It Costs a Lot of Money to Die Young

The following post is from Stephen Texeira. Warning! This article contains a fair amount of cynicism. It may not be suitable for less mature audiences. Apparently it costs this country’s health system a lot of money to have non-white people in it. That may not have been the primary point of the recent study Urban [...]

Doctors on Facebook? Pope Catholic?

The following post is from Stephen Texeira. Over the last several months, we’ve been privy to more and more conversations, debates and discussions about whether doctors should be using social media, primarily Facebook. I have to say from the outset, just so there’s no ambiguity, that this is a pointless debate. There, I said. Now [...]

Janet Napolitano is Cooler Than You

The following post is from Stephen Texeira. When Barack Obama took over the top job in government earlier this year, he made it clear to anybody who would listen that social media was a priority for him, and therefore would become a priority for the White House and the rest of the federal bureaucracy. Late [...]

Old, Online and Loving It

The following post is from Stephen Texeira. Well I just got back from vacation yesterday (a week camping and hiking in Santa Fe if you really want to know), and I saw this lovely little survey announcement: “Kaiser Permanente Survey Shows Seniors Embrace Internet to Manage Their Health.” According to the survey of Medicare beneficiaries [...]

New Site Lists California Hospitals with Social Media Presence

Wide Angle Communications is pleased to announce our new site, California Hospitals Online (calhospitalsonline.com), a constantly updated and dynamic listing of all California hospitals with a social media presence. Social media is growing and growing fast, and its adoption — and strategic integration into existing marketing plans — by hospitals and other health care entities [...]

Say what you mean, mean what you say

The following post is from Stephen Texeira. It wasn’t more than a week ago when the big boys and girls from the health insurance lobby pledged to support President Obama in his efforts to health care reform by doing what they could to reduce rising costs. So you’d be really surprised to learn that today [...]

And now for a brief commercial announcement about social media

The following post is from Stephen Texeira. We try to reserve this blog space for non-self-promotional fare, but once in a while, we have to make an exception. This is one. We recently sponsored a day-long seminar for some 50 hospital marketing directors and PIOs to learn more about social media, and it became apparent [...]

Marketing During Tough Economic Times

The following post is by Robert Polzoni. Massive layoffs. The stock market in a nose dive. Housing foreclosures. Banks on the verge of collapse. For many of us, this is the worst economic downturn we have experienced in our lifetime. These tough economic times cause businesses to reevaluate their current budgets and spending.  And, as [...]

Decline to Comment? Never.

The following post is from Stephen Texeira. By now everybody has read about the new study by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) that delineates mortality at California hospitals for a variety of conditions and procedures.  If you haven’t, there’s an excellent article in the Los Angeles Times, as well as articles [...]

The Demise of the Print Media and Health Care Coverage

The following post is from Robert Polzoni. Those of us charged with getting the word out about our hospitals, health care organizations, disease management programs and not-for-profit community based health services had better find a new way of communicating and advertising our mission and our services. Traditional print media – which many in the health [...]