAD) are implantable heart pumps that were created to temporarily support patients with advanced heart failure as the bridge between diagnoses and transplant. However, with new scientific advancements, LVADs are becoming a long-term tool for improving heart function without transplant.

The right ventricle pumps blood to the lungs, but the left ventricle is responsible for pumping blood to the rest of the entire body, making it much more susceptible to failure. Therefore, LVADs have been the focus of most modern research to prolong and improve life saving implants.

Patient-Centered Care

Reliant’s system acts like your car’s dashboard. “If a patient’s pump has any sign of a challenge, like dehydration or low flow, the remote monitoring system signals the change to a data-collection center that notifies the transplant center as well as the individual,” ReliantHeart CEO Rodger Ford says. This is what makes the HeartAssist5 unique; at the first sign of a problem the right people are notified immediately.

Essentially, if the engine light goes on, the heart center and patient are notified to get the engine checked.

He also notes that the patients can set monitors to send text message notifications, thus making changes in blood flow, speed and power truly personalized. Individual blood flow is collected and transmitted every 5 minutes, making one’s own body the standard comparator.

The greatest importance to Founder and CTO Bryan Lynch is his ability to use his background as an engineer to, “Get involved in a project where you can actually see how you saved a life. While the docs and nurses are the real lifesavers, we give them the tool to make it possible.” He continues that it is vitally important for engineers and innovators to gain a patient-centered approach to get a real reduction in cost burden and improve quality of life.

Sailesh Saxena, CFO, continues highlighting the patient focus of the company by telling about the origination of the design of the VAD pack. “Bryan and I used to go to Schlotsky’s Deli ($BUNZ) for lunch,” he said, “and we used to see this man wearing a coat although it wasn’t cold out. Bryan noticed immediately that he was attempting to hide an LVAD controller and batteries. Well, this happened more than once, and we recognized that he was always concealing the VAD controller. So we decided that we needed to create a unique insert so that our LVAD control system could slip right into a Louis Vuitton ($LVMH) or Gucci ($GUC) bag unnoticed. It’s the small things that make the patient feel like we understand what they really want.”

Expanding The Geography Of Care

Remote monitoring, like other methods of telemedicine, is a key to expanding the geography of health care. “As technology matures, with the help of remote monitoring, the cardiologist and patient will feel safer with greater distances between them,” says Saxena.

This growth in telemedicine as a whole, and specifically in heart care, has major implications for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as well as health care policy and reform. Because CMS is beginning to assign reimbursements and penalties based on patient outcomes instead of traditional fee-for-service metrics, it will become more and more important to have reimbursements reflect remote monitoring and its likely benefits.

Reimbursement codes also need to be reworked to genuinely target geographic discrepancies in care, which are fundamentally important for transplant centers. However, at present, CMS is slowly beginning to take growth rates of heart implants seriously based on the agency’s continued increases in payments, including their slight variations in geographic differences.

An Engineering Feat

In a recent study, researchers found that platelets flowing through the HeartAssist5 are exposed to significantly lower cumulative shear stress levels than in competitive devices tested. Ultimately, this means that the ReliantHeart product allows for what the CTO calls “a more physiologically normal cardiac output, including the pulse.”

What Bryan means is that people with failing hearts have low blood flow throughout the body, which is why they are so sick. When an LVAD is implanted, patients return to a more normal flow, but they also need blood flow that is as natural as possible. With the HeartAssist5, blood is not damaged and any pulse that the recovering heart produces is naturally transmitted to the body.

The LVAD and heart now work together to help the patient recover.

Although there are two other continuous flow LVADs on the market (THOR and HTRW), the ReliantHeart team claims their careful design capitalizes on working with the natural ventricle to the benefit of the patient, almost like a gym trainer for your heart.

Their “implantable flow probe” is also a revolutionary aspect of the HeartAssist5. This ultrasonic probe measures the blood flow from the LVAD in real-time providing critical feedback that is a one-of-a-kind technology providing data that makes the aforementioned remote monitoring so valuable. Ford says this ability to see patient-specific trends remotely in real time not only helps all patients improve quality of life, but the longevity of the HeartAssist5 creates a life support system, far beyond the “bridge” that the LVAD was originally created to be.

So this month, for American Heart Month, think about what innovation really is. It might be the ability to prolong and add quality of life for individuals and families across the nation, to share more time with loved ones.

 

Global Study Finds Majority Believe Traditional Hospitals Will Be Obsolete In The Near Future

A global study was released at the new year by the Intel Corporation indicating that around the world people’s health care wants and needs are principally focused on technology and personalization. The “Intel Health Innovation Barometer” found a consistent theme: customized care. At the intersection of health, care and technology, communities around the world consistently said they wanted to see their biological makeup and individual behaviors used to make receiving care more effective and efficient. This unsurprisingly was described by people through means such as telehealth, mobile health and the sharing of health information in real time. However, surprising methods of care were also common themes throughout the world such as ingestible monitoring systems and care that involves no utilization of hospitals.

Eric Dishman, Intel Fellow and Global General Manager of Health & Life Sciences at the company says the findings indicate that, “workflow, policy and culturally focused care are the most important ways we can improve health care.” Making care convenient, universally available and efficient through technological innovation is seen as more promising around the world than increasing the number of physicians or funding more academic research.

According to Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), “People always talk about disruptors in terms of various kinds of practices in the American economy,” but “there’s nobody who’s done more disruption for the right reason than Eric Dishman.” With that kind of support to understand and advance the health care system, the Intel Health Innovation Barometer was conducted online by Penn Schoen Berland in Brazil, China, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan and the United States. It was conducted among a representative sample of 12,000 adults aged 18 and older with a margin of error of +/- 0.89 percentage points.

Surprising Findings:

–       Traditional hospitals, according to 57% of people, will be obsolete in the future

–       Majority of people (84%) would be willing to share their personal health information to advance and lower costs in the health care system

–       More than 70% of people are receptive to using toilet sensors, prescription bottle sensors and swallowed health monitors

–       72% of those surveyed would be willing to see a doctor via video conference for non-urgent appointments

–       66% of people say they would prefer a care regimen that is designed specifically for them based on their genetic profile or biology

–       More than half of people (53%) would trust a test they personally administered as much or more than if that same test was performed by a doctor

–       About 30% of people would trust themselves to perform their own ultrasound

While wearable monitoring devices are commonly accepted in the US, global readiness for ingestible and sensory systems far exceeds that of Americans.  Acceptance of non-hospital care is also more appealing to those living outside the US. In remote areas of India, for example, extremely high percentages of people said that there is no need for traditional hospitalization.

Although in the US, a growing desire to care for the elderly at home gives hope to Eric Dishman that there could soon come a day that hospitals are obsolete. He cites changes in care seeking behaviors, policy and payment reform as incentives to move away from traditional hospitalization care. “The moment you signal pay for performance, people start thinking about how we misuse hospitals every single day,” says Dishman. That misuse of hospitalizations, and lack of formal hospitals in other countries, contributes greatly to the number of individuals worldwide who think the archaic system is not sustainable in the future.

Emerging Technologies For Innovation

Intel has been doing qualitative and quantitative research around the health care industry for many years. To date, the Intel Barometer is the most extensive survey it has conducted, and did reveal shifts in people’s increased desire to have access to emerging personal technology tools to become more active members of their care team.

Specifically, the Intel R&D teams are using ideology like Dishman’s to seek clarity and recognition of health advancements that unburden people from having to travel to a health care provider. “Care must occur at the home as the default model,” says Dishman. “It was also interesting,” he says of the survey, “to see people in emerging markets such as Brazil, China and India trusted themselves to use health monitoring technologies more than those in more technologically advanced economies like Japan and the United States.

Intel’s team of ethnographers used research in more than 1,000 homes and more than 250 hospitals across 20 countries to better understand the everyday lives of people, including those receiving and giving care.

The technologies that Intel’s survey received novel feedback on include items such as wearable and ingestible monitoring systems. While these hi-tech possibilities are new to all markets, the potential benefits could be felt across the entire health care arena as more thorough and patient-centered data is collected, driven by patient approval and demand.

Eric Dishman’s Personal Mission

In his pursuit of better health care technologies and home health care, Eric Dishman has been driven primarily from his in depth involvement with the health care system. As a student at the University of North Carolina, Dishman was told that he had months to live due to a rare kidney disease. Over twenty years later he has received a new kidney from a colleague at Intel thanks to sequencing his genes and finding that his diagnosis had been wrong his entire life.

Further, his grandmother’s progression of Alzheimer’s Disease drove his pursuit of innovation to keep her safe in her own home.  He found that keeping her health and dignity was a group effort. According to him, “Improving health care is a team effort, including patients and their families. Intel’s research shows that when people see benefits for them and their wider community, they are open to sharing sensitive information in an anonymous way.”

His approach seems to be gaining support based on the Health Innovation Barometer, which found that a higher percentage of people (47%) were willing to share their personal health records than their phone records (38%) or banking records (30%) to aid innovation.

If Dishman and Intel have their way, the new survey will move them to the head of the class by proving to health care leaders around the globe that massive disruption to the health care system is possible and supported by the large community. Smart devices that can connect patients and care givers in their home can lead to all kinds of health and policy change. Payment reform, independence and equal access might all be possible in the near future if individuals around the world are willing to use their own bodies and surroundings to educate and innovate the larger system.

 

Near Absence Of Government In Health Reform: Lessons From Nepal

In the US, many health care woes are blamed on the federal or state government. Whether there is too little oversight and lack of transparency or too much interference and regulation, it seems that policy and politics often end up getting blamed for health care system troubles. But what happens when one lives in a country with no functioning government? As one of the poorest countries in the world, with little to no government structure, Nepal has learned that health-related needs depend on local communities as well as international aid. Despite the vast differences between our countries, we have a lot to learn from one another about the underserved, health and decreasing disparities in access and outcomes.

Even with Nepal’s reliance on foreign assistance and continual poor health rankings, the US could learn a lot about a return to local or “community care.” Those in developing countries like Nepal have no alternatives. With poor infrastructure, unpredictable electricity and heat, and mountainous geographic barriers, the people of Nepal depend on local leaders and village health providers to care for the country’s millions of people. While Americans grapple with government involvement in the health sector, the Nepalese are now well versed in the pros and cons of no government organization.

In contrast, the Nepalese are looking to their allies from the States to help facilitate safe and fair democratic elections by the end of 2013.

In Nepal, the Constituent Assembly functioned in place of Parliament for many years, until its dissolution in May of 2012, often leaving health decisions and progress at a standstill. The developing country, which sits in the Himalayas and is home to eight of the world’s ten tallest mountain ranges, ranks 157 on the World Health Organization’s overall 2013 human development index. Moreover, Nepal has recently emerged from a decade-long armed insurgency creating an environment of insecurity and conflict that has only intensified poverty.

At present, the average Nepali spends only 5% of their annual income on health-related needs. According to the US State Department, “Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world … The country faces several medium- and long-term development challenges, including strained capacity in government, civil society and the private sector to drive the development agenda, high vulnerability to climate change and a massive youth bulge.” Although surprisingly, despite economic troubles, Nepal has used its international aid partners and community-based health structure to become one of very few countries in the world on target to meet several Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The immobility of government has lead to geographical pockets where resources are almost nonexistent and dependency on foreign aid is great. Both the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) are working diligently in the capitol of Kathmandu to create sustainable health care programs that foster education, improve health outcomes and promote financial independence. However, it is difficult to see vast improvements in health outcomes and health equality without an active role by the people’s own government.

One of the added difficulties for health advancement is the country’s overwhelming number of natural disasters. Nepal is one of the most disaster-prone countries on earth. Annually, people experience floods, landslides, droughts, epidemics and persistent seismic activity. Due to these extreme difficulties, in tandem with direct health efforts USAID has created programs unique to Nepal, like the Program for Enhancement of Emergency Response (PEER) which aims at improving education on how to appropriately carry out activities such as search and rescue efforts in collapsed buildings and reduce health risks during disasters.

In addition to USAID, there are several local and international organizations that concentrate on improving health in Nepal and meeting MDGs. One specific organization that has focused on health and care in rural areas for more than 20 years is Himalayan Healthcare, a non-profit organization that specializes in creating viable programs in regions where health posts go unstaffed and undersupplied by the local government. “Rural Nepal, almost universally, has mostly rudimentary health care services which are inadequate but still go a long way if caring village health providers are available,” says Anil Parajuli, Himalayan Healthcare’s co-founder and Nepal-based Program Coordinator.

Like many community health centers in the US, serving both rural and urban communities, the Himalayan Healthcare model is not based on one’s ability to pay. Their mission is to treat anyone regardless of his or her gender, sex, caste, profession, or ability to pay. The President of the Himalayan Healthcare’s Board, Dr. Robert McKersie, believes that the US and Nepal have a lot to learn from one another. He claims that what makes a community center successful in either country is, “having input from the local stakeholders from day number one. Before this can happen the providers have to be accepted by, and have legitimacy with, the stakeholders.”

Dr. McKersie contends this acceptance does not always come easily. “Many of these communities (both Nepalese and underserved communities in the States) have historically been used or misled by ‘outsiders’. The buy in process for us was health care. After Himalayan Healthcare proved itself, we were ‘invited’ to help with what became the other two tenets of our community development model, namely education and income generation.” He goes on to say that, “organizations in the States that have done good community medicine know this model of having the community members have a stake in their healthcare.”

With so many differences, yet so many similarities in our underserved populations, it is no wonder health care providers in the US and Nepal view one another as a source of knowledge and inspiration.

At present, the next scheduled elections in Nepal have been set for November 2013.

 

Health Inequality And Modern Day Slavery

“They never took me to the doctor when I was ill.” These are the words spoken by Merieme Mint Hamadi when asked about her life as a slave. Merieme, one of an estimated half a million people in Mauritania who are enslaved, lives in some of the world’s worst conditions. Her country, which has a population estimated to rival Chicago, was the last country in the world to make slavery a crime. However, since that 2007 law was passed – almost 150 years since Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in the US – only one person has been successfully prosecuted for owning another human in Mauritania. The health and human rights violations that exist there today have led to the UN ranking Mauritania at 155 out of 187 countries on its 2013 inequality-adjusted Human Development Index.

The UN estimated that in 2012 for every 100,000 live births in the country, 510 women die from pregnancy, with significant disparities between the death rates of Black slaves and Arab owners. Of even greater concern is that due to female slaves being forced to have children with owners, an estimated 71.3 births per 1,000 live births are to adolescents who suffer extreme mental and physical abuse. In John Sutter’s captivating CNN coverage of oppression, Slavery’s Last Stronghold, he reports that, “In Mauritania, the shackles of slavery are mental as well as physical.” He goes on to describe the political and societal methods through which the lighter-skinned Arabs maintain their ownership of the dark-skinned peoples.

Kevin Bales, an expert on modern day slavery, wrote in his book Disposable People that even if someone of bondage attempts to leave an owner, “for most, freedom means starvation.” He claims that because slaves are, “immediately recognizable by color, clothing and speech” they will not be given shelter or proper care by others. Further, Mr. Bales asserts that on the streets of Mauritania, “ there are already a good number of beggars, many of them disabled, to remind slaves of where they almost certainly end up” if they were to leave their masters.

“Mauritania is a country with scarce resources – including access to medical care. The health needs of slave owners come first in Mauritania; the health needs of slaves come last. Slave children are chronically malnourished. Slave women are frequently victims of sexual assault by their owners and the devastating health problems that result.” says Sean Tenner, Co-Founder of the Abolition Institute, an organization focused on ending Mauritanian slavery and a veteran of numerous public health campaigns.

Despite the country’s open system of ownership, to date, the US has not taken a stance against the practice. The country, located on the western fringe of the Sahara, is not densely populated, and therefore practices of the owners are not easily monitored by the government. Further, the country’s ruling elite makes no attempt to fight slavery, as they claim to the UN that slavery does not exist.

However, what is most surprising in 2013 is not the lack of Mauritanian action against their own traditions, but the lack of American recognition and action. At a time when the US tries to face its own challenges with inequality, health, human rights and foreign policy, it is saddening to know we also neglect others.

Mauritania is also deeply divided by access to basic human rights such as health. In 2000, it was estimated that only 37% of the country had access to safe drinking water and 33% to adequate sanitation. Life expectancy has hovered around 57 for both sexes for many years, but with great disparities between the slaves and owners.

The US has done nothing to date but overlook the unlivable health conditions and human rights violations in the region for those that are born into bondage.

In the United States however, one group is taking action to make Americans aware of the atrocities faced by the Mauritanian slaves, and the health and human rights violations that exist. The Abolition Institute, founded in Chicago by Mr. Tenner and former Mauritanian slaves, was recently formed to end the practice of slavery in Mauritania, and bring freedom to those suffering under the inhumane circumstances of maltreatment, malnourishment and abuse.

The organization does everything from educating the public on the religious aspects of modern day slavery to informing about the living conditions and health of slaves through noting disparate practices such as “gavaging” in Mauritania, where women of Arab decent try to gain weight to show that they are wealthy elite and not poor slaves with emaciated frames.

However, the devastating effects of slavery run much deeper than the physical effects. The extreme consequences the effects of slavery have on mental health know no bounds.

In Slavery’s Last Stronghold, a leader of an abolition group tells Sutter that many similarities exist between modern slavery in Mauritania and that in the United States before the Civil War, but that the one fundamental difference between the two in his mind is the use of physical restraint. “Chains are for the slave who has just become a slave, who has . . . just been brought across the Atlantic,” Boubacar said. “But the multigeneration slave, the slave descending from many generations, he is a slave even in his own head. And he is totally submissive. He is ready to sacrifice himself, even, for his master. And, unfortunately, it’s this type of slavery that we have today” — the slavery “American plantation owners dreamed of.”