Calling all administrators - check out the inaugural patient-consumer blog carnival here at The Patient-Consumer blog.

While this is obviously still a relatively new development, can you imagine the day when patients come together and trade horror (and/or happy) stories about your hospital?

And yes, I'm a little uncomfortable with all the bashing (doctors, administrators, hospitals all get a little beating here - at least no one group is singled out!), but can't we all learn something from this?

We talk so much about marketing strategies, but the most often overlooked one is viral word-of-mouth marketing. And that is all about the million little things - the nurse's intonation when asked a stupid question, whether the registrar looked at you in the eye when he registered you, whether the food was lukewarm or hot, etc - i.e. we may have a marketing department, but every employee ends up being a marketer. (for more on word-of-mouth mktg, check out this WOMBAT blog). This goes back to the controversial concept of that perception of care is sometimes more important than the reality of care.