Doctors cautious as they wade into social media
July 24, 2011 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
Doctors cautiously wade into social media
| Saturday, Jul 23 2011 07:21 PM
Last Updated Saturday, Jul 23 2011 10:16 PM
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Dr. Milan Shah uses social media to communicate with his patients and potential patients.
Dr. Milan Shah, who specializes in aesthetic and laser medicine, was curious about how Bakersfield residents viewed their tattoos.
He posted a poll on his office’s Facebook page, and found many people wanted to remove their ink inscriptions, but were worried about the cost and the pain.
“In this poll, we found there was a lot of misinformation out there, and we knew we needed to educate people on that,” he said. “I really think Facebook and Twitter have opened up the possibilities for so much in the field of medicine.”
Shah and other health care workers are increasingly promoting their offerings, educating consumers and forming online communities through social media. That’s especially important as one in five Americans is using social media sites such as Facebook as a source of health care information, according to a 2011 National Research Corp. Ticker survey.
But as they follow their patients’ online migration, medical professionals have to tread especially carefully when it comes to privacy and legal concerns.
Health care providers “all see the potential and promise, but they’re still trying to find their footing,” said Bob Brown, a partner of BryantBROWN Healthcare, a L.A.-based marketing firm. “They think they can and should play a role in social media, but there’s a lot of confusion over using it.”
Health care’s challenges
The goal for health care workers is to ensure their online presence matches their offline attention to federal privacy laws, such as not mentioning or photographing patients without their consent, experts say. It’s also important for practitioners not to give specific medical advice online.
The pharmaceutical industry faces additional regulations that govern fairness and balance, Brown said. If they tout the benefits of a drug on their Facebook page, they need to give equal space to its risk — even if they’re not the ones posting the comment. The industry is looking to the FDA to publish more definite guidelines, Brown added.
“It’s uncharted territory and there’s a bunch of questions swirling,” he said.
Despite the extra caution, social media is terrain worth exploring for health care workers, said Mark Brooks, a New York-based consultant who specializes in social media. He advises doctors and hospitals to launch Twitter, blogs and Linkedin, a professional networking site.
“Doctors and hospitals have a real opportunity to distinguish themselves as skilled and caring and value-oriented providers,” Brooks said.
Doctors using Facebook
Among doctors, the specialties most likely to embrace social media are elective or aesthetic practices, such as plastic surgery, said Keith Humes, the CEO of Rosemont Media, a San Diego-based ad agency that specializes in elective health care. That’s because those patients may be paying out of pocket, and interested in doing more research before signing on with a particular doctor.
The pages can help add validity to a doctor’s practice and connect patients, he said. Sometimes, the Facebook sites even turn into impromptu support groups, with new patients expressing their apprehension, and more seasoned ones responding.
Dr. Edmund Fisher, a Bakersfield facial plastic surgeon, uses Facebook to showcase before and after photographs of patients’ face lifts or chin implants. He said he is always careful to get signed permission.
For Shah, the Bakersfield doctor specializing in aesthetic medicine, Facebook is especially useful because of its targeted approach to spreading information. For a long time, clients had asked about non-surgical options for skin tightening. When his group bought a new laser that could accomplish that, they communicated the news via their Facebook site, which has more than 1,200 “likes.”
They also use the site to communicate special deals or conduct polls, such as “What is your biggest fear about having a tummy tuck?” But Shah said he and his colleagues are careful to “keep it light,” and refrain from discussing any particular patient’s experience that might violate privacy laws.
“There are tons of new laws and regulations and it’s on the top of our minds constantly,” he said.
That’s why Dr. Jan Trobisch, a Bakersfield internal medicine doctor who specializes in addiction and weight loss, said he frequently combs guidelines on how to behave online. He’s careful even if a patient sends a private message on Facebook since it comes through a third-party site. If a patient instant messages him, he never gives advice. And, he’d never suggest that his “fans” use a particular drug.
When he’s creating posts, Trobisch often considers: When does a doctor/patient relationship start?
“If I say drink plenty of water a day, and someone goes crazy and drinks three gallons, they could say it was medical advice,” he said. “As a doctor, it’s not as easy to use social media as a tanning salon.”
Still, Trobisch plans to expand the use of his Facebook account, and offer frequent health tips for his weight-loss practice.
Hospitals ahead
Hospitals are ahead of the curve when it comes to using social media in the health care sector, said Brown, the health care marketing expert. Since it’s important to frequently update one’s presence — or disappointed users won’t come back — some hospitals have created a full-time position for those tasks.
Locally, San Joaquin Community Hospital created an electronic media coordinator role last month.
“We felt it was time to get serious about social media and the changing landscape,” saidJarrod McNaughton, a hospital vice president.
For Jimmy Phillips, the new role means sending out Twitter feeds, updating Facebook and posting videos on the hospital’s YouTube channel. People get bored with strictly business postings, so Phillips tries to bring a human angle to the hospital’s Facebook page. He recently videotaped the employee of the month presentation, a post that received 11 “likes” including one from the hospital’s CEO.
He’ll also use the site to post questions such as: What builds loyalty, or post fun, medical-related news stories such as that of a Texas baby born at 16 pounds.
“My job is to interact with the people in Bakersfield,” he said. “If we’re perceived as being ‘with it’ with social media, we’re also perceived as being ‘with it’ clinically.”
Like the physicians, he looks at each post through the lens of privacy. When he took a picture of firefighters hanging out with burn survivors, he purposely avoided the patients’ faces.
Bakersfield Memorial Hospital also is hoping to one day create a full-time social media position, according to spokeswoman Michelle Willow. And Mercy Hospitals of Bakersfield, which is on Facebook and Twitter, has plans to enhance its Facebook page, said spokeswoman Sandy Doucette.
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Couponers share their best tips, strategies
July 24, 2011 by admin
Filed under Choosing Lingerie
She had scanned and planned and printed and clipped, and now with her shopping list and coupon organizer in hand, Briana Carter was ready to take on the grocery store.
The Tipton mother of four rose early on a Sunday to make it to a Noblesville Kroger by 9 — at least a 20-minute drive that was worth it in the eyes of the local coupon queen. This morning, there was a special “mega sale.”
Carter heads into every grocery store with a game plan: memorizing the layout of the store and organizing her coupons accordingly.
This day, the first stop was the produce section. She picked up two packages of strawberries, placed them neatly in her cart, then rolled onward to aisle 3 for some snacks. Two boxes of Ritz crackers, on sale for $2.69.
Carter had a coupon in her hand for almost every item she picked up — all part of a carefully constructed, ever-evolving system that the 32-year-old uses to stretch her budget.
Known as Bargain Briana in the couponing world, Carter describes her system as “extreme couponing realistically.” An accountant at a mechanical contracting firm, she also runs her own blog, www.bargainbriana.com, which includes a coupon database, deal alerts and couponing tips. Since its creation in 2008, she’s gained a following of close to 28,000 on Facebook and 63,000 on Twitter.
Carter’s devoted followers are testament to the current coupon craze, fueled by the continued recession and popular television series “Extreme Couponing,” which debuted in April on TLC.
Americans’ coupon usage began to rise in October 2008, according to Inmar, a North Carolina-based company that issued a report on coupon redemption in 2011. In 2009, the popularity of coupons continued to increase, as Americans redeemed 3.3 billion packaged-goods coupons.
And the trend shows no signs of slowing, as avid bargain hunters continue to go to great lengths for coupons, including searching Dumpsters and recycling bins for newspaper inserts and selling them in bulk on eBay.
While the couponers on the TLC show truly are the extreme — some even leaving the store with four carts and more than $1,000 in savings — local couponers of all levels are joining in the craze.
As one of the experts, Carter is a confident shopper who takes saving seriously. While she shopped, she continually consulted her list, which she organized and printed the night before. Each time she spotted an item on her list, she paused and flipped through her stack of 55 coupons, gathered from newspaper inserts, online coupon databases and Facebook.
She picked out two $1 off coupons and held them in her left hand as she reached for a package of hot dogs with her right.
“I don’t eat hot dogs,” Carter, a vegetarian, said. But her children — ranging in age from 5 to 13 — do, so she needed to stock up. Plus, the meat was part of the Kroger mega sale, which meant that if she purchased 10 items that were marked for the mega sale, she’d get $3 off her bill.
So she grabbed six packages of hot dogs and placed them in her cart, and then marked tallies on the top of her grocery list, one for each mega sale item she had picked up.
“I don’t know how those people do it on the extreme couponing show, buying 1,000 items and keeping track of it all,” she said as she rolled her cart toward the frozen-food aisle.
Carter began “hard-core” couponing in 2006 as a way to save money for her family of six. Now, she’s developed a system that requires about an hour of preparation before each big shopping trip, when she does her coupon clipping. She puts in more time early in the morning, on her lunch breaks, and late at night to update her blog.
After 45 minutes of shopping, Carter was ready to check out. She piled her groceries — including a box of Cheerios, six cans of Chef Boyardee pasta and Yoplait Kids yogurt — onto the conveyer belt and explained that the items she was buying were an odd combination, but paired with items she had stockpiled at home, they enabled her to make meals.
Carter often plans what she buys according to the 12-week sale cycle. Items typically are discounted every 12 weeks, she said, so she stockpiles the ones she used the most.
The total for this week’s trip? $137.47. But that was before the beeping began.
Carter watched the computer screen as her bill shrunk with each scan of a coupon.
$69.96.
Beep.
$68.96.
On this day, no customers were waiting in line behind Carter. But she has seen her share of annoyed shoppers who were forced to wait; sometimes, she even waves them ahead.
Beep.
$67.96.
Beep.
$66.96.
It continued until the total reached $59.96, a savings of about 56 percent. Carter’s goal is to save at least 50 percent with each shopping trip.
As she looked over the receipt, she realized the hot dog sale wouldn’t start until the next day. Despite the loss of potential savings, Carter shrugged it off. She hit her target savings, and that was enough.
“It’s not a flashy, ‘I got $100 for $5,’ but it’s realistic for most people,” she said.
Occasionally, the bargain shopper shares her secrets at coupon classes she holds at local libraries. Jama Fernung of Indianapolis has been to two of the classes, and despite identifying herself as an experienced couponer, she said she goes as a “refresher.” Couponing was a hobby for the mother of a 5-year-old, until she lost her job at ATT in March, when it became a necessity.
“It’s a good addiction,” Fernung said with a laugh. “The more I save, the more I get into it. You just want to go a little bit further, a little bit further.”
Fernung stumbled upon Carter’s blog two years ago, and later realized the two had both gone to Tipton High School. While they weren’t close friends, couponing has created camaraderie. Fernung knows Carter loves Chapstick, for example, so she’ll call her and tell her when she sees them on sale.
Fernung consults BarganBriana.com before every shopping trip to compile a grocery list and match up coupons. She has 10 bottles of A1 sauce in her basement. At a Marsh triple coupon event on Memorial Day, she saved 92 percent.
For this saver, it’s more than just couponing, it’s a lifestyle. On heavy trash nights in her neighborhood, she’ll drive around and search for free stuff. She gardens and cans her own vegetables. Couponing was simply the first step.
“Couponing is a perfect way to save money,” she said. “And also, once you start saving money by couponing, it’s good to explore other ways to save money.”
Marsha Wilson said she was couponing 30 years ago, before it became a craze, but stopped once her career picked up. Three months ago, after living on a reduced income due to a job loss, she came out of “coupon retirement.”
What helped spur her back into action?
The “Extreme Couponing” show, of course, and a little challenge from her husband.
“He was watching the show and said that we should do this,” Wilson said. “It was kind of just like, ‘OK, let me show you we can do this. It’s not just a television show.’”
Now, Wilson, 54, uses a 3-inch white binder to organize her coupons rather than the shoe box with dividers she used decades ago. The Internet has also made the saving process easier, allowing her to print e-coupons, research stores’ coupon policies and create grocery lists online.
The Indianapolis grandmother of nine, who teaches online courses at Kaplan University and Colorado Technical University, clips almost every coupon she finds and files them away. If she can’t use the product, usually someone in her family can.
Despite the urge to save, Wilson said, she’ll never become a true “extreme couponer.”
“I’ll never be one of those people who devotes a room to cereal or to laundry detergent,” she said.
“I try to approach it as ‘don’t buy it just because it’s a good deal if it’s not something you or someone can use.’ “