Get Social Health with Janet Kennedy Get Social Health with Janet Kennedy | Healthcare Marketing | Social Media

Today’s on Get Social Health we’re talking about a project called My MG Sole. It's new collective art project designed specifically for people with Myasthenia Gravis, a rare autoimmune condition. The goal of the project is to help people in the MG community defy social distancing by uniting as a community online. In this time of intense social distancing, the separation of those with chronic illnesses, like MG, from their family, friends and community - who understand what they may be experiencing - can feel more like extreme social isolation. 
The project is sponsored by Argenx, (Are Gen X) a Boston based biotechnology company developing treatments for severe autoimmune diseases. With me here today are
Annalise Hammerlund, an Expressive Arts Therapist and Mental Health Counselor from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Also joining the podcast is Susan Woolner. She is the Neuroscience Patient and Caregiver Support and Community Manager for Mercy Health Hauenstein Neurosciences

For all my Digital Health listeners, I wanted to share this interview with Jen Goldsack of the DiMe Society from the "People Always, Patients Sometimes" podcast. This podcast is a production of Spencer Health Solutions (full disclosure: my day-job!). Our podcast focuses on the innovators, thought leaders and patient influencers who are demanding change now in clinical trials
The Digital Medicine Society is a group of individuals who are committed to innovating and transforming how digital apps, medical devices, software and processes can positively impact healthcare and clinical trials. Since Jen handles all my questions so well, it didn't make sense to repeat the same interview for Get Social Health.
Here is the interview and transcript from my interview with Jen Goldsack about the DiMe Society on the "People Always, Patients Sometimes" podcast.
The DiMe Society – Jen Goldsack It’s time to discuss the digitalization and democratization of medicine so we invited Jennifer Goldsack to join us on the “People Always, Patients Sometimes” podcast.  Jennifer is the interim executive director of the DiMe Society, pronounced like the coin, an abbreviation of the Digital Medicine Society.  In our discussion, Jennifer spoke about the “trans-disciplinary nature of digital medicine as a field” and how, without professionals from every field at the table, the healthcare community will make mistakes and under-deliver on possible treatments for the individual.  As a nonprofit, Jennifer explained that “we do welcome all comers” at the DiMe Society – unlike other organizations, the DiMe Society charges individuals only $50 for membership, creating a low barrier of entry and ensuring accessibility to everyone.
The DiMe Society was created with the mission to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration between professionals within the global healthcare and technology communities in their research, teaching, and promotion of best practices in medicine.  The DiMe Society believes that everyone has something to contribute to the advancement of medicine, from white-hat hackers, engineers, and clinicians to citizen scientists.  Founded earlier this year, the DiMe Society already has around 700 members from 24 countries after only 5 months of opening their doors.
To learn more about how Jennifer and the DiMe Society cultivate collaboration in the field of digital medicine, click on the link and listen to this week’s episode of People Always, Patients Sometimes, hosted by Janet Kennedy.

 

Health literacy is a relatively new term that is getting a lot of attention, but what does it mean? Does it have to do with reading ability or reading comprehension? Is it the responsibility of the healthcare provider or the patient? October is Health Literacy Month, so we're going to learn more about the meaning of health literacy from Lori Hall, director of global health literacy for Eli Lilly on Get Social Health.
On the start of Lori's career:
"In my career in nursing, I started out in the newborn intensive care unit. It was a wonderful opportunity to make a difference every day for patients and parents have these tiny little newborns. Although I didn't know about health literacy or health education then, I think it really had a strong presence even in the mid-eighties when I started my career. And that's been a common thread throughout the roles that I've had in healthcare. I look back at that common thread often now and recognize how I've been able to pull something from each of those experiences. That served me really well today in my role as the advisor of global health literacy."
More information: Health Literacy - Extruded Cornstarch Emulsifier?
Health Literacy - Medical Information
Health Literacy Month
Lilly Trials - Word of the Day
Roundtable on Health Literacy
Contact Lori LinkedIn

ePatient Dave - Part I I'm honored to have Dave deBronkart on the podcast today. He is the original "e-Patient" and has a lot of stories and interesting projects to share with us today. As a matter of fact, so many interesting projects that we're going to break this into a two-part discussion, so join me for our conversation with e-Patient Dave on Get Social Health.
Podcast Transcript Announcer:                      00:22                   Welcome to Get Social Health, a conversation about social media and how it's being used to help hospitals, social practices, healthcare practitioners and patients connect and engage via social media. Get Social Health, brings you conversations with professionals actively working in the field and provides real-life examples of healthcare social media in action. Here is your host, Janet Kennedy.
Janet:                                00:48                   Welcome to the Get Social Health podcast. What an honor for me to have Dave deBronkart on the show today. He and I met through the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network and have run into each other a few times at healthcare conferences. It is such an honor to have him here. He's known on the Internet as ePatient Dave. He's the author of the highly rated "Let patients help patients" engagement handbook and he's one of the world's leading advocates for patient engagement. After beating stage four kidney cancer in 2007 he became a blogger, health policy advisor and international keynote speaker. Dave, welcome to the podcast.
Dave:                                 01:25                   It's an honor to be here. That's what healthcare needs, so I'm really glad I'm quite, you do a good professional job of it.
Janet:                                01:33                   Thank you so much Dave, and I'm really thrilled to have you here. If anything, to give you an hour to sit down in a chair and just have a conversation because when I looked at your website and all your speaking engagements coming up, I was absolutely blown away with how active you are. You are talking to a lot of people these days.
Dave:                                 01:52                   Well, do you know I can't sit home and be an evangelist. You've got to carry it out into the field. And as it happens, through one of the strange quirks of the universe, when I accidentally found myself, it was actually 10 years ago this month, that I found myself on the front page of the Boston Globe because of a blog post I'd written. People started asking me to give speeches on the topic and I had learned how to do that when I worked in marketing. The last thing I ever would have expected coming out of cancer is that it would turn me into an international keynote speaker.
Janet:                                02:26                   I love that. I love that you felt that this is a mission worth all of your time, that you really wanted to commit to that. I know that we're going to gloss over your early story because I think a lot of people know who you are, but what you represent an almost more than any other patients we've spoken with is that you're a mature individual and you have a length of view that is longer than many of my guests. A lot of ePatients who are involved and engage these days tend to be in there like twenties and because they have always felt that social and digital was a way to tell their stories. You and I represent more of the boomer generation.
Dave:                                 03:07                   Uh, we're not so forthcoming.
Janet:                                03:09     

Have you heard the term Patient Advocate? How about the expression "not about me without me" in the patient space? So often over the past decades, if not hundreds and thousands of years, the patients have sometimes the least consideration when healthcare decisions have been made. Well, that's changing due to empowered patients who are using social media, online resources and the ability to connect with other people of like situations. Patients now are finding that they not only have a voice, but that voice is starting to be respected and drawn into the healthcare community.
Today on Get Social Health I'm very proud to be speaking to Lilly Stairs. She is a leading voice in the rapidly growing patient engagement field. This will be the first of a number of podcasts that I'll be covering where we'll be talking with patients or about patients and their engagement in healthcare. So join me for a discussion with Lilly Stairs on Get Social Health.
Connect with Lilly:
LinkedIn Twitter Follow the conversation or drop in at the timestamps below: Janet: 00:00
Announcer: 01:07 Welcome to Get Social Health, a conversation about social media and how it's being used to help hospitals, social practices, healthcare practitioners and patients connect and engage via social media. Get Social Health brings you conversations with professionals actively working in the field and provides real-life examples of healthcare, social media in action. Here is your host, Janet Kennedy.
New Speaker: 01:33 Hey everybody, this is Janet Kennedy. Welcome to Get Social Health. On today's podcast, I am thrilled to be finally talking with Lilly Stairs. She is head of growth and partnerships at the Savvy Cooperative. We're going to hear a lot more about that in just a little bit, but first I want to set the stage. Lilly and I have known each other through social media for quite a while and one of the things that she brings to the table is the importance of including patients in the discussion online and in the work of healthcare. So whether it's the work she's doing as a speaker or the company that she's with, she really has a fascinating perspective on getting patients involved. And why is she such a strong patient advocate? Because she has battled a couple of very serious chronic health issues and I think you're going to find that really interesting to hear about. So without any further ado, welcome to the podcast. Lilly.
Lilly: 02:31 Thank you for that lovely introduction, Janet.
Janet: 02:35 You know, it's tough when you're really representing well, every part of healthcare. Which hat you put on must be kind of confusing.
Lilly: 02:42 It is. You know, I always, I do joke all the time about how I wear so many different hats and now I have to take them on and off and sometimes they wear them all at once. They've even done a post on Instagram ones where I put a bunch of different emojis on my head representing all the different hats that I wear.
Janet: 02:59 No, that actually makes perfect sense. I appreciate that you're with a company called Savvy Cooperative, and I think it's a fascinating concept. I love the idea of how it came about and I want to hear more about that. But first, why don't we set the stage? Can you tell us all a little bit more about your personal health journey and really how you got to the place you are today in some ways, patient number one, and how you were able to translate that into a life worth living and a career.
Lilly: Oh my goodness. So I never thought that I would end up in health care, to be honest with you. I didn't even know what the term biotech meant. And here I am working hand in hand with the industry, but when I was 19 I actually started having this pain in my left knee and we weren't really sure what it was.
Lilly: 03:51 I had just wrapped up my freshman year of college at Northeastern University in Boston. I absolutely loved it, couldn't wait to get back. I was home for the summer with my family and w

A healthcare website is a critical element in patient communications even before they become a patient. Setting up and maintaining an active website is not easy and requires specialized skills. On the Get Social Health podcast, Janet Kennedy interviews Ajay Prasad of GMR Webteam and the work they do create and optimizing healthcare websites.
Listen to the podcast or drop in on the timestamps below: 
Janet:                                00:00                   Five years ago or so, you used to be able to build a website and expect that patients would come. Well nowadays "if you build it. They will come" only works for baseball fields, built in obscure corn fields in the Midwest. Now you need a real digital online expert as part of your ongoing web presence and I've got one for you today. Joining me on the podcast is Ajay Prasad with GMR Webteam and we're going to talk about those other things you need to do besides have a great website on Get Social Health.
Announcer:                      00:40                   Welcome to Get Social Health, a conversation about social media and how it's being used to help hospitals, social practices, healthcare practitioners and patients connect and engage via social media. Get Social Health, brings you conversations with professionals actively working in the field and provides real life examples of healthcare, social media in action. Here is your host, Janet Kennedy.
Janet:                                01:07                   What are the important things about being accessible to patients is to be, I found online and that isn't as easy as some might think. It's not as simple as putting up a website and the patients will come. With me today is Ajay Prasad. He's got his own company, GMR Webteam, and they're doing some really interesting things with online presence for a wide variety of health care practices. So I wanted to drill down a little bit and invite him on to Get Social Health so I could ask a lot of the dumb questions that honestly I still need to ask and I'm sure as healthcare practitioners you might need to ask. Ajay, welcome to the podcast.
Ajay:                                  01:48                   Thanks, Janet for having me. And I'm excited.
Janet:                                01:52                   This is a very interesting subject to me because I am involved in a part of this equation, but not the whole equation. And what I mean by that is my partner, Carol Bush and I have a company called the Healthcare Marketing Network and we source freelance healthcare writers, many of whom are clinicians for companies like yours. But in many cases, good content is just one part of a good online presence. So I wanted to talk to you today since your company focuses on healthcare and learn a little bit more about what is unique about that and what is unique about having a presence as a healthcare practice. But before we jump in, I think people need to know a little bit about you. So tell me a little bit about your company. I know you didn't start exclusively in health care, so tell us a little bit of the journey of GMR.
Ajay:                                  02:42                   Sure. Before I even started my company, I had a very extensive experience in marketing in general and the last couple of years in the Internet marketing, which was a very new thing. I started GMR Webteam in 2004 so we'll be celebrating our 15th anniversary in a couple of months. When I started, Actually you'll be surprised, very few people even had website. So we started then and, and my goal always was to help businesses really get the most out of Internet, which was like a mystery in those days fo