E-BUSINESS

Besides just creative and non-creative people, I think there are two types of creative people:  Those who think of lots of ideas and those who think of ideas that they can execute.  I believe that I am one of the latter.  I have at times thought that I am not a creative person, but I recently realized that I have thought of creative ideas, bringing together concepts, etc. and my ideas are ones that we can create or that we have created.  I build off of work that we have already done or have a vision that I work towards.  Just because I don’t have lots of ideas (including some that can’t be done), doesn’t mean I’m not creative.  One of the benefits of the person who has lots of ideas is that they can inspire ideas in others.  I filter the ideas that I have and don’t spend time working out ideas that can’t be actualized.

Tomorrow our team will be hosting a Web publishing workshop. We’ve invited members of our marketing and communications departments, leadership, and others involved in development of our brand strategy. We have also invited a couple of our external partners, Compendium Blogware and Custom Scoop, to discuss Web publishing, in particular blogging as it relates to brand strategy.

We plan to educate a bit on the Web publishing tools we have available internally and how content owners within the organization can use them to publish messages and content in a rapid-cycle manner. Our tools include a homegrown CMS, RSS capability, e-mail marketing tools, interactive/rich media, collaborative software, blogging application, etc.

We’re also going to dive into how we can use our tools to create a more interactive user experience on our Web site—one that integrates our brand message and effectively communicates Community’s services and exceptional experience model to patients, families and employees.

There are many viewpoints and I’m looking forward to a lively discussion with constructive takeaways to help us as we move forward with our content strategies. Stay tuned!

We now have RSS feeds available for our health news! You can select from a number of categories:

• Breaking News
• Breast Health
• Diabetes Health
• For Your Child
• Heart Care
• Men’s Health
• Mind and Body
• Women’s Health

Breaking news stories are published once a week on Wednesdays. News stories in all other categories are published once a month.

Visit eCommunity.com/news to subscribe.

Not ready to subscribe? You can also just listen to the story by clicking the “Listen” link next to the headline.

I just finished reading John Maeda’s “The Laws of Simplicity”, and I was struck by an application of one of his laws this morning. I was loading my iPod with some music and I wanted to add my Time-Life “Living the Blues” series to listen to today. I usually load just my favorites from the ~25 CD series but today I wanted to also add the ones that were not ranked five stars. I wanted to listen to some variety and I realized that my favorites weren’t so favorite unless they are contrasted with songs that aren’t my favorites, just like Maeda’s fifth law, DIFFERENCES Simplicity and complexity need each other. Maybe this is the purpose of radio and something that we have lost in the iPod/iTunes/web 2.0-get-what-you-want-when-you-want-it era that we are in?

I had the pleasure of listening to a lecture/conference call with Seth Godin yesterday talking about his book “Meatball Sundae.”  I began to wonder how the health care industry fits into his model.  At first glance it seems like health care provides a meatball service, but there are unique aspects to it that work well as the whip cream, cherry and other toppings.  Health care and health care technology doesn’t seem to fit into his model.

The e-Business team has seen a lot of new media/new marketing trends that work really well in health care.  Patient blogs are one example that we have built.  Our SharingSite application allows patients to blog about their condition and treatment in or out of the hospital.  We are also using it to post our baby/nursery pictures.  This eliminates the phone calls to family and repeatedly telling relatives the same information by a patient or family member who is already stressed and busy.

Our discussion boards that we have really not promoted are gaining more and more usage because people want to talk about their health condition, ask questions and compare their experience to other patients.  This is a common patient behavior that used to (and still does to some extent) happen in person, but now you can go online and talk to many more people.

Patients also want to find out more about their health conditions so they are using online health information libraries along with just reading blogs, discussions boards, etc to find out as much as they can about their health issues.

I believe that health care is different, that it doesn’t fit the Meatball Sundae model.  Maybe it has to do with all the regulations, etc. on our industry, or that we aren’t selling a product that users generally have a choice about purchasing or not.  But they do have a choice about where to purchase it.

Community’s bariatric services has partnered with Medical Animatics, LLC, to provide weight loss surgery patients with access to an online, interactive, media-rich educational program. The program’s tools help patients and families learn about upcoming procedures, manage their post-surgical lives and “make healthier lifestyle choices.” A highlight of the online tools is a self-paced informed consent agreement that guides patients through the details; this replaces the traditional paper-based consent form. Bariatric patients simply log in to My Informed Choice to interact with the product.

I used to work in the e-learning industry, so I find this company and program interesting, particularly the niche approach the company takes by focusing on scientific and medical content. It will be interesting to see the measurable outcomes of this program in terms of patient understanding and knowledge application as well as any process improvement in bariatric surgery services.