Motivating Behavior Change: Where the rubber hits the road in health care and sustainability

December 6th, 2011

The panel at this morning’s conference entitled Sustainability: Don’t Market to Key Audiences- Motivate Them! was amazing. Panelists, whose work focuses on sustainability, shared lots of interesting details about what works and why.

Sustainability and health care on parallel tracks

For me, the biggest takeaway was that sustainability professionals face the same challenge that is starting to top the list at health care institutions.  That is, motivating lots of individuals to change their behavior.

In health care, the focus is on motivating patients to comply with their treatment plans.  In sustainability, it means motivating employees to make lots of small changes such as re-using and recycling both at work, and at home.

Enabling health care delivery in the community

November 17th, 2011

One of the aims and consequences of health care payment reform is pushing care to lower cost settings. More and more, we hear this means treating patients in outpatient settings or in their homes.

So, it is with great interest that I attended the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council’s seminar  on How Technology is Enabling Dynamic Community Care Teams.  My goal was to learn more about:

  • the kinds of care providers are delivering at patients’ homes and in the community,
  • why pundits view home and community-based care as essential to improving health outcomes and minimizing costs

Fresh perspectives in health care

October 25th, 2011

The topic of the 8th annual Connected Health Symposium was timely: Driving Quality Up and Costs Down:  New Technologies for an Era of Accountability.  Nevertheless, what made it a great conference were the fresh perspectives it brought to the fore.

Measurement, analysis, and communication are imperative

Brent James, the Chief Quality Officer at Intermountain Health Care, set the stage by describing how he and his employer, Intermountain, have succeeded in simultaneously improving health care quality and decreasing costs.  He credits this achievement to the incorporation of baseline protocols into the clinical workflow, followed by continuous improvement.

The power of Twitter Hashtags: Crowdsourcing gems and soundbites

June 23rd, 2011

Photo courtesy of Christian Sann, SCVNGR

By Barbara Bix

To one side of me sat a business development professional from a detective agency. To the other side, was an owner of an eye glass store in a downtown mall that seeks to make his store a “destination”. Both had come to learn about how to use social media to market their businesses. Moreover, the packed ball room was standing room only.

“All star” panel on social media

Health care reform: people, processes, data, oh my!

June 16th, 2011

By Barbara Bix, BB Marketing Plus

The Massachusetts Health Data Consortium’s spring workshop on Analytics, Data and Accountability centered on how data and analytics must change as the U.S. health care system moves from paying for volume to paying for value.  Nevertheless, the ultimate message may have been, that as always, it takes people, process, and data to effect dramatic change.

Clearly, the devil will be in the details of the integration of these three elements.  The conference was rich with case studies of what works and warnings about where the challenges lie.

Employers seek health care value vs. volume

How many people read your blog?

May 28th, 2011

“How many  people read your blog anyway?” she asked me this morning.  It sounds like such a simple question, but I really don’t know.

What do the statistics say?

I get statistics that show me:

  • how many people visit my site,
  • the number of pages they view,
  • the average amount of time they spend on each page, and
  • whether they’ve visited before.
  • If I were to dig deeper, I could find out more about visitors–where they hail from, what platform they used to find me, and perhaps even who they are.

    Clean energy technology: Building an ecosystem in New England

    May 19th, 2011

    Peter Rothstein, President New England Clean Energy Council and moderator of today’s Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council’s breakfast seminar entitled Building the Cleantech Ecosystem in New England, kicked off today’s program by noting that venture capital firms investment in clean tech has increased dramatically over the last five years, from 2% then to 17% today.  He added that VCs financed more deals in New England than any other state, although our region came in third in terms of total dollars.

    Health information technology: successes, challenges, next steps

    May 11th, 2011

    By Barbara Bix

    Massachusetts Governor Patrick’s conference on health information technology, entitled “Improving Health Care and the Economy“, began yesterday in Worcester, MA.  Dr. Blumenthal kicked off the conference citing achievements at the federal level and congratulating Massachusetts for being the first state to attain provider targets.

    A down payment on health care reform

    Quoting President Obama, Dr. Blumenthal told an audience of several hundred that health information technology, while important, is just the down payment on health care reform.  More important, he said are the aspirations of change we plan to achieve as a country.

    Value propositon: What’s price got to do with it?

    April 27th, 2011

    By Doug McCartney

    One of my longtime friends, who also happens to be an expert writer and consummate marketing expert, has always been fond of saying “In America, you are what you say you are until proven otherwise.” I love that line because you can apply it to just about any facet of life, politics certainly but also your personal or business life as well. But for me, I always pull it out whenever anyone wants to talk about their value proposition and price.

    Money talks

    Where Marketing adds its greatest value

    April 21st, 2011

    By Barbara Bix

    Shortly after I got up this morning, I strolled over to Marketing Over Coffee for a quick shot before heading off to work and found this great article, entitled How to restore the faded luster to marketing by Rich Guha.  In my opinion, it’s a “must read” for anyone looking to build a business or aiming to build a career in marketing.

    It’s about the big picture

    Referencing management heroes such as Peter Drucker and Ted Leavitt, the article discusses what companies have lost as marketing becomes more specialized. Guha advises marketers that wish to add significant value to the business to: