HBG Health - Brand Innovations for Health

Redefining the lines of communication between physicians and patients

Let’s review the stats: 

• Facebook has 901 million monthly users¹
• Twitter claims 340,000,000 tweets are sent everyday²
• The number of daily Pinterest users has gone up 145% since the start of 2012³

Clearly, it was only a matter of time before physicians and their patients began experimenting with social media. However, finding a way to communicate with patients in a way that is valuable, while maintaining confidentiality, is proving difficult. Although some doctors are interested in pursuing social media as an avenue to consult with patients, their places of employment may end up shutting them down. According to IT Publication NetworkWorld, Matt Goldstein, a soon-to-be Stanford grad, was expressly forbidden from using social media to communicate with patients by his hiring hospital in Boston. This policy extends to denying friend requests should they come from patients.

Although online forums currently exists where doctors can confer with each other, patients are left out of the mix. Some patients are turning to sites such as PatientsLikeMe, where individuals can discuss their medical situation with others that are in a similar position. The site currently has almost 150,000 users talking about symptoms, treatment options, medications and so on. However, physicians are not currently a part of this conversation.

In the past, healthcare has been more of a private business, with communication limited to the doctor and patient, and perhaps the patient’s immediate family. In today’s world, patients can interact with someone they will never meet about their symptoms and the latest treatment options. The opportunity is there for physicians to make this conversation richer and more beneficial, it remains to be seen how this will best be accomplished. 

How do you feel about this?

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The role of brand in healthcare reform

Healthcare as we know it is changing. Patients are becoming empowered health consumers, taking more control of their health decisions. Insurers are experiencing increased pressure to lower costs. Providers, whether a system, physician-owned practice, or integrated delivery network, are consolidating, and facing significant shifts in terms of reimbursement, and new challenges in patient care to achieve outcomes aligned with new government mandates. Competition within the industry will only continue to increase as a greater emphasis is placed on quality, value and outcomes. And as a result, it will be harder for provider organizations to differentiate themselves. We believe one way is through creating and elevating a relevant brand. 

A brand is more than a logo or a sign on your door. It is the culture of your organization, the organizations you partner and affiliate with, and the products and services you offer. Your brand is the personification of your vision, and it should have a strategy that is uniquely yours. To survive, and thrive, in the new healthcare paradigm, you must have a powerful health brand that wraps around all areas of your organization.

Never before has brand played such a critical role in an organization’s ultimate success. The organizations whose brands make a promise about who they are and what they are capable of providing, and can deliver on that promise, will become the category leaders in their sector.

Have you considered how your brand can impact the future growth of your business?

 

 

 

 

 

New Year Reading: Part Two

To keep you thinking about how to reinvent and revitalize your brand, and yourself, in 2012, here are a few more great reads.

 

Willpower:  Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength

 In Willpower, the pioneering researcher Roy F. Baumeister collaborates with renowned New York Times science writer John Tierney to transform our understanding of the most coveted human virtue: self-control.

Baumeister discovered that willpower actually operates like a muscle: it can be strengthened with practice and fatigued by overuse. Willpower looks to the lives of entrepreneurs, parents, entertainers, and artists-including David Blaine, Eric Clapton, and others-who have flourished by improving their self-control.

The lessons from their stories and psychologists' experiments can help anyone. You learn not only how to build willpower but also how to conserve it for crucial moments by setting the right goals and using the best new techniques for monitoring your progress. Once you master these techniques and establish the right habits, willpower gets easier: you'll need less conscious mental energy to avoid temptation. At the end of the book, you will have more knowledge and better tools for taking control of your life.

 

50 Self-help Classics:  50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life

 In 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life, Tom Butler-Bowdon brings together fifty of the best works on personal development and self-motivation so you don’t have to sort through the thousands of self-help books out there. Butler-Bowden appreciates that we are all inspired by different underlying philosophies, and this is represented in the list. 50 Self-Help Classics summarizes each writer’s background, the primary concepts in the book, and who will benefit by reading it. 

 

The Hundred-Year Lie: How to Protect Yourself from the Chemicals That Are Destroying Your Health

 In The Hundred-Year Lie, investigative journalist Randall Fitzgerald tells how humans are becoming the most polluted species on the planet from the thousands of man-made chemicals in our food, water, medicine, and environment. Over a century ago, Americans were promised “better living through chemistry,” when Congress enacted the Pure Food and Drug Act.

Fitzgerald provides tremendous evidence that this, and many other claims made by the chemical, pharmaceutical and processed foods industries are in fact myths. The Hundred-Year Lie presents practical suggestions for how we can live healthier lives. 

 

ChefMD's Big Book of Culinary Medicine: A Food Lover's Road Map to Losing Weight, Preventing Disease, and Getting Really Healthy

 Learn to use culinary medicine to better your life. Dr. John La Puma researched the science of nutrition while also going to culinary school to learn to cook, and as a result, created the revolutionary new concept of “culinary medicine”–recipes, foods, and meals that prevent or control common health conditions without sacrificing restaurant-quality taste.

In ChefMD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine, you’ll learn to stock the medicine chest in your kitchen, use the doctor inside of you, and create dishes that give you lifesaving benefits and truly dazzling flavor. Dr. La Puma serves up a step-by-step eight-week plan to motivate you and help you change your life.

 

To your health!

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