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Interview
Jamey Shiels Interview
posted by Jason Fleck @ March 4th, 2009
Jamey Shiels is the Director of Social Media at Aurora Health Care. I was given the opportunity to ask him some questions on the impact social media is having within the health care industry. Jamey represents a position that wasn’t heard of five years ago within any industry. The times are changing from traditional to digital media and Aurora Health Care is embracing the transformation.
Here were his responses:
1. What is your background in health care?
My background in health care is limited. Aurora was interested in my experience based on spending 10 years in the non-profit sector as the communications director for The Salvation Army as well as 6 years in the agency environment with 4 of those spent with digital agencies. My diverse background has allowed me to transition quickly to the needs of a non-profit health care organization. As a non-profit, Aurora Health Care can focus on providing the best possible care for their patients. It also allows us to provide extensive community benefit programs to those who may otherwise be unable to access care.
2. How do you see social media changing the health care industry?
Social Media is going to play a key role in the future of the health care industry. Social networks are already supporting conversations between patients around diseases, treatments and other health related topics. If health care providers want to provide the best possible care, it’s imperative for us to listen to these conversations and participate where appropriate. As a patient-centered organization, social media tools will play a critical role in our delivery of care and in identifying what is most important to the patients we serve.
3. How does Aurora Health Care plan to use social media to reach their patients or connect with their community?
Aurora is taking a broad approach that will help us to listen, engage, and interact with patients. We want to identify where the interactions are happening and be very careful, strategic and transparent in how we interact. We’re creating a presence on key networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube to support our overall mission and values but will be exploring specific niche opportunities to engage in and provide value to the community and patients we serve.
4. Patient privacy is a key issue when dealing with health care, but recently I’ve been reading articles where bloggers are debating things such as individuals being able to view test results online. What are your thoughts on this?
Aurora provides a secure, private environment called MyAurora where patients will be able to access confidential health care information as well as tools that will help them manage their health care experience and wellness programs. Our communications and activities in social media will promote this service where appropriate but we will continue to maintain the highest level of confidentiality and security. The value of an accessible electronic health record will be a key to provide the best possible care and is something Aurora has committed to providing.
5. Do you think it’s important for hospitals to join the conversations their patient are having about them online?
I think it’s important for any organization to join the conversation. It’s especially important for health care organizations to find a way to engage. Health care is extremely personal and emotional and many individuals have questions, seek resources and support outside the walls of hospitals and clinics. By joining the online conversations, we can continue to provide care that improves outcomes for individuals. With respect to the conversations patients are having about their hospitals, it is an excellent opportunity for us to learn how to provide better service to those who come through our doors.
6. What are your thoughts on sites like WebMD?
Sites like WebMD can be valuable resources as individuals are researching and looking for health care information. I think it’s important for individuals to make sure they consider the source of information as a resource and not necessarily a diagnosis tool. WebMD is a great source for information but reinforces the need for health care providers to participate in the online experience. Aurora has experts, technology and information that is proven, tested and backed by health care professionals. By making those resources available to patients we can provide integrated care at the right time, the right place and in the right way.
7. Is Aurora thinking of starting their own informational content site?
Aurora has a health information section of the web site that features hundreds of pages of content on health related information. This section of the site is one of our top-visited areas and serves as a valuable resource for patients.
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Interview
Cory Hartlen Interview
posted by Jason Fleck @ February 2nd, 2009
I was given the opportunity to demo the super sweet, super solid Radian6 social media monitoring solution. The nice guy on the other end of the line was Cory Hartlen, one of the account managers for Radian6. After he gave his demo, he allowed me to ask him a couple of questions dealing with social media. Here are his responses:
What exactly is your background in social media?
My background in social media is not very extensive. I started like everybody else viewing different blogs as a way of extracting different information. I was in the financial industry before this and started actively engaging in social media for some clients that were asking hard and tough question that I might not have had an answer for, so I started looking at different blogs and different financial news sites as a way of being able to extract information for clients. I had an opportunity in the last three months, I do believe it was the first of September that Radian6 came across my radar and I was completely blown away. I thought it was such an incredible tool and the ability for it to do what it does I thought was something so neat. Why wouldn’t I want to be a part of it given the state of the financial industry at this moment in time.
…so for other social things that I guess I’ve done. I had been a bar tender for almost a decade and I was a stand up comedian as well. So a lot of my social experience comes from that.
From your interactions with your clients and just being a part of Radian6, what do you think are some of the larger problems companies face when diving into social media, and does Radian6 help alleviate any of these huge problems?
Yes. The biggest thing I find is intimidation. People are intimidated by the space. Now, people that are new to the space, don’t exactly know how to take it on. They prefer to be ignorant and not listen as opposed to at least find out what people are saying. I find the Radian6 tool allows people to grow through social media so in the beginning they can use a bottom-up approach by using the name of their company and see what people are saying about them or perhaps one of their product lines. Then as they grow, they can start to participate in the space by locating the specific areas of the space that are important for their brand and their company. So if they decided to develop an engagement strategy they now have a full list of conversations that are happening so if they choose to participate they now have a tool they can do that with.
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If everyone at Radian6 is as friendly and helpful as Cory, they have a great staff there. I also contacted Amber Naslund through Twitter and she was extremely helpful answering the questions I had. They offer a powerful tool that can be used to engage your customers. Keep up the good work!
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