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.

National organization certifies hospital specialty care program

The Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at Scott & White Healthcare in Temple has received accreditation from the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation (AACVPR).

Cardiac rehabilitation is a medical program designed to help patients recover following a heart attack, coronary angioplasty or cardiac surgery. The program is designed to improve a patient’s overall health through a comprehensive plan of exercise, diet and lifestyle modification. The vast majority of patients who present with heart disease do so because of a lifetime of behaviors that contribute to heart disease. In order to ensure a healthy future cardiac rehabilitation helps patients learn what they can do to help to prevent more heart disease.

“The certification of this program means that we have fulfilled all the requirements of the AACVPR, and that by doing so we are acknowledged as a high quality program,” said Keith Birkemeier, exercise physiologist and supervisor of Scott & White’s Cardiac Rehabilitation Program. “Patients and families look for programs that are considered the best, and the classification of a program as ‘certified’ helps them locate and choose a program for their care.”

James M. Schmitz, M.D., medical director of the Cardiology Clinic at the Scott & White Heart and Vascular Institute, noted that studies have found that patients who participate in cardiac rehabilitation programs have significantly improved survival. Moreover, patients who continue to attend cardiac rehabilitation not only live longer but also better lives.

About Scott & White Healthcare (sw.org)

Scott & White Healthcare is a non-profit health care system established in 1897. Scott & White is the principal clinical teaching facility affiliated with the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, with a Temple campus that includes a four-year medical curriculum. Along with its 636-bed flagship hospital and clinic facility in Temple, Texas, Scott & White includes 11 other hospitals or hospital partners, and more than 60 clinic locations throughout Central Texas. With more than 850 physicians and scientists, Scott & White has become one of the nation’s largest multi-specialty group practice systems.

Click here for original release.

A recent post by Cynthia Stephens, Consumer Influence: Measure for Measure, discusses this fast growing trend of consumers going to trusted media resources, also known as user-generated media (UGM).  The article is insightful and provides a look into understanding, measuring and embracing this new consumer-driven marketing trend.

Read Carroll’s complete story here.

So who wouldn’t benefit from this emphasis on healthy design?  We tend to take the everyday design elements around us for granted.  But if better design works to improve our well-being and productivity, isn’t it time we all reexamine the spaces in which we live and work?

That rationale should apply to our virtual environments as well.  According to Mashable.com, the average person spends 68 hours online every month.  What if all that time was spent in frictionless virtual endeavors.  All our searching would result in meaningful findings (bing anyone?).  All our tasks would culminate in productive exchanges. We can derive a list of best design practices from the flood of analytics and metrics available.  So how is it so many websites make it difficult for internet users to purchase/participate/donate/volunteer?

By promoting good design online, we can create healthier and more productive online communities/users/consumers… and, as a result, healthier online businesses.   Here’s to a new Design Revolution!

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.