Graphic Design and Medical Reporting… Odd Couple, or Just What the Doctor Ordered?

In today’s health-conscious world, where folks of all ages are struggling with obesity and diseases like heart disease and cancer are being diagnosed at an alarming rate, the general public is being encouraged to take a more active role in understanding their medical care.  It’s becoming more commonplace for a patient-doctor relationship to be more of a partnership than ever before.

Technology, particularly the internet, has allowed patients to do their own research and gather information to take to their medical provider so they can work together in managing the patient’s health.  All that knowledge and understanding comes to a grinding halt when it comes to patient lab reports, which are filled with terminology and abbreviations that have the lay person confused and usually concerned.

Enter a few designers into this medical world and voila!  Leave it to a group of marketing and advertising professionals to give a make-over to some hum-drum reports, making them understandable, informative, and even appealing to the eye.  My hope is that this catches on nation-wide so that everyone has the benefit of understanding what’s literally coursing through their veins.

Read the entire story in the Spark Report for more information.

Colt McCoy donates to Children’s Hospital at Scott & White

McCoy knows firsthand the life-saving and life-improving care children’s hospitals provide… Read More

The Birds and the Bees Can’t Always “Make it Happen”

Finally!  A healthcare advertising message that is funny!  This campaign is brilliant.  Instead of taking itself too seriously, EMD Serono, the manufacturer of fertility drug Gonal-f, has launched a viral campaign that takes a serious medical condition and takes the taboo out of it a bit.  The videos, currently only on the web, are hilarious and are relatable, even for those of us who have not experienced infertility.  What couple hasn’t given two very different versions of the same reality they’ve both shared, as these two have in the video called, “A year and a half”?

The videos sends viewers to the website www.increaseyourchances.org, where they can click through and learn more about why 1 out of 8 couples have trouble conceiving.  No sterile images of a hospital where all your fertility procedures make your baby-making dreams come true.  No images of the previously-troubled couple at last walking off into the sunset, mom-to-be gently rubbing her baby bump.

These videos are at once effective and funny.  And brilliant.  My only suggestion is to get these on TV pronto.  These are too good not to share with the masses.

Facebook Accidentally Lifts & Supports Cancer Group Memberships

I don’t know how I missed it, but I was apparently in the minority.  A few months ago someone on Facebook started a movement with one simple message, asking women to post their bra color on their status.  The request took hold and as it spread across the globe, the wording changed slightly and as it began to gain full momentum, changed enough to give false credit to several cancer groups.  See more on this in this post by Sarah Brown for examiner.com.  Or at Snopes.com.

Does social media work?  The end result of this little game for the Susan G. Komen Facebook group was an increase in followers by more than 950% in less than a week!!  Although this particular movement blossomed from what began as a simple, “let’s see if we can get people to do this,” then morphed into what some deem a scam, the outcome was a needed boost for one of the highest-profile charitable organizations in the country.

The lesson:  YES.  Social media works.  YES.  Social media can be used to benefit the healthcare industry.  And YES.  There are some beautiful bra colors out there.

Healthcare Records Unite!

It’s exciting as a patient to see healthcare technology keeping up with the times. Not just from a standpoint of advanced medical procedures and the like; but also from an administrative standpoint. FastCompany released last week their Top 10 Most Innovative Companies, giving GE top honors in the Health Care category because of their Healthymagination program. According to fastcompany.com, GE is investing $6 billion over the course of the next several years in a variety of innovative health care technology. GE’s Centricity Electronic Medical Record system will allow doctors to manage a patient’s complete medical history, helping to reduce errors *.

As a patient, visiting a medical facility that uses this type of technology is a God-send. If I have a choice, I want to go with the doctor who has all my medical information in one place – it’s more convenient (I don’t have to repeat all my medical information every time I visit someone new); it’s more accurate (I don’t have to worry about one doctor having to decipher another doctor’s handwriting); and it’s more complete (I don’t have to rely on my memory to recite all the ailments I’ve had throughout my 40 years).

This technology is demonstrated beautifully in GE’s “Doctors” commercial . Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have all of your past and present medical professionals assembled in one room to give their undivided attention to you and your medical history? That is the point of EMR and it’s brilliant.

Another nugget: the digital database. FastCompany says that GE, together with Intermountain Healthcare, the Mayo Clinic, and other institutions have created the database, which connects to electronic medical records, allowing comparisons of patients’ medical histories. Imagine having at your fingertips a vast number of patients from which to compare symptoms and diagnoses.  As a patient, this type of technology not only gives me comfort, but makes me thankful to be living in the 21st century.

One must wonder, then, why more hospitals do not tout their capabilities in this area? Scott & White Healthcare, based in Temple, Texas, is an example of a medical group that is leading and innovating in this area, but is not getting the credit they deserve. An early adopter of EMR, Scott & White introduced this technology into their health system more than 10 years ago, yet there isn’t much hubbub about it. Perhaps hospitals are concerned with patients’ perception that they are jeopardizing their privacy.

According to Naveen Venkatachalam, the creator of Sushoo EMR software, however, patient records are perfectly safe. He says the security measures used are similar to what banks use for online transactions*.
Probably the reason for avoiding marketing these behind-the-scenes capabilities are because the capabilities are just that: behind the scenes. What patients really want to see is the warm-fuzzy, the “we-are-here-to-make-you-feel-better” messages. The only technology patients care about seeing is the kind that involves medical procedures and how they can be made less invasive or more effective.

But the behind-the-scenes technology is just as important.  Until marketers develop messages – like GE did – that convince patients of the benefits of EMR (versus its risks), this technology will remain in the backseat and won’t ever really get the heyday it deserves.

*Sources:
1. http://www.fastcompany.com/mic/2010/industry/most-innovative-healthcare-companies
2. http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-electronic-medical-records-safe-says-creator-sushoo-emr-/2010/01/05/4558745.htm