Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Where Are we Going Next?

As I come to the end of our fiscal year I begin to think about strategic planning for then new year. How will I continue to manage the program, and expand to new channels that make sense for the hospital?


I have recently noticed a number of new social networks with a focus on medical audiences. Places where heath care experts invited to contribute or share with others. Recently I have become aware of new sites that we might consider participating in. I am looking closely at sites like;

Labmeeting
HealthCare Magic
MedPedia
Sermo

I am starting to believe that this is where the social media model is going...toward niche social communities. In the area of Cancer patient support sites like Cancer Compass and Planet Cancer have been providing a sense of community for patients and caregivers, for some time now, but the field is expanding. For those not in health care, I have a feeling that if you look you might find the same thing. Our personal and professional interests are what drive search, and search for the most part is driven by keywords.

Here are a few other examples of sites I know about that are developing communities based on health care or scientific interests.

ICYou
Scivee
Livestrong.com
Disaboom

So I have a new lists of sites to review, and work into next years plan, I expect the list of sites that I think we should get involved with will only expand in the next 12 months. So my plan is to watch, get involved within the communities I am watching and apply goal oriented strategy to our entries into these new territories.

3 comments:

blatze said...

Hi Jennifer - have you looked into Careflash? They were one of the Netsquared speakers last year, so you may have. It seems like it is mostly intended as a social network for patients, but there may be avenues in this community that you could consdier from the hospital's perspective.

Jennifer Texada said...

Ah Careflash! Thanks for mentioning them. I like what they are doing and where they are going & Jay is a friend. I almost mentioned them in this post but decided at the last moment to leave it out for semi-ethical conflict of interest-ish reasons.

CareFlash.com said...

Thanks Jennifer and errrrrrin for thinking of CareFlash.com !