This week, CEO John Deutsch was quoted in an EMR Daily News article about how to get patients to log in to patient portals and keep using them to manage their health. While patient portals have become central to discussions of Meaningful Use and key tools for patient engagement, they remain vastly underutilized. EMR Daily News put forth three essential strategies for making sure that you portal successfully reaches patients. Marina Komarovsky, MS, MPH Marina is a writer …

Healthcare is often behind the times when it comes to technology. Medical web design and digital marketing is no exception. In fact, many hospital and medical practices have outdated websites that do little to cater to today’s highly-connected consumers who are spending more time browsing the internet on their smartphones than on laptops or desktop computers. Amanda Guerrero

A recent partnership between Apple, IBM and Japan Post (the largest health insurance company in Japan) will provide customized iPads to millions of Japanese senior citizens. The goal of the program, which is set to launch later this year, is to help senior citizens improve their health and wellness and coordinate the details of their daily lives. Sylvia Gindick

The number one rule of healthcare marketing is to know your patient – and the fact is that patients are shopping for healthcare differently than before. Empowered by the internet and mobile technologies, today’s patients are making decisions about the care they receive long before stepping foot in an exam room. The consumerization of healthcare has become inevitable, and providers must embrace these changes or risk getting left behind. Amanda Guerrero

Last Tuesday, the Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill to change the way that Medicare pays physicians. The passage prevented a 21 percent cut in doctors’ pay. President Barack Obama signed the bill into action two days later. Sylvia Gindick

The biggest mistake that many practices make when choosing a medical website designer is hiring a company that doesn’t know much about marketing. They end up with a website that looks good but that isn’t effective in advancing the practice’s goals – for example, attracting new patients. Sylvia Gindick

Patients want to be equipped with the tools to be active in their own health, and research shows that they are becoming increasingly comfortable using digital services to do so. Unfortunately, most healthcare organizations are lagging on the uptake. A recent study conducted by Technology Advice Research found that over 60 percent of patients say digital services play an important role when choosing a physician, yet less than one third of patients say that their physician offers those …

Over four billion prescriptions are written annually in the U.S., but most of those prescriptions are no longer written on paper. By April 2014, 70 percent of physicians were prescribing electronically. The number of providers e-prescribing has boomed in recent years due to a host of incentives and a variety of perceived benefits, including cost savings and the reduced risk of human error. Sylvia Gindick

Sixty-six percent of Americans say they would use a mobile application to manage health-related issues; yet, only 33 percent of physicians actively recommend mobile healthcare apps to their patients. This is oftentimes attributed to physicians’ lack of confidence in third-party applications, as it is impossible to guarantee that recommended apps will function the way physicians want them to. The solution? Build your own health app. Ryan Nelson

If your healthcare organization doesn’t have a mobile-friendly website yet, it may be time to rethink your web presence, especially considering Google’s recent announcement. The search engine giant is adjusting its algorithm for ranking mobile search results – and starting on April 21st, mobile-friendly websites will rank better in mobile search. Websites that aren’t designed for mobile will lose search rank and become harder to find. Ryan Nelson