Google Health

There was much abuzz this week about Google Health - a free personal health record (PHR) that will allow users to access an on-line repository for their health information. The thought is that this medical record would be portable, potentially comprehensive and patients would control/own it.

At HIMSS, Google's Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt demo'd the company's new medical record and history storage service that will include medical records, x-rays and information about allergies, vaccinations and prescriptions. Google's approach is to partner with health care providers so that if the user chooses, a provider, pharmacy or payer can also upload records and other information and access the profile.

Google also announced it was partnering with the Cleveland Clinic to test things out. Following that, Google will tweak the system before launching it nationwide. No date has been set for the nationwide roll out but a Google executive said Google Health would launch before the end of 2008.

Other announced partners for Google Health include Walgreens, Quest Diagnostics, the American Medical Association, the American Heart Association, several large hospitals and several providers of personal health records.

Last year, Microsoft introduced their PHR, HealthVault and they too have established several key partnerships.

Outside of the obvious privacy concerns, interoperability will be a huge barrier to success as all this data lives electronically in multiple places, if at all. Recent stats indicate that roughly only 20-25% of the physician practices have implemented an EMR to date.

However... if anyone is going to have a successful run at this, it would be Google and Microsoft. Let's all buckle in for an interesting ride.

Internet Usage Facts for Health Info

According to a July 2007Harris Interactive poll, that was commissioned by search engine Ask.com and performed by Harris Interactive Inc., the number of U.S. adults who use the Internet as a source of medical information is almost equal to the number that would consult their personal physicians.

The survey polled more than 3,300 adults and also found that:

* 76% of adults over 55 use the Internet to help diagnose or gain a better understanding of their medical conditions;
* 40% said they used friends and family as a source of medical information;
* 30% said they consulted newspapers and magazines;
* 26% turned to the television as a primary source for medical information; and
* About 25% of adults between the ages of 18 and 34 said they use the Internet because they are too embarrassed to consult with anyone.
* Two-thirds of respondents also said they use search engines to compile medical information and learn more about a diagnosis or medical problem, and more than half of respondents said they have conducted Internet searches for friends and family.
* 28% of respondents said that they use the Internet to search for alternative health options, such as homeopathic treatments

Source:(Havenstein, Computerworld, 8/14).

How Web 2.0 is impacting health care…

A free service to US doctors, www.Sermo.com allows doctors to share feedback about medical practice, treatment options and clinical care advances. It’s a “MySpace” equivalent just for credentialed doctors. To prevent postings by non-doctors, Sermo verifies physician license information against various databases. The American Medical Association has taken notice and recently partnered with Sermo, who derived its name from the Latin word for conversation.

According to the AMA, in the US nearly three-quarters of doctors are in private practice. That isolation makes it hard for many doctors to keep up on breaking medical developments. Typically they need to rely on journals, conventions, continuing education and word of mouth.

Sermo charges a fee to Wall Street investment firm subscribers to view postings that could help guide trading decisions on pharmaceutical company and medical device stocks.

SEO Best Practices

For success with organic (natural) search, consider these few best practices:

Make your site content relevant. Content is definitely king. Make sure that your site has information that is relevant to the code that SE spiders see.

Remember consistency. Consistent use of keywords or keyword phrases with page titling, file naming, header tags and site content begets favorable results.

Involve your visitors. Build a community on your site. If possible, allow site users to leave comments or blog. This practice helps to drive repeat visitors.

Submit a sitemap. Not coming up at all? Consider submitting a sitemap. Google will look at those pages and any linked to them. A sitemap generator can be found by going to Google's Webmaster Central.

Remember its quality, not quanity. Get quality inbound links from quality sites. Slow and steady wins the race as this process takes time. Don't fall prey to the temptation of getting links from link farms or your site can get dropped all together.

Risk Management & the Medical Practice Web Site

Recent research tells us that patients who surf the web for healthcare information, prefer to get that information from their own doctors' web site more than from any other source.

Physicians are responding by utilizing their practice site to not only provide healthcare information, but supplement communication with their patients. As medical practices increasingly develop their own web sites, standards, guidelines for use and liability are growing concerns.

Providing healthcare information on-line comes with an immense responsibility - both ethical and legal. If a practice web site provides healthcare information that is inaccurate or out of date, physicians may leave themselves open to legal risk and liability.

So what are the key points for a practice to consider when developing and maintaining their web site?

• Establish Web Site Review Group - A web site review group should propose and review site content - including linked sites - for accuracy, appropriateness and usage. Ensure that proper permission for usage is obtained from all sources.

• Familiarize Yourself With Established Guidelines - Familiarize yourself with ethical guidelines for on-line healthcare content from reputable ehealth organizations such as Internet Healthcare Coalition , Health on the Net Foundation and the URAC .

• Establish a Privacy Policy - Establish a posted web site privacy policy , site disclaimer(s) and, if appropriate, terms of use policy.

• Protect Privacy - Protect patient privacy when collecting personal medical information on-line through your web site by utilizing encryption technology and firewalls.

• Follow Privacy Policy - Follow the established practice privacy policy in all cases and in all respects.

• Adopt Standards & Process Adopt standards and process for on-going site content review and maintenance. This will ensure that the healthcare information provided on your site stays up to date.

• Consultant Site Review - To minimize liability, subcontract site review and content development to others outside the practice that have expertise in ewriting for healthcare organizations.

• Insurance Coverage - Obtain insurance coverage, or rider, to cover liability associated with your site. These policies are becoming much more common.

To adequately harness this rapidly developing trend, it is crucial that physicians and other healthcare organizations become aware of erisk issues, be proactive in addressing and managing these issues and make the informed decisions necessary to limit liability.

Guidelines for Writing for the Web

When writing content for the web, get your message across as quickly, say as little as possible, and put the most useful and relevant content first. Speak plainly and use a tone of voice that's appropriate for your audience.

Say less

This is the most important thing. Because web users are generally scanning and not reading your text, the more concise the content, the better. A good approach is to write concisely, then cut, edit, boil down, paraphrase and finally trim.

Put important information first

Put essential information first. A quick overview helps the reader get the purpose of a page instantly, letting them make a quick judgement whether to read on for more detail.

Front-loading content

Put your most important content first. Doing so gets it above the "fold" and viewed without scrolling. It also aids scanning and helps the user to quickly decide whether to read on.

Front-loading also applies to paragraphs and sentences. Start paragraphs with the most relevant words, to work like a header to the paragraph.

Short and succinct

Remove any paragraphs, sentences and words that don't directly help get your point across.

Use headlines and headings

A strong, attractive headline at the top of a page can make the difference between the page being read or not. So they attract the eye, headlines and lower-order headings benefit from being large and high-contrast. It needs a hook to catch your reader's attention

Use headings within a document makes it easy to scan the document's meaning. Good headings read like a bullet-point summary of the document's contents, so a reader can scan down the page, get a quick idea of what's there and decide whether to read on.

Web Link: 8 Examples of compelling headlines from Sitepoint.com.

Consider the user's goals

The imperative voice (commanding) is attention-grabbing, so it should go at the front of a phrase. "Register for our event " "Subscribe to our listserv" "Place order".

Be factual, not cryptic

Use an appropriate tone. Your tone of voice should be immediately appropriate to the audience, and their relationship with your web site.

Don't be cryptic. Don't assume you have your audience's attention. You really have to work to grab someone's attention online.

Be factual. Being factual means avoiding starting with questions. Bottom line - TELL THEM QUICK, before they go!

Establish trust

Remember you're operating in an environment of low trust and you only have a short opportunity to get your message across. Be enthusiastic, but not pushy.

Use active voice

English grammar uses two 'voices': active and passive.

• Active voice - is when something does something.
• Passive voice - is when something is done to something.

Active good, Passive bad. This is because passive voice uses slightly more words than Active, and takes slightly more decoding.

Source: www.webdesignfromscratch.com/writing_for_the_web.cfm

Promoting Your Practice Web Site

Your practice web site is not only an interactive marketing tool but, more importantly, a medium of communication with your patients - both existing and perspective. It not only markets your services but it also serves as a cost-effective and efficient vehicle of health and wellness communication to your patients. Once your practice web site is live, you should actively market it to your patients to realize it's maximum benefit.

The following ideas should help get you started.

Advertise your website to patients

• Put your URL on all appointment reminder cards, encounter forms, practice stationery, patient education material, etc.
• Put you URL as a billing message on all patient statements.
• Put a promo for your web site on your "on hold" phone message.
• Advertise your web site using other forms of marketing - local newspapers, on the radio, practice brochure, etc.
• List your URL (your web site address) in your local phone book listing or advertisement.

Promote Your Site in Your Waiting & Exam Rooms

• Display promotional signs for your web site in your waiting and exam rooms indicating site address as well as key features - patient education materials, mailing lists, etc.
• Display informational flyers that include your URL at your front and check-out desks.
• Hand out business card-sized web address cards.
• Feature your web site on a waiting room computer that will allow patients to explore your site and sign up for interactive features such as a mailing list.

Promote Your Web Site On-Line

• Establish a patient mailing list on your site and generate monthly on-line newsletters.
• To encourage patients to register with your listserv (mailing list), run a give-a-way promotion (i.e. gift certificate) in your office.
• Determine and set practice policy on email communication with patients. Communicate the specific "do's & don'ts" of office email policy, process and confidentiality issues by distributing a flyer or card to inform patients.
• Establish web site links with your referring physician web sites, hospitals, doctor finder services, community health directories.
• Provide access and links to valuable local healthcare resources for your patients.
• Post on-line disease, age or gender-specific electronic information and links to credible and reliable health information sites.
• Periodically re-register your site with major search engines as existing listings may drop off engine databases.
• Work with a web development company to optimize your rankings.
• Establish a Paid Placement advertising campaign.