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Archives : Google
Online reputations: An important consideration for healthcare providers
I’ve written about the impact that online physician ratings are having on healthcare providers. The ability for patients to comment on their interactions with physicians through a channel that the whole world can see is a significant shift in power toward the consumer in today’s healthcare economy.
It is wise for healthcare providers, including physicians, to check up on their online reputations to ensure that even if they can’t control what is said about them on the web, at least they’ll know about it. This post on Boston.com’s White Coat Notes speaks to the importance of self-keyworded Google searches by physicians in order to play active defense in the protection of their online reputations.
“There may be slanderous information about a physician on the Web, published in a blog or on a Web page, by a vengeful patient, colleague, or ex-lover,” Dr. Tristan Gorrindo and Dr. James E. Groves write in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “Equally vexing, there may be slanderous information published about someone with the same name as an unlucky physician.”
Standards: The answer to widespread adoption of personal health records
As much as electronic medical records (EMR’s) have been the topic of conversation in the healthcare profession over the last 10 years, most of the buzz has been around the “potential” rather than “impact” of the technology.
One of the main reasons for this is that there exists a lack of standards that allow for the transfer of information between EMR systems. There are some great EMR systems out there, but for EMR’s to really catch on, they need to be both cost effective and efficient for providers. For all users of EMR’s to achieve this, one of two things needs to happen: (1) Everyone needs to get on board with the same system, or (2) we agree to, and abide by development “standards” that will allow systems to communicate with each other. Since getting all providers on board with one EMR platform is unrealistic, the answer to widespread adoption likely lies with the development of standards that will allow systems to integrate together, and that will lower the switching costs associated with moving from one system to the next.
With regard to personal health records (PHR’s), the same is true, and the battle between Microsoft and Google to become the preferred PHR system by consumers and providers has recently brought the issue of “standards” to the forefront. This article from WashingtonPost.com discusses how Microsoft, Google, and some other PHR developers have agreed to move forward with privacy standards in the development of electronic personal health records – an important step toward widespread adoption by healthcare consumers.
In a move designed to prompt more people to store their medical records online, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and several others have agreed on privacy standards to protect patients’ information. The list includes WebMD (NSDQ: WBMD), MedicAlert, AARP,Consumer Reports publisher Consumers Union, BlueCross BlueShield, and other insurers.
Google Alerts: What they are and how they can help your practice
We all know Google, many of us using their search algorithms daily when we “Google” products, services or people online. For business owners, Google has become a research tool, allowing for “quick and dirty” searches of information about themselves and competitors.
As more people are moving to the web to find information about healthcare providers (read my posts about online physician ratings here and here), it pays for private practice owners to know what is being said about their practice in online news publications and throughout the blogosphere. With more and more print publications simultaneously funneling their news stories online, web searches now provide a means by which to search local print media who may be publishing information about a practice from recent press releases, sponsorships or other local news stories.
Practice owners and managers don’t have the time to search the Internet daily for news stories or commentary about their practice, but they do have the time to take advantage of Google Alerts in order to have Google scour the web for them. With Google Alerts, you simply enter the keywords you’d like searched, enter in a frequency of which you’d like the results sent to you by email, and you’re done. You’ll soon be getting email in your inbox telling you exactly what is being said about your practice online – a great way to keep tabs on your practice’s brand in a way that is efficient, easy and effective.
This article from BizGrowthNews provides some more information about the benefits of this great tool.
I recommend putting in place a once-a-day Google Alert which you can then review at the start of each day.
Items that feature in the news, in blogs or on the web can be included in the alert.
Google Health is here
After a successful pilot project at the Cleveland Clinic, Google Health is finally available for use by the public. Will this change the tracking of medical conditions, reduce drug interactions and improve the overall quality of healthcare communication between patients and physicians? We’ll find out shortly.
Google enters the field of personal health records with a leading online brand, deep pockets and a wealth of technical skills. In a two-month trial this year, the Cleveland Clinic found that its patients were eager to use the Google health records.
The pilot project, limited to 1,600 patients, was quickly oversubscribed, said C. Martin Harris, the Cleveland Clinic’s chief information officer. Dr. Harris also said that when the clinic’s online health records, introduced in 2004, were linked to the Google record the clinic’s records were used more frequently by patients. “It positioned our personal health record more into an activity that they use every day,” Dr. Harris said.
The Google record, he said, allows the user to send personal information, at the individual’s discretion, into the clinic record or to pull information from the clinic records into the Google personal file.
Finding doctors (and appointment times) online
Free market enterprise is daily finding more of a home in the healthcare industry. Of recent note are moves by Microsoft and Google to become big players in the personal health record (PHR) market, but it’s not just the big guns that are bringing consumer-friendly tools into the heart of medical practice operations.
The Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative blog posted recently about an innovative approach to the online scheduling of physician and dentist appointments using a tool very similar to the type commonly used to make restaurant reservations online.
The market won’t stand still. While a bunch of us are futzing around with patient portals, PHRs, patient kiosks, and other tools to add convenience to health care delivery, along comes ZocDoc (http://www.zocdoc.com/) which allows online scheduling of physician and dentist appointments for participating providers. Physicians pay for the service and it’s free to patients.
Online scheduling has been around on the web for awhile. Booking tickets, for example, for everything from movies to airplanes. And www.opentable.com allows free restaurant reservation booking in a number of cities. Like opentable, Zocdoc also allows patients to review their physicians on the site.
“Innovation through competition”
Those were the headlines in the New York Times News Service yesterday, which I found syndicated in my local newspaper. I couldn’t agree more.
As many are aware, Google is sponsoring a $20 million “race to the moon” for a commercial grade spacecraft that holds potential as a feasible vehicle for use by human passengers. The premise of course, is that despite the great body of knowledge we’ve developed throughout the world, a little competition lights the fire that will ultimately catapult innovation from mere concept to proven reality.
I feel the same way about healthcare. Now, it’s not too novel a concept to understand that innovation in the development and manufacturing of cardiac stents, hip prostheses, and endovascular coils is important…from all angles it clearly is. What’s a bit less understood is how innovation in the delivery of healthcare is of significant importance as well. Creating business models that place the incentives in such a way as to benefit the payer, the provider, and the patient – well that’s innovation too.
The great thing about innovation is that it is a product of competition, something that we’re all built to foster, breed, and execute. I worked for a hospital organization whose primary focus was fear of future competition. Strategies revolved around how to prevent competitive entry in lieu of a focus on how to remain competitive in the face of it. It’s not that barriers to entry aren’t important – they are. But recognizing that competition isn’t easy, and that from it comes adaptation, change, and improvement allows one’s focus to expand toward innovation which benefits all, rather than protection which benefits few.
The new models of healthcare that we’re seeing develop that are the outcome of increased competition for a shrinking dollar (the medical home, concierge medical services, conglomerate specialty practices, cash pay physical therapy services) aren’t all going to hit the nail on the head. Some are even going to fail miserably. I say, kudos for trying though, as it’s only when innovation is conceptualized and executed that our healthcare system and private practice have the chance to develop something that sticks…hopefully like commercial airlines to the moon.
Google PHR test drive at Cleveland Clinic
Google is making strides with its web-based PHR by beginning a pilot test that will include 1,500 to 10,000 patients at the Cleveland Clinic. Electronic management of the PHR is certainly on the way…
Cleveland Clinic plans to enroll between 1,500 and 10,000 patients to trial the secure exchange of medical record data such as prescriptions, conditions and allergies between the clinic and a secure Google profile in a live clinical delivery setting.
The clinic said the goal of the model was to give patients the ability to interact with multiple physicians, healthcare service providers and pharmacies.
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