Dodge Communications

Mannequins, task-trainers, standardized patients, virtual patients…these are all types of simulations. But what do they mean to the healthcare industry? Simulation is nothing new to medical students training to become the doctors and nurses of the future. However, there’s significant opportunity for long-practicing healthcare professionals in the use of simulation.

For starters, as accountable care organizations (ACO) and patient-centered medical homes (PCMH) become increasingly more popular, organizations will receive compensation based on improved clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction. This leaves hospitals and health systems searching for ways to improve the decision-making of their staff—as opposed to their overall medical knowledge. Simulation has been implemented as a resource for continued training—as stated in a recent Healthcare Informatics piece, Patient Simulation: An ACO’s Best Friend? Honing decision-making can only lead to improved patient outcomes, helping healthcare organizations succeed in this constantly changing environment.

While this may seem a reason on its own to consider simulation as part of a healthcare organization’s strategy, there are many other benefits to this type of training. Here are three things you need to know about simulation in healthcare—beyond medical schools. (more…)

Enterprise Social Graph: An Enterprise Social Graph is the representation, in the form of a graph, of the social network of a business and everything entailed within that organization including employee interaction to the exchange of information and the engagement of vendors and customers. Similar to the social graphs on Facebook and LinkedIn networks that allow you to globally map people and their relationships, an Enterprise Social Graph gives you the power to make better use of your business network by providing a more powerful way of understanding, analyzing and acting on key issues. Additionally, because the Enterprise Social Graph utilizes both internal and external social perspectives, it can provide greater insight into marketplace conditions, customer demand and product development.

Past Words of the Week

Visual.ly, Social Strategy 1, Medigram, Instagram, Checkthis, Hall.com, TweetReach, One Billion, ZocDoc, CardMunch, LiveGO, ifttt, Chaptur, SOPA, Social Television, Flipboard, Social Commerce, Doximity, Troll, Healia, HealthTECH Live, Revolution Health, Buffer, Twilert, nptech, Taweet, MedicalCavity, DoAT, Turntable.fm, iMedix, Twylah, Masher, Proxlet, Geeje, Google+, SocialVisor, Scribd, Pinterest, Graspr, White hat, Screenr, dushare, MEDgle, PostPost, Deals, SPOT Healthcare, Evernote, dlvr.it, Bounce, iTriage, popurls, Trunk.ly, Dropbox, Storify, Newsvine, Layers, Thsrs, #tagdef, Check-in, MDJunction, Blekko, Healthline, Spindex, Vanilla, Twingr, Tweetbeat, Social Media Policy, infoMedMD, Health Care 3.0, Groupon, icyou, #MDchat, Quality 101, MedlinePlus, HITSphere, URL X-ray, Mashup, Blog Talk Radio, TweetedRanks, Ping.fm, Digsby, Qik, Posterous, Ning, API, Lifecasting, Crowdsourcing, Meme, Social bookmarking, Trackback, Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags

Business travel isn’t at the top of my list of favorite things to do. But being on the road does give me a chance to catch up on my reading.

Last week, I was on my way to the American Telemedicine Association conference in San Jose and opened my issue of Newsweek to an article titled, “Why Your Doctor Has No Time to See You.” A significant portion of the story was dedicated to how important it is for patients and providers to have high-touch, face-to-face encounters—something of an ironic message to be receiving on a trip dedicated to telemedicine.

Without a doubt, telemedicine and other technologies will provide great value in increasing access and quality, while helping healthcare reduce costs. But this article likewise reminds us that healthcare, at the end of the day, is an intensively human and personal experience.

Visual.ly: Visual.ly is a free community that allows you to share infographics and data visualizations without the need of Photoshop or a team of designers. Visual.ly’s capabilities include the ability to create custom infographics using information from various databases, including those from social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. In fact, Visual.ly just launched a service that allows you to plug in data from your Twitter or Facebook account to instantly produce an infographic. Infographics and data visualizations help ease communication methods by simplifying ideas in a clear and concise, yet beautifully depicted manner. As more and more people continue to communicate through infographics and data visualizations, Visual.ly will surely be a trending topic.

Past Words of the Week

Social Strategy 1, Medigram, Instagram, Checkthis, Hall.com, TweetReach, One Billion, ZocDoc, CardMunch, LiveGO, ifttt, Chaptur, SOPA, Social Television, Flipboard, Social Commerce, Doximity, Troll, Healia, HealthTECH Live, Revolution Health, Buffer, Twilert, nptech, Taweet, MedicalCavity, DoAT, Turntable.fm, iMedix, Twylah, Masher, Proxlet, Geeje, Google+, SocialVisor, Scribd, Pinterest, Graspr, White hat, Screenr, dushare, MEDgle, PostPost, Deals, SPOT Healthcare, Evernote, dlvr.it, Bounce, iTriage, popurls, Trunk.ly, Dropbox, Storify, Newsvine, Layers, Thsrs, #tagdef, Check-in, MDJunction, Blekko, Healthline, Spindex, Vanilla, Twingr, Tweetbeat, Social Media Policy, infoMedMD, Health Care 3.0, Groupon, icyou, #MDchat, Quality 101, MedlinePlus, HITSphere, URL X-ray, Mashup, Blog Talk Radio, TweetedRanks, Ping.fm, Digsby, Qik, Posterous, Ning, API, Lifecasting, Crowdsourcing, Meme, Social bookmarking, Trackback, Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags

Social Strategy 1: Social Strategy 1 is an online media monitoring intelligence service that analyzes blogs and other forms of social media outlets to help bring insight to those who execute social media in various disciplines. Why is Social Strategy 1 important? Now, more than ever, more and more companies are turning to social media for marketing, branding and as a way to stay tuned in with their audience. The social web has proved to be more than just a new method of communication – it mirrors a window to see what is actually happening in the online world. Social Strategy 1 capitalizes on the importance of this by translating social media intelligence into action, which is sure to increase ROI for any brand utilizing the service.

Past Words of the Week

Medigram, Instagram, Checkthis, Hall.com, TweetReach, One Billion, ZocDoc, CardMunch, LiveGO, ifttt, Chaptur, SOPA, Social Television, Flipboard, Social Commerce, Doximity, Troll, Healia, HealthTECH Live, Revolution Health, Buffer, Twilert, nptech, Taweet, MedicalCavity, DoAT, Turntable.fm, iMedix, Twylah, Masher, Proxlet, Geeje, Google+, SocialVisor, Scribd, Pinterest, Graspr, White hat, Screenr, dushare, MEDgle, PostPost, Deals, SPOT Healthcare, Evernote, dlvr.it, Bounce, iTriage, popurls, Trunk.ly, Dropbox, Storify, Newsvine, Layers, Thsrs, #tagdef, Check-in, MDJunction, Blekko, Healthline, Spindex, Vanilla, Twingr, Tweetbeat, Social Media Policy, infoMedMD, Health Care 3.0, Groupon, icyou, #MDchat, Quality 101, MedlinePlus, HITSphere, URL X-ray, Mashup, Blog Talk Radio, TweetedRanks, Ping.fm, Digsby, Qik, Posterous, Ning, API, Lifecasting, Crowdsourcing, Meme, Social bookmarking, Trackback, Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags

The healthcare industry faces many regulatory changes in the coming years—ICD-10, HIPAA 5010, Meaningful Use and other information technology (IT) updates. However, the industry needs to be aware of another fast-approaching, lesser-known set of regulations regarding disclosure of financial conflicts of interest (FCOI).

In 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published its final rule on FCOI. The regulations are a significant update on the initial rules published in 1995 and demand greater accountability and transparency for research institutions that receive Public Health Service (PHS) funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The compliance deadline is August 24, 2012, so institutions need to be aggressively preparing for the new disclosure process.

Bill Sacks, vice president at Dodge client HCCS, outlines some best practices institutions should implement in the midst of the tougher FCOI disclosure requirements. (more…)

Medigram: Medigram is a secure, HIPAA-compliant group messaging system for medical professionals. Medigram’s messaging platform allows medical professionals and teams to communicate with each other through various outlets including traditional computers or through its mobile app on the iPhone or Android. Medigram’s arrival during the Electronic Age is pivotal considering new privacy laws regarding electronic health records and medical information. For instance, the HIPAA Security Act, which requires certain safeguards to protect and maintain the confidentiality of medical electronic protected information, makes it difficult for those in the healthcare sector to exchange HIPAA-related information via technology. However, with the use of Medigram, medical professionals can rest assured that they are exchanging medical information in a secure place – even on their cell phones.

Past Words of the Week

Instagram, Checkthis, Hall.com, TweetReach, One Billion, ZocDoc, CardMunch, LiveGO, ifttt, Chaptur, SOPA, Social Television, Flipboard, Social Commerce, Doximity, Troll, Healia, HealthTECH Live, Revolution Health, Buffer, Twilert, nptech, Taweet, MedicalCavity, DoAT, Turntable.fm, iMedix, Twylah, Masher, Proxlet, Geeje, Google+, SocialVisor, Scribd, Pinterest, Graspr, White hat, Screenr, dushare, MEDgle, PostPost, Deals, SPOT Healthcare, Evernote, dlvr.it, Bounce, iTriage, popurls, Trunk.ly, Dropbox, Storify, Newsvine, Layers, Thsrs, #tagdef, Check-in, MDJunction, Blekko, Healthline, Spindex, Vanilla, Twingr, Tweetbeat, Social Media Policy, infoMedMD, Health Care 3.0, Groupon, icyou, #MDchat, Quality 101, MedlinePlus, HITSphere, URL X-ray, Mashup, Blog Talk Radio, TweetedRanks, Ping.fm, Digsby, Qik, Posterous, Ning, API, Lifecasting, Crowdsourcing, Meme, Social bookmarking, Trackback, Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags

As you probably know by now, we assist clients in developing strategic, sustainable social media campaigns that are meaningful to their target audiences. What you may not know is that before embarking on this project, we perform a full social media assessment because every company is different and not every social media platform is right for you.

To provide advice for effectively launching a social media campaign, we’ve invited John Lynn to discuss insight into his success with social media and the Healthcare Scene Blog Network.

John (or as many of you may know him on Twitter, @techguy) is a leading social media influencer in the healthcare space, managing 14 blogs and a Twitter account with nearly 4,000 followers.

Dodge: What made you decide to begin blogging about healthcare and ultimately launch the Healthcare Scene blog network?

Lynn: Initially I just started with one blog and was really just bored on a weekend. My day job was implementing an EMR in a health and counseling center along with providing top to bottom IT support. I did have the original goals of showing my knowledge of EMR for future jobs and getting to the top of Google for the search term EMR, but otherwise I was just playing around. I saw it as a great way to learn about EMR and to pass that knowledge forward. (more…)

Instagram: Instagram is a mobile app that allows you to apply filters to photos taken on a mobile device. Each photo taken can then be shared with both friends and strangers on various social media networks including Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Instagram was just purchased this week for $1 billion  by Facebook. You may remember that not too long ago, we featured One Billion as a previous Word of the Week; One Billion stood for the number of members that Facebook had just reached. Now that Facebook owns Instagram (which will retain its independence so it can still be utilized by other social media outlets), it renders endless possibilities for all social media users. For instance, Instagram currently displays no ads within the app, however this is sure to change with the Facebook acquisition and could potentially create a profitable field for advertising. Moreover, the acquisition will provide Instagram users with additional features such as the ability to edit previously stored photos with filters. Instagram will most likely be a trending social media topic in the coming months.

Past Words of the Week

Checkthis, Hall.com, TweetReach, One Billion, ZocDoc, CardMunch, LiveGO, ifttt, Chaptur, SOPA, Social Television, Flipboard, Social Commerce, Doximity, Troll, Healia, HealthTECH Live, Revolution Health, Buffer, Twilert, nptech, Taweet, MedicalCavity, DoAT, Turntable.fm, iMedix, Twylah, Masher, Proxlet, Geeje, Google+, SocialVisor, Scribd, Pinterest, Graspr, White hat, Screenr, dushare, MEDgle, PostPost, Deals, SPOT Healthcare, Evernote, dlvr.it, Bounce, iTriage, popurls, Trunk.ly, Dropbox, Storify, Newsvine, Layers, Thsrs, #tagdef, Check-in, MDJunction, Blekko, Healthline, Spindex, Vanilla, Twingr, Tweetbeat, Social Media Policy, infoMedMD, Health Care 3.0, Groupon, icyou, #MDchat, Quality 101, MedlinePlus, HITSphere, URL X-ray, Mashup, Blog Talk Radio, TweetedRanks, Ping.fm, Digsby, Qik, Posterous, Ning, API, Lifecasting, Crowdsourcing, Meme, Social bookmarking, Trackback, Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags

The healthcare industry is bracing for a potential bombshell in late June. The individual mandate, a key portion of the 2009 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), may be overturned by the Supreme Court. While the mandate is just one provision in the extremely expansive healthcare law, a lot hinges on its constitutionality.

There are several ways the decision could affect PPACA—and subsequently, the healthcare industry. One possibility is that the current law would be amended—if the individual mandate is declared unconstitutional, it could be written out along with several very closely related items, including a requirement that insurers provide coverage regardless of a patient’s pre-existing conditions. Then again, the entire act could be dissolved with an unfavorable decision. And of course, there’s the strong possibility that the individual mandate will be upheld by the Supreme Court justices, and the various provisions of the law will move forward as planned. (more…)