by Tony Chen

Thanks again to all who attended our New Media/Blogging session today at the MCHC Conference. I sensed a lot of curiosity and interest around the opportunities of blogging in healthcare. As promised, let me share some of my key take-aways as well as some key sites for you to let through to get more acquainted with the blogging/social media phenomenon.

Key Take Aways
- Blogging is just one tool in your marketing/PR toolkit. It's not going to take over the world. It's not going to replace traditional PR outlets. But it's a great complement to your existing structure because of the speed & authenticity that you're able to interact with your stakeholders. Start there. The real innovators will use blogs/social media to engage their community far beyond what traditional PR/marketing represents today.
- There is no hard/financial business case established yet for an organization to start blogging. This is a new media, and many organizations are experimenting with various models. Nonetheless, I believe there is a real value to the organization to: (1) be proactive instead of reactive to addressing issues; (2) be transparent and build long-term credibility and trust (maybe your most precious asset); (3) lower the walls between you and your stakeholders in this new era of open innovation. Bottom line - you get better, faster information, and so do your stakeholders, and that can lead to increased trust, higher-quality ideas, and increased loyalty & referrals.

Healthcare Blogs/Social Media sites
1. Nick Jacobs' Blog - the first hospital CEO with a blog recently posted about his "journey to web 2.0" - he shares how he almost got fired for his blog. Good thing he didn't.
2. Running a Hospital - Paul Levy (CEO of urban hospital in Boston) takes transparency to the next level, asking the public if he makes too much money and posting the intimate details for their plans and quality metrics.
3. Hospital Impact - One day, Hospital Impact will truly be community, a two-way street, where best practices in hospital leadership can be shared more quickly, thoughtfully, and practically.
4. ratemd.com - 100,000+ doctors rated by patients, is yours?
5. Revolution Health - ratings for doctors, hospitals, and health plans + shopping comparisons + tools to keep your medical records & insurance straight. This is Steve Case's bet that consumer-driven healthcare is the next big thing.
6. Carepages - Patients can blog from their hospital bed about their hospital experience and their experience with their disease.
7. patientslikeme.com - a very powerful patient community whereby patients with the same illnesses can share notes AND compare test results. There's no way we could provide this kind of support for these specific patients, so shouldn't we providers be enthusiastically referring patients to this?
8. webmd.com - Everyone goes to WebMD for their medical information now (they've even recently come out with a magazine that sits in physician waiting rooms). Attention physicians: Find out what your patients are reading (and what they're being coached to ask you) before their physician visit.
9. The Paris Site - I'm somewhat hesitant to link to this site, as I'm sure they will comment on this. We talked about the "horror stories." A group of bloggers have been very vocal about the hospital's quality and performance - so much so that they've been sued by hospital.
10. Dr. Wes - A specialist who blogs that has actually gained referrals from his blog.

In addition, check out my "consumer's guide to health 2.0 sites" post.

Blog & web tools
1. Search blogs at Technorati - I think this is best blog-only search engine out there. Just type in a search term/word & hear what bloggers are saying about it.
2. Start a blog at Blogger - the most popular place to start your own blog. You can be literally up and running within minutes.
3. Aggregate blogs with a blog reader. I use igoogle. Choose to "add content" and type in the url's of your favorite websites and blogs. Pretty soon, you'll have a snapshot one-pager with the headlines of all your favorite blogs.

What were your main take-aways from today's conference?