Hospital Executive Today

DoctorBase Surpasses 2 Million Patients on the PANDA Communications Platform

Healthcare Automation Company DoctorBase Grows From 0 to 2 Million Patients in Less Than 18 Months

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, Oct 18, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — DoctorBase, a self-funded start-up from the founder of SaaS company Five9, today announced that it has surpassed 2 Million patients and over 3,500 healthcare providers on its Patient Communications Platform (PANDA).

By automating online patient marketing and communications through SMS, Email and Social Media, PANDA software offers healthcare providers a low cost, no-learning-curve SaaS application that increases genuine word-of-mouth referrals — automatically.

PANDA Software A complete patient messaging system that integrates to the five most popular electronic health records systems (EHR), PANDA offers unified web marketing including social media features tied to patient satisfaction surveys, along with HIPAA-compliant messaging that allows patients to SMS their healthcare providers securely.

Healthcare Marketing Goes Mobile

A new report from eMarketer titled “Mobile Healthcare Marketing: Prescriptions for Health and Wellness on the Go,” takes a deep look at the impact (and potential impact) of mobile devices on personal health and well-being.

From a consumer-user perspective, mobile health initiatives – apps, tracking services and the like – not only offer practical and useful tools, but they also lead to a sense of responsibility and empowerment – essentially, a way to maintain or improve one’s health.

Beyond the consumer benefits, it’s apparent that mobile-enabled healthcare also has the opportunity to impact provider decisions and best practices. It can also help shape the way we as communications professionals devise healthcare marketing and public relations strategies for our clients.

Promise has not been without challenge, though. Regulation, privacy issues and a lack of mobile standards have stalled major advancements forward. “There have been experiments with mobile programs,” said Victoria Petrock, eMarketer research analyst and author of the new report. “But many efforts to market and deliver large-scale healthcare via mobile have, to date, been siloed and ineffectively measured.”

The latest health care marketing tool: QR codes

QR codes, the nearly ubiquitous black-and-white square boxes with maze-like lines, could be an effective way for physicians to market themselves and their groups, said practice consultants and marketing experts.

QR codes — the QR stands for “quick response” — are basically an upgraded version of the standard barcode. They are two-dimensional graphics that can store 14 types of data, such as Web links, text messages and phone numbers. When the QR codes are scanned by using any camera-enabled smartphone, the data embedded in them will be delivered to that person’s mobile device.

Mary Pat Whaley, a consultant who runs managemypractice.com, a practice management resource website, said she has seen use of the technology “explode” in health care.

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Whaley said hospitals and practices are trying to be creative about how they put information in patients’ hands.

Dozens of websites generate a QR code at no cost, and physicians can find one through a Google search on creating a QR code. The site will ask what types of data are to be sent; most limit it to a URL, a text message or a phone number. Read more here.

Widening services: Susan G. Komen grants enable hospitals to reach more women

Targeted funding grants from Susan G. Komen for the Cure have made breast cancer screening, education, prevention and early detection much easier for women served by hospitals and medical centers around the state.

The services funded by Komen grants range from annual mammograms for older women in Somerset County to programs for the uninsured or underinsured in Middlesex County, to services for minorites in Union County, to a mobile bus that goes around the region educating high school students about breast cancer.

The grant funds enable the institutions to broaden their reach to specific communities, and target different key segments that otherwise might not get service — or even realize that they are at risk for the disease.

Hospitals Use Spa Amenities as Competitive Advantage

Not immune to the uncertain economy and tight-fisted consumers, more hospitals are offering amenities and facilities that mirror spa and hotel environments, especially in maternity wards.

The recently opened Family Birth Center at St. Mary’s Hospital in Madison, Wisc., features 37 Family Care “suites” that director Holly Halberslaben said new parents don’t like to leave.

The suites feature double-beds, stone tile in the bathrooms and a shower with massage showerhead, back-massager and natural light through large windows. The hospital provides other hotel-like amenities, including shampoo and soap from French luxury brand l’Occitane, and a special menu from which new parents can choose meals.

“We modeled to make it more family centered and homelike,” she said. “We know in the community we’ve always provided quality care but the enviornment we had didn’t match. We wanted to make the rooms homey with a spa-like environment so it’s relaxing.”

A Healing Touch From Hospitals

SOME advertising agencies weathering the economic downturn are getting a shot in the arm from the most suitable of sources: hospitals.

An ad for Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan takes a humorous approach in noting that it has been around since 1857.

A forthcoming ad about pediatric care for the Everett Clinic.

In the first six months of 2011, advertising by American hospitals, clinics and medical centers rose 20.4 percent, to $717.2 million, from $595.5 million in the same period in 2010, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.

Advertising agencies increasingly are trying to quicken the pulse of consumers, who have come to expect ads with doctors in scrubs posing with impressive machinery, ad copy boasting of “skilled” doctors and “caring” nurses, and the latest ratings from U.S. News and World Report.

A new television commercial for Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, for example, features pedestrians on a busy sidewalk, and the text, “We can’t help you with playoff tickets. We can’t help you with co-op board approval, or getting your child into a preschool. But if it’s really a matter of life and death — we can help.”

A print ad for the campaign, much of which celebrates the fact that the hospital has been around since 1857, has this headline: “We had cardiologists before the city even had arteries.”

The campaign is by the New York advertising firm of DeVito/Verdi. Click here for more

Hospitals add jobs but squeeze spending on wages and benefits

Welcome back from the long Labor Day weekend. In deference to the holiday, here is a look at recently released data on healthcare labor.

Once again, hospital job growth held out in August as the weak economy undermined prospects for millions unemployed Americans. Federal figures released on Friday, though preliminary, show hospitals added 7,700 jobs last month and about 74,000 jobs during the last 12 months.

But as hospitals have continued to hire, they have also undertaken extraordinary efforts to slow spending on wages and benefits, one snapshot of hospital finances shows.

A look at spending by 401 hospitals and single-state health systems found the 2010 median wage and benefit expense growth dropped for the second year. Wage and benefit spending grew 4.1%, last year’s median shows, from 5.7% in 2009, said Moody’s Investors Service. More

Going green saves green

Deciding where to toss a dirty diaper or how many linens to grab for a patient may seem like insignificant decisions in the midst of a busy shift, but nurses in Florida and Texas are learning the dozens of small choices they make each day can add up quickly when it comes to environmental impact.

As part of an effort to become a leader in green healthcare, Baptist Health South Florida recently launched an initiative to reduce the amount of red bag waste, or RBW, the six hospitals in the system were generating. Leaders of Baptist Health’s Green Team suspected they could reduce RBW by educating employees about what did not need to go into these bags. By law, any waste that includes blood-soaked bandages or disposable devices such as syringes should be placed into a red bag. Items containing feces, urine, vomit or sputum can go in the regular trash.

RBW produces a larger carbon footprint than other trash because it requires more energy to treat it before it is disposed of in a landfill. Baptist Health’s employees were trained in the sometimes-subtle differences between different types of waste. The result: In the past two years, the facilities within the Baptist Health system have cut down the amount of RBW by 30% to 60% per location and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars per year — not to mention the benefit to the environment. More

Mayo Clinic Sustainability

Many people might not know this, but Mayo Clinic has been “going green” since the early 1900′s.

But lately the effort has picked up some momentum. The chair of Mayo’s Green Committee, Dr. John Black, recently attended the Clinton Global Initiative American conference to talk about what Mayo is doing. Friday, we sat down with him to find out for ourselves.

“For us to be relevant, we need to be affordable and the greening of the Mayo Clinic…should provide us with an opportunity to save money,” said Dr. John Black.

Mayo’s green initiative started nearly 90 years ago with the idea of using the heat exhaust from its power plants to heat or cool buildings. The idea is called co-generation and it allows Mayo’s downtown power plant to more than double the efficiency of a standard power plant, from 30 percent to a staggering 72 percent. More

Going to the hospital this month? Beware the ‘July effect.’

Patients admitted to teaching hospitals in July are slightly more likely to die during their stay, and tend to have longer hospital stays and higher hospital charges, according to a study published online today by the Annals of Internal Medicine. Why? Possibly because July is when experienced trainees graduate and new, less experienced ones start.

Researchers from the University of San Francisco School of Medicine reviewed 39 studies to determine the effect of trainee changeover on patient outcomes. They noted that while there was considerable variation among hospitals, overall patients tended to fare worse in the month of July. More