Light Reading for Upcoming Gov 2.0 Expo Attendees

With the Gov 2.0 expo coming up soon (May 25-27), I think it is probably a nice idea to share some the blog posts and news stories I've been reading about the subject.


BtoG Communities Now Online - Q&A with Strategic's Marc Hausman
BtoB Magazine (5.10)
As president-CEO of Strategic Communications Group, Marc Hausman works with b-to-b and business-to-government companies on social media strategies. The company, which was founded 15 years ago as a public relations consultancy, began to focus on social media about three years ago. Today, 90% of Strategic’s revenue comes from social media communications. BtoB recently spoke with Hausman about the best ways to use social media for reaching government buyers.

Monster Government Solutions Unleashes Web Site
BtoB Magazine (5.10)
Monster Government Solutions faces a particular challenge in marketing: It wants to deliver a complex, targeted-solutions message about its software and technology, which powers online career communities such as USAjobs.gov—all without diluting Monster Worldwide’s corporate branding and marketing efforts. The answer to that question turned out


5 Ways Government Works Better With Social Media
Alexander Howard, the gov 2.0 writer for O’Reilly Media shares five real world ways government agencies are rolling out social media or networking programs. "The simplest way of describing government 2.0 may be any technology that helps citizens or agencies solve problems, either for individuals or the community, and enables government to operate more efficiently or effectively."

Open Gov Transcends Technology – The Case for Interoperable Business Practices
Stuart McKee, Microsoft State & Local Government National Technology Officer, shares his view that open government should mean more that posting raw data on a website. "Simply put - data alone is meaningless, organize it and it becomes information!"


NHIN Direct: Open Healthcare Records and Government as a Platform
Tim O'Reilly shares his ongoing experiences working with government leaders building an open health care records system. Follow this fascinating passage- it seems obvious that private sector software developers are driving the progress of this program...

I was swept from my meeting with Dr. Blumenthal into a planning meeting for NHIN Direct, an open system for interchange of patient records between physicians (and ultimately patients themselves), where I heard much the same message, which was summarized so eloquently by Dr. John Halamka on his blog yesterday morning:

The NHIN Direct effort philosophy is expressed in design rules

The golden standards rule of "rough consensus, working code" will be applied to this effort.

Discuss disagreements in terms of goals and outcomes, not in terms of specific technical implementations.

The NHIN Direct project will adhere to the following design principles agreed to by the HIT Standards Committee from the feedback provided to the Implementation Workgroup

Keep it simple; think big, but start small; recommend standards as minimal as possible to support the business goal and then build as you go.

Don’t let “perfect” be the enemy of “good enough”; go for the 80% that everyone can agree on; get everyone to send the basics (medications, problem list, allergies, labs) before focusing on the more obscure.

Keep the implementation cost as low as possible; eliminate any royalties or other expenses associated with the use of standards.

Design for the little guy so that all participants can adopt the standard and not just the best resourced.

Do not try to create a one size fits all standard, it will be too heavy for the simple use cases.

Separate content standards from transmission standards; i.e., if CCD is the html, what is the https?

Create publicly available controlled vocabularies & code sets that are easily accessible / downloadable

Leverage the web for transport whenever possible to decrease complexity & the implementers’ learning curve (“health internet”).

Create Implementation Guides that are human readable, have working examples, and include testing tools.

That should be music to the ears of any Internet developer, and should raise some serious doubts in the minds of any of you who have been swallowing the idea that somehow the Federal government wants to take over the medical system. There's some fresh thinking going on here, influenced by the best practices of open standards and rapid internet development, about how government can use interoperability to stimulate market activity to improve the medical system.

Take a moment and share with me what you have been reading about gov 2.0 and would recommend...

Happy New Year!! Five Trends to Watch

I'm back in the office working my way through two weeks of emails and I find myself excited. It's 2010- a year that for folks my age conjures images of Roy Scheider on a spaceship heading for Jupiter. It is the future and, space travel aside, there are so many exciting trends happening this year. I hope to share my viewpoint and the opinions of some other thought leaders here on this blog over the next 12 months.

Here are a five things I find fascinating:

1. the integration of cloud computing, enterprise software and social networking to improve sales, marketing and PR business applications and create real, measurable value
2. the continuing impact of mobile computing on businesses and their customers
3. the economic recovery- will it be fast or sluggish
4. will traditional media evolve and save themselves or will they continue to diminish in influence
5. how will the mammoth health care reform bill impact the long delayed computerization and modernization of the healthcare industry

A lot of moving parts for one year! How will it all shake out? Stick around and we'll find out together...

Healthcare Social Media

In a world where Facebook is bigger than Myspace and, together, they have 400 million global users, it's obvious that the healthcare industry is acknowledging it has to adopt these new communications channels... and is starting to do so. 60% of doctors say they want or use social networking sites...

While consumers were quick to embrace social media, doctors were initially skeptical about its value. Now, prodded by the need to be smarter and more competitive in the complex world of modern medicine, doctors are becoming converts. The two largest doctor-only social networks, Sermo and Medscape Physician Connect, have more than 100,000 members each nationwide...

The enthusiasm spans generations. The average Sermo user is in his or her late 40s or early 50s. Many are solo practitioners in rural areas with little time or opportunity to hang around the hospital cafeteria for impromptu consults with other physicians.

Richard Schoor, for example, is a solo practitioner in Smithtown, L.I. The 41-year-old urologist frequents Sermo, blogs as the Independent Urologist and runs his own online forum, the Physicians Entrepreneur Group, which has about 60 members who exchange advice on running a medical practice. Dr. Schoor says he's gotten valuable information from the online forums, including advice on equipment that has prevented costly mistakes.

Combined with the well known use of social networking sites by patients, along with the push for electronic health records, it's becoming obvious that companies that sell goods and services to the healthcare industry are going to have to integrate social media into their marketing strategy and communications tactics.

Here are some social media business applications that healthcare and biotechnology companies need to start looking at now...

• Lead generation
• Enterprise sales support
• Competitive intelligence gathering
• Deal capture
• Distribution partner identification and cultivation
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Executive visibility and thought leadership
• Customer Service
  
• Reputation management
• Employee recruitment
• Team, culture and morale building

On the association side, it's critical that member-based and issue associations leverage all the communications options at their disposal. From member retention to public policy, social media should be a central part of any healthcare associations marketing strategy. Indeed, here in DC, all sides in the fight over healthcare reform are using social networks and tools to spread their messages, keep coalitions together, and achieve their goals. From Senator Grassley calling out President Obama on Twitter to healthcare LinkedIn groups with thousands of members, it's clear that social media is being used by the biggest players in the most important situations...

why aren't you?

The Week Ahead...FOSE/GOVSEC

Well, I've done it...I changed the layout of my blog for the first time in two years. Exciting, huh? I'm now using the TicTac Blue template that Google has so generously provided me for free. For those who haven't been paying attention, I previously used the Minima template, also from Google- although I had customized it to have three columns, something that took me a week, if I remember correctly. Zzzzzzzz.

LOL, setting aside the first paragraph, this is going to be an exciting week! I'm going to be spending a great deal of time at the FOSE/GOVSEC show down at the Washington Convention Center. I'll be meeting with prospects, new and old, catching up with contacts I haven't spoken with in months and conducting some video interviews of senior level marketers who's expertise is how to sell technology and services to the federal, state and local government.

The impact of the new Obama administration is becoming clearer as the months go by.

• An increased emphasis on openness, transparency and communication with citizens is having mixed results.
• The cloud computing trend seems to be on everyone's lips as a solution to the ever present problem of silo smashing and data interoperability, but then the cybersecurity czar, Rod Beckstrom, resigns after a month on the job, because the NSA won't let him manage their data.
• Massive amounts of money are going to be spent on healthcare reform, healthcare IT, green technology and broadband access
• Massive amounts of money are going to be spent on just about everything except the Iraq war and insurance companies.

It certainly will be interesting to see how all this gets paid for: higher taxes (slower growth) or a debased currency (high inflation). Perhaps both. Not to worry- those are problems for another day, right?

I'm looking forward to speaking with the professionals at FOSE who interact with their government customers everyday. Their insight will be enlightening. This is what I want to know:

1. How is this year going to be different than previous years given the effect of economy and the new priorities of new administration?

2. What are government customers telling them about where procurement dollars are flowing? More, less? DOD/intel versus civilian?

3. What are they doing different this year in terms of sales and marketing strategy or tactics? More trade shows? Less? More sales staff? Less? More Lead generation? social media?

Is there anything else you'd like me to ask? Drop me a comment and I'll get the answers you're looking for...

I Want My Health Care Easy

Imagine a time when you can log onto Facebook, click on your Doctor's profile, schedule a appointment for the next few days, fill out a quick form with a list of what's ailing you, happy in the knowledge that your medical information will be electronically transferred to his medical and office software for quick diagnosis and easy billing.

Facebook's easy to use, consumer friendly medical insurance app would monitor the Doctor's invoice, the insurance company's payments for any errors, while anonymous data about your condition, diagnosis and treatment would be sent to the CDC so it could monitor for pandemic flu and other diseases.

All of this would happen with a few clicks of the mouse.

Science fiction right?

Electronic health records (EHR) have been talked about forever and a day it seems. I remember sitting through a compelling presentation at the AeA four years ago about EHR. Microsoft and Google have SaaS offerings already up. Everyone agrees that EHR will be consumer friendly, increase reporting, preserve privacy, save Doctors money- so why doesn't happen?

Probably because the whole healthcare industry is so fractured, non-functional and distorted by haphazard government regulation that something this, well simple, has to wait until everything else wrong with healthcare gets fixed first.

How messed up is it? Here are five healthcare experts talking on a NYTimes blog with five different takes on healthcare reform. They each have an axe to grind but none of them seems to have a holistic solution.

What do you think? Even given that the President is setting aside $600B for health care reform, will it work? Can it work?

Health Care Social Media Tools

There has been a lot of discussion recently on the impact of social media on the healthcare industry. I've written about the topic here on this blog. Many people are in agreement that the healthcare industry will be transformed both by any upcoming regulatory reform and by the impact of social media. My guess is that social media will begin to have its effect before government driven reform gets started. But this is just a lot of big picture thinking...what is possible now? Who is twittering? what are the social networks?

Here is a short list of the social media sites I've come across. If you know of any others, just leave the link in the comments...

First of all, Ed Bennett, a web manager at a hospital has compiled a list of 172 hospitals with links to all the social networks they participate in. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter...they are all here. Check out the list here.

Twitters that I follow:
(This is a good slideshow on the basics of Twitter from a healthcare point of view.)
@Health_IT
@mdtrussell
@mdbraber
@act4healthcare
@UH_Sci_Flack
@mencarna
@TrishaTorrey
@jerseygrl
@AdamGross
@naimul
@planetrussell
@healthTF
@OHSUNews
@ShermanHealth
@rilescat
@LungAssociation
@joemd
@healthmashr
@FamilyDoctorMag

This is a comprehensive list of people in the healthcare industry on Twitter: http://twittgroups.com/group/healthcare

Social Networks
Patientslikeme.com
Dailystrength.org
hospitalimpact.ning.com/
themedica.com/
enurgi.com/
qnahealth.com

LinkedIn Groups
Health 2.0
Health Informatics Technology (HIT)
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
Healthcare Technology Alliance
Healthcare-IT/ EHR/ HIS
Professionals in Pharmaceutical Industry and Biotech Industry

Blogs/Posts/etc.- Background Social Media and Healthcare
Twitter in Healthcare
Twitter a Healthcare Marketing Tool? Maybe
140 Health Care Uses for Twitter
Newsweek's take on Health 2.0

And oh, by the way, if you'd like to fill out a survey I've been running on the use of social media in the healthcare industry, please click here.

Health Care and Social Media

One of the most interesting areas where social media will make an impact is in the health care industry. Most people would readily admit the last two groups to adopt any technology are lawyers and doctors. Of the two, I think that the doctors, and the larger healthcare industry, will be much more rapid adopters of social media. Here is why:

- Government regulation: healthcare reform, medical process management, electronic health records are all trends that, for better or worse, are pushing technology and healthcare workers together. It's easier to adopt social media when you are already using a mobile device, PC or laptop to view professional development videos, process medicare forms, view/send patient records and run your hospital/HMO/personal office.

- Generational shift: as the Baby Boomers move into retirement, they will create openings in senior management for people who are comfortable using technology to communicate transparently with peers, co-workers, vendors and customers.

- Customer demand: patients have adopted social media with amazing rapidity. They are now used to communicating with their service providers in a community type environment where the corporation's voice is merely one among many. Smart companies have mastered this new viral, less controlled communications environment. Less nimble companies have fumbled this opportunity to recreate relationships on a stronger basis, and have suffered sales and market share effects. Organizations as diverse as insurance companies to hospitals to medical device companies to professional associations will have to master social media in order to communicate effectively with their stakeholders.

What do you think? Am I off base? I'd like to get your feedback. Leave a comment below or feel free to fill out a quick three question survey I running on the use of social media and the healthcare industry http://tinyurl.com/6fscao