My family and I arrived over the weekend for a short holiday weekend before the conference. We took the kids to the National Zoo on Saturday with friends who came into the city from Martinsburg (don't miss the PandaCAM - we watched it for weeks before we came) . Today we spent time along the Mall at the Smithsonian where 6 year olds (and 2 year old sisters and adult parents) are in heaven - dinosaurs, mummies, rockets, airplanes, etc.
While reviewing information form the conference I thought it would be helpful to aggregate a few of the pre-conference (and post-conference) posts and interesting posts/topics that might come up at the conference. If you have one that you would like added please email me. Heck, I might even try out some live blogging during the event. (REMEMBER: If you blog about the event tag it as Healthcare Blogging Summit or HBS2006.)
Preconference Discussion:
- Carol Kirshner at Driving In Traffic and Josh Hallett at Hyku comment on a recent Florida story about a disgruntled patient and the impact it might have on the Florida hospital involved. I'd like to pose a hypothetical to Nick Jacob and ask him how he'd respond to this on his blog. Nick's response during his panel session was to point out Windber current infection rate is 1% while the national average is 8%.
- Fard Johnmar at Envision Solutions has released highlights from the "Taking the Pulse of the Healthcare Blogsphere" survey conducted this past summer. The press release includes the following highlight information (download the survey results here):
- 214 healthcare bloggers took at least a portion of the survey, which was fielded between July 31 and September 29, 2006. 171 answered every question in the poll.
- 61% of respondents write about their personal experiences.
- 39% of those surveyed hide their identity to protect their privacy, patient confidentiality or themselves. (As a health lawyer interested in privacy issues this stat interests me)
- Nearly 40% of healthcare bloggers report that the most important reason they decided to start their blog was to share their opinions or educate others.
- Business Blogs Now highlights the Summit and the growing number of health professional bloggers.
- Spare Change talks about the conference location and the "Taking the Pulse of the Healthcare Blogosphere." I agree that the Omni is a great location with wonderful services and I'm interested to see the results of the survey being unveiled tomorrow.
- Unity Stoakes of Organized Wisdom will be attending and bring the perspective of one of the new Web 2.0 health companies.
Enjoyed Steve Rubel's presentation which looked at the Galaxy, Stars, Planets, Shooting Stars, etc. of health care bloggers. I was especially struck by the statistics he provided on "who do you trust" and the fact that 68% are "persons like yourself." He also had a great slide showing the shift from 1992-2002 corporate built web to todays 2002 and beyond web built by individuals. He used information from Comscore Media Metrix and a chart from Washington Post article, "New Trends in Online Traffic."
Steve also pointed out that he believes that blogging as an activity has peaked as a result of statistics he provided using Technorati. The chart showed the leveling off of post volume over the last few months. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues.
More to come . . .
Post Conference Discussion:
- My(Medical)Space: Social Networks, Blogs Turn to Health Care, from iHealthBeat News reports on the Summit and highlights Steve Rubel's comments and the announcement by Dmitriy Kruglyak of The Medical Blog Network to migrate information and resources over to Trusted.MD, which is highlighted as an online community of stakeholders.
- A number of bloggers commented on the first health care blogger survey results:
- John Mack, Pharma Marketing Blog: "Physician Blogging - Survey Results"
- Steve Rubel, MicroPersuasion, "Survey Takes the Pulse of the Healthcare Blogosphere"
- ShrinkRap, "Healthcare Blogger Survey Says..."
- Unity Stoakes at the Health Wisdom Blog
- Blogging Summit Coverage and Roundup by Dmitriy at Trusted.MD (soon to be fka The Medical Blog Network) where he announced the transformation of The Medical Blog Network from a community of bloggers to a social network for healthcare stakeholders. Also announced were the planned 2007 Healthcare Blogging Summits set for Las Vegas, Chicago and Washington.
- Craig Lefebreve of On Social Marketing and Social Change provides his impressions of the day.
- Inside Conversation provides perspective on Steve Rubel's keynote address.
- Gadfly at Kaiser Permanente- Corporate Ethics provides a good perspective on the need for others to be included in future summit panel discussion in a followup post, Kaiser's Bloggers Relations Strategy. Gadfly commented around health care blogosphere following the summit (including the comments on this post) and her comments where heard. My suggestion for Dmitriy, the 2007 events should include a panel of bloggers discussing the non-corporate persective of health care blogging. The panel should include those who are opponents (advocacy bloggers) of corporate health care, those who desire change in the health care industry, whistleblowers and patients who utilize blogging as a way to be heard. They provide a valuable perspective for all of us to consider. Fard Johnmar at HealthcareVox has a good followup post, Examining Anonymity In The Healthcare Blogosphere & A Conversation With “Gadfly,” highlighting some of the issues that could be covered.
- Dale Hunscher at Business Blogging for Health Professionals posts "QUICKIE: My(Medical)Space: Social Networks, Blogs Turn To Health Care" and looks forward to seeing more from Trusted.MD and Sermo.
- John Bell at the The Digital Influence Mapping Project provides a summary of what was covered during his group's panel discussion, including Dr. Jay Berhardt's CDC Office of Health Marketing Blog and a current initiative to reach out to Mommy Bloggers to spread the world about the importance of flu vaccination.
- Neil Versel at Healthcare IT Blog provides a pre/post podcast about the Summit and HealthTrain called "Podcast: HealthTrain Manifesto for the age of blogging."
- Dr. Petty at Healing, Meaning and Purpose considers Steve Rubel's comments in "Has Blogging Peaked?." His comment about the Age of Enlightenment during his panel discussion session caught my ear and I'm glad that he provides some more background about it in his followup post. I think it is particularly interesting in light of today's Time Person(s) of the Year announcement.
- For a side note on the real conference that "happens in the hallways" don't miss this post by Elisa Camahort at Healthy Concerns.