The vision for this blog is to create a community of harmonious professionals across the care continuum who encourage each other in exploring digital media as a way to support businesses and families dealing with elder care.
Written on April 18th, 2012 by tasha
Multimedia is near and dear to my heart. In fact, I began my computer career in Oregon working with a research institute that created interactive programs for behavioral health education that were funded by the National Institutes of Health. In the early 1990’s, this meant video discs. We eventually graduated to CDs, and then the Internet came along.
As a behavioral scientist the data were clear: People listen more to folks like themselves than they do to folks not like themselves. This was before social networking. So, we included video to convey the information and help viewers realize they weren’t alone.
Written on December 8th, 2011 by tasha
This week I have the pleasure of being one of the guest bloggers on Stanford University’s blog for the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Funny thing, the theme for this week is going to be about family caregivers! Check out my post on reaching family caregivers using the Internet.
Data include findings from Transcend Hospice Marketing and Pew Internet and American Life. Stay tuned next week when I’ll be blogging there about social media and family caregivers.
Written on November 2nd, 2011 by tasha
In honor of National Family Caregivers Month, we’re completing our series on search engine optimization by reporting on the topics family caregivers seem to be searching for on Google, Bing, etc.
To begin with, according to Pew Internet and American Life, health information seeking is the third most popular Internet activity, preceded only by email and using a search engine generally. Eight out of every 10 Internet users seeks health information online. Family caregivers are more active in their searching than any other group (including patients), often by a double-digit margin.
An analysis of health information searches relating to elder care revealed that: Read the rest of this entry »
Written on October 4th, 2011 by tasha
I’ve been on a blogpost roll with search engine optimization techniques. But spending these last few days in Las Vegas at the Conference of the National Association of Home Care and Hospice, I decided to break things up a bit and post about highlights that have jumped out at me so far:
Written on September 20th, 2011 by tasha
I almost titled this blogpost “The rat is always right.” But I was worried that people would not understand the topic. It’s actually a continuation of our series on search engine optimization. The rat comes into it, but you’ll need a context before it will make sense.
My last blogpost was on using personas and stories to generate content most likely to attract new elder care clients via search. The focus was on the “pre-seeker” audience (those Boomer daughters and sons who don’t know your service industry enough to do a search for it).
I gave an example pertinent to geriatric care managers. Certainly hospices can use the same strategy of writing educational articles about circumstances that commonly cause families, or doctors, to refer.
But there is new data I’d like to share concerning optimal language for talking about hospice and palliative care.
Read the rest of this entry »
