Author: Lee Aase

G’Day Alfred Health

I’m sure they’ve never been greeted like that before. Kind of like my work colleague, Sara Bakken, who married a guy named Eric Lee. Now nobody doesn’t like her. Or my friend Kevin, who after the first Matrix movie grew tired of being called “Missss-ter Anderson.”

Anyway, as I tweeted earlier tonight, I had the distinct pleasure of a Skype videoconference at 6 p.m. CDT with the communications team from Alfred Health in Melbourne, Australia. It was about 8 a.m. Wednesday for them:

It was a great discussion and we covered a lot of ground in 30 minutes. Being a public hospital, their challenges are somewhat different from those we have in the U.S., but the point I made with them is not to necessarily emulate exactly what we have done with social media tools, but to see how they can be used to meet the goals for their health system.

So, for example, they may want to see how social tools can help with behavior modification, and perhaps even to provide low-cost or no-cost medical guidance to patients so that they don’t need to come to the hospital. Among the limitations we generally have in the U.S. is that there is little economic incentive for health care providers to invest in prevention, because for the most part seeing patients is the way they get paid. So instead of using social tools to make patients aware of unique services, which could lead to increased demand, they may want to apply them to prevention or support groups or guidance in when self care is appropriate.

In follow-up I mentioned our Mayo Clinic Symptom Checker iPhone app, and how that (or something like it) could play a role in helping patients be wiser about when they need to seek care.

What do you think? How can social media tools and other digital platforms be used to improve health and health care in places like Australia or Western Europe, where the health care systems are much different from the U.S.?

RAQ: Video Editing Software for Windows?

The following question comes from Rachel Labas in Massachusetts, who attended one of my recent presentations:

Q: My colleague and I really enjoyed your presentation and got some great ideas from it.  I was the one who asked the question about what type of software you use to edit your Flip videos.  We don’t have Macs here, and are a small dept, so I’d love to hear what you use to edit the video on a PC.  Thanks!

Answer: If you’re using a standard definition Flip video camera, Windows Movie Maker works fine. But it doesn’t handle HD, so you need to look elsewhere. Moravi Video Suite is a versatile and inexpensive option.

For Macintosh, as I mentioned in my presentation, Quicktime Pro is a good option if you’re just pulling out a single sound bite. For more complex edits, iMovie, Final Cut Express or Final Cut Pro are good choices.

What do you use for editing HD video?

Getting More Sociable

I mentioned in my last post that I was looking for a way to add the Facebook “Like” button to my posts, and so I’m experimenting with another plugin from Sociable, called Facebook Open Graph. I had already added Facebook Connect functionality through another plugin, but this one theoretically should be better. I may still have a few kinks to work out, and I was disappointed that it didn’t immediately put the “Like” button on my previous posts.

But maybe it only works with new posts, or maybe I have to edit posts to get this button added.

In keeping with the Spirit of SMUG, I’m just giving it a try with this new post, and we’ll see if it works. I’ll keep you updated as I figure it out.

Getting Sociable

Until now, I had been using the Tweet This! and Share This! plug-ins to encourage sharing of posts, and I’m working on getting the Facebook “Like” button installed, so I might switch my Facebook Connect plug-in, too.

This morning I stumbled across a sharing plug-in that I like a lot more than the other two, and I think it makes for a nicer look. It’s called Sociable, and while it supposedly hasn’t been tested for the latest version of WordPress, it seems to be working well.

I like that it lets me choose from among 99 different sharing sites and methods (including email) in one toolbar, and that you can customize both the heading (so I could call out Twitter, Facebook and E-Mail among the options) and the order of the icons.

Here’s a screen shot of all 99 services (click to enlarge):

The ability to customize your blog with plug-ins like this is one of the main advantages of a self-hosted WordPress blog, as opposed to using WordPress.com. Still, WordPress.com is a great way to get your blog started quickly, and you can use domain mapping on WordPress.com to ensure continuity, so that if you decide later to move to self-hosted (as I did with SMUG), you don’t lose your external links.

If you’re using self-hosted WordPress, you might want to get Sociable too…and use the buttons below to share this post with your friends.

An “Aha!” Moment in Massachusetts

As detailed here and here, I had an opportunity this morning to join Larry Weber, founder of Weber Shandwick, in a seminar on social media for the Massachusetts Hospital Association.

During the Q&A session that followed, Lorie Martiska of Heywood Hospital in Gardner, Mass. said she had experienced a real “Aha!” moment during the presentation, so I asked her if she would be willing to share it with the world. She was, so here it is:

It’s really gratifying to be able to help people like Lorie who feel pinched for resources, and to help them see the potential of some of these inexpensive (or even free) technologies. The tools are great if you have staff and resources, but they’re even more important if you don’t, because they help you stretch what you do have.