Many new and expanding professions are becoming more popular throughout India, creating new opportunities for younger generations. Young women in particular are making a name for themselves in the country's workforce, filling such jobs as gas station attendants and bartenders.
Web site users' expectations have evolved dramatically over the past decade. Once the Internet was the place to "surf" for information, but today it's the place consumers go to get things done.
Web site usability guru Jared Spool coined this the "seducible moment" for e-commerce developers—a fleeting instant when the Web site user wants to make a transaction. It's also the moment when the Web site should provide that functionality to the customer.
Far too often, Web sites fail in this seducible moment.
"It's a combination of providing information and then tools to get things done," says Jon Catanese, director of interactive marketing for the Cleveland Clinic. "The reason that Web sites like Orbitz and Travelocity are so popular is that they put information at your fingertips and then let you complete a transaction in a straightforward manner."
As the senior online editor for HealthLeaders Media, I can't help but critique the numerous healthcare Web sites I visit each day. This industry has some of the best and worst examples of corporate sites on the Web. For every organization, like Cleveland Clinic, which has a state-of-the-art site with Web 2.0 functionalities, there are hundreds of other hospitals with static Web sites that look and feel much like print brochures.
Global destination hospitals that bank on attracting highly engaged consumers from other regions cannot afford to have Web sites that are poor in form or function.
Just how important is a global hospital's Web presence? Consider that Vishal Bali, CEO of the Wockhardt Hospitals Group, was a hands-on member of the team that created the organization's award-winning Web site.
"The Internet is a very strong driver of the globalization of healthcare," says Bali. "The global healthcare consumers are the ones which basically got created on the net; they are the group of people who go on the net to ask, 'Where can I go to get a joint replaced?'"
Bali says his team spent a great deal of time analyzing how global patients make healthcare decisions—the Wockhardt team used this data to provide precise information and actions to support consumers, with the Web site as the point of entry.
"At least 90% of our global patients have been to our Web site before they received treatment here," he says.
When you spend time on Wockhardt's site, you'll notice some advanced Web 2.0 functionalities, but Bali points out that the keys to the Web site's success are a few fairly simple strategies:
Offer precise information. Wockhardt didn't set out to create a healthcare portal that provides information on every ailment. The site is tightly focused on Wockhardt's areas of strength and services it provides.
Share the experience. Wockhardt has nearly 300 video testimonials available on its site and on YouTube. Seeing what the global patient experience is really like can go a long way in helping consumers make informed decisions.
Be helpful. To support the information provided on the site, Wockhardt has a call center and live online chat available 24/7. Both of these options are easy to find online and support users at the exact moment they have questions or issues about the information on the site.
For more practical advice about Web site development, see a recent article by contributor Mark Whitman, vice president of digital at Northlich, a Cincinnati-based brand consultancy: How to Fix an Underperforming Healthcare Web Site.
Note: You can sign up to receive HealthLeaders Media Global, a free weekly e-newsletter that provides strategic information on the business of healthcare management from around the globe.
For safety-net hospitals, maintaining a balance between serving the poor and staying financially viable has always been tough, say the authors of a national study, "but it is becoming even more so in a marketplace that is becoming more competitive and profit-driven." Some are attempting to attract insured patients by building, renovating, and advertising specialty services, according to the study. But these and other steps to bolster the bottom line could threaten the hospitals' mission, the study warns.
Bypassing closer hospitals to rush people with blood clots or bleeding in their brains to specialty hospitals is an increasingly common way to deliver the most advanced stroke care as soon as possible. The treatment model is similar to the one developed to help save the lives of those severely injured in accidents or by violence by passing local hospitals to reach one of the 255 U.S. trauma centers. The idea behind the specialty center trend is the belief that staffs in such facilities move faster and perform better than those in other hospitals, making up for any extra minutes a patient spends on the road.
Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh opened in 1890 with just 15 beds, and grew over the years into a large, renowned teaching hospital with more than 260 beds. In 2009, the hospital takes another big step forward with a two-mile move from its old hospital complex into a new $625 million medical campus currently under construction. Hospital leaders say the 10-acre campus , which includes a 900,000-square-foot hospital and 300,000-square-foot research center, is being built around putting families first, improving quality, taking advantage of all the latest technology, and enhancing research.
Texas officials haven't requested much new money in the upcoming state budget for Children's Health Insurance Program that insures children from working-poor families because they predict it will barely grow, even as the economy sours and the state population swells. Advocates for low-income families, though, are skeptical that there will be little or no enrollment growth in CHIP. Though enrollment in Texas soared to nearly 477,000 in August, from 300,000 a year ago, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission says it believes growth will slow to a crawl.