Archive for July, 2012
|The Intimate Public: Extending the Benefit of Healthcare’s Online Communities
July 25, 2012 • By Jean Kelso Sandlin, EdD, Senior Strategist
flickr: kaybee07
Recently, when reading an article by Chelsea Lonsdale in the Slughorne Journal titled The “Intimate Public” of Mommy Blogs, I was reminded of the concept of “the intimate public” first introduced by Lauren Berlant. It’s a helpful concept as you consider how online communities can be used to prevent or manage illness, as well as how to extend the benefit of these online communities to offline patients.
Lonsdale borrowed the phrase “intimate public” from Lauren Berlant’s book The Female Complaint (2008) and related Berlant’s definition of intimate public: “a porous, affective scene of identification among strangers that promises a certain experience of belonging and provides a complex of consolation, confirmation, discipline, and discussion about how to live as an x.” (more…)
Tags: Lauren Berlant, Slughorne Journal, The Female Complaint, The Intimate Public of Mommy Blogs
Posted in Listening, Online Communities, Social Media, Strategies | No Comments »
Harvard Study Shows Global Payment Approach Can Reduce Costs While Improving Quality
July 20, 2012 • By Dan Hinmon, Principal
A bold project to reduce healthcare costs that combines global payments with quality incentives has paid off for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, according to a recent Harvard Medical School study published in the journal Health Affairs.
The study shows that physicians and hospitals that participated in the project over two years experienced savings of 2.8 percent compared to spending in nonparticpating groups. At the same time, “quality of care also improved compared to control organizations, with chronic care management, adult preventive care, and pediatric care within the contracting groups improving more in year two than in year one,” according to the study. (more…)
Tags: Alternative Quality Contract, capitation, Harvard, Health Affairs, study
Posted in Research, Strategies | No Comments »
Does Offline Culture Matter to Online Health Communities?
July 10, 2012 • By Jean Kelso Sandlin, EdD, Senior Strategist
flickr: njaanne
One reason I like reviewing emerging research is that it helps me view common issues with a new perspective. Often an issue is “right under our nose,” but we overlook it because it has become so familiar to us.
That was my experience when I read Lesego Bertha Kgatitswe’s thesis published through the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her work explores the use of virtual support groups by women diagnosed with breast cancer.
I have read other studies about building online communities before, specifically for preventing and managing illnesses, however what struck me with Kgatitswe’s work is that it intentionally frames breast cancer as a “gendered disease” (because the majority of patients are female) and recognizes the importance of the offline social and cultural backdrop as she studied online community interactions. (more…)
Tags: Lesego Bertha Kgatitswe, University of the Witwatersrand
Posted in Online Communities, Social Media | No Comments »
Hospitals: Five Mistaken Beliefs that Lead to Social Media HIPAA Violations
July 2, 2012 • By Dan Hinmon, Principal
Photo Credit: Declan
Whether they host social media sites or not, most US hospitals have realized how important it is to develop social media policies for their employees.
But a quick Google search shows that the majority of HIPAA violations related to social media – at least those reported in the media – don’t take place on official healthcare social media sites at all. Instead, they’re posted on personal Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.
What were they thinking? (more…)
Tags: HIPAA identifiers
Posted in Facebook, HIPAA, Social Media, Twitter | 1 Comment »
|
![[RSS]](http://www.hivestrategies.com/wp-content/themes/hivestrategies/images/rss.png)