instantly health

I came across an old post from December 2010 written with the passage of the Affordable Care Act on how the role of hospital marketing needed to change to meet the new evolving consumer-directed marketplace .   Then in 2012, a reader asked if hospital marketing had changed nearly two years later. My answer is 2012, sadly enough not much has changed in the current state and role of hospital marketing.   Today on May 20, 2018, nearly eight-year after the original post, I decided to revisit the question. The answer is still ; not much has changed overall.   Oh, we have added an expanded social media and online practice, but much of the changing role and strategic marketing leadership that I envisioned with the passage of the Affordable Care Act hasn't taken place.   It's pretty much standard operations as in the past.   And that is disappointing.   Understand that I am not talking about pharma, medical device manufacturers, insurance companies, suppliers, an...

I read an interesting article on April 27, 2018, “Providers jittery over the ‘Yelpification’ of healthcare” , Tony Abraham, Healthcare Dive from the Manhattan Institute report, “Yelp for Health” . The striking part of the report is that consumer Yelp reviews and other text-based reviews correlate with Medicare consumer surveys. Oh, oh. We all know that consumers are increasingly turning to social media to find and select healthcare providers.  Why is that such a surprise? Now that the horse is out of the barn and not going back anytime soon, what is the hospital to do?  It’s time to stop having the yips or jitters over patients and consumers using Yelp and other social media channels. It’s now time to respond strategically and tactically from a marketing perspective. You must get over it organizationally and stop believing your press releases about how great you are. The yips and jitters come from inaction and refusal to accept the reality of the market driven by the growing ...