John’s knowledge of Wild Boar ATV parts and accessories is second to none. John has an extensive understanding of all major types of parts available for Wild Boar ATVs, from suspension components to engines, brakes and more. John can provide invaluable advice on which type of part will work best for your particular model and help you find compatible parts from reputable manufacturers that will maximize performance and reliability while keeping costs down. He also has access to a wide variety of replacement parts from different manufacturers so he can offer the best part for your specific needs. John stays current with the latest trends in ATV technology, helping you make informed decisions when it comes to upgrades or additions to your Wild Boar ATV.

John’s extensive knowledge of the Wild Boar ATV parts industry allows him to advise you on all types of repairs, from easy fixes to complex repairs. He can help you find the perfect part and guide you through installation and maintenance procedures.

John Kittrell’s Advice on Selecting the Right Wild Boar Model for Your Needs

John Kittrell can help you find the right Wild Boar ATV for your needs. He will take into account factors such as your riding style and experience, the type of terrain you typically ride on, and the size and weight of the ATV that best suits you. John can also provide valuable insight into which specific models offer the features and capabilities that work best for your riding style. For example, if you are an experienced rider looking for a powerful machine with advanced features, suggestions on models such as the Wild Boar Pro Series or the Wild Boar Off-Road Series can be advised. On the other hand, if you are a beginner rider John can advise on models such as the Wild Boar Classic Series which are designed to provide easy handling and stability.

In addition to selecting a suitable ATV model, John can also provide advice on choosing compatible parts and accessories that will maximize performance and reliability while keeping costs down. John has extensive knowledge of all major brands of parts available for Wild Boar ATVs, so he can help you select quality parts from reputable manufacturers that are best suited for your particular model. John can also recommend recommended maintenance schedules to ensure your ATV is always running in peak condition.

See Also: John Kittrell : Get Peak Performance from Your Wild Boar ATV

Available Parts for Your Wild Boar ATV

Wild Boar ATV parts can be found in a variety of places, from ATV shops to online retailers. John Kittrell is familiar with all of these sources, and he can help you find the best parts for your Wild Boar quickly and easily.

At John’s shop, you’ll find a large selection of genuine Wild Boar ATV parts, including engines, brakes, suspension components and more. John has access to major brands such as Yamaha, Suzuki and Honda as well as aftermarket parts from leading manufacturers like Moose Racing and QuadBoss. John also stocks replacement parts that are designed specifically for Wild Boar models such as the Pro Series or Off-Road Series. Additionally, John can advise on which type of part will work best for your particular model so you get the right part at the best price.

For those who prefer to shop online, John can point you in the direction of several reputable online retailers that carry a wide range of Wild Boar ATV parts from different manufacturers at competitive prices. You’ll find an extensive selection of engine components, performance upgrades and accessories that are compatible with all Wild Boar models. It’s easy to compare prices across different vendors so you get the best deal possible on the part or accessory that you need.

John can also provide advice on choosing compatible performance upgrades or additions to your Wild Boar ATV that will maximize performance and reliability while keeping costs down. He has extensive knowledge about all major brands of parts available for Wild Boars so he can help you make informed decisions when it comes to selecting specific models or add-ons that are best suited to your needs and budget.

Recommended Maintenance Schedules to Keep your ATV in Peak Condition

John Kittrell recommends a regular maintenance schedule to keep your Wild Boar ATV running in peak condition. John suggests that at least once a year, you should take your ATV to an authorized repair facility and have an expert inspect all components of the vehicle. During the inspection, John recommends that the technician checks for any loose or damaged parts, including brake and suspension components as well as engine and transmission parts. This can help identify and address any potential problems before they become serious issues. In addition to an annual inspection, John recommends performing regular maintenance on your ATV such as oil changes, air filter replacements and spark plug replacements. John also suggests checking hoses, belts and other fluids regularly to ensure everything is functioning properly. John also advises replacing worn or damaged tires before it’s too late – this will improve safety and performance on the trails.

Finally, John Kittrell suggests cleaning your Wild Boar ATV after each ride to remove dirt and debris from engine components as well as mud or water from the chassis. This will help prevent corrosion from forming on critical parts which can lead to mechanical failures down the line. John also suggests applying lubricants such as grease or wax to exposed metal surfaces to protect them from rust and wear caused by moisture or dust particles over time. Following John’s recommended maintenance schedule will ensure that your Wild Boar ATV stays reliable and safe out on the trails.

The post John Kittrell’s Guide to Wild Boar ATV Parts appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

There’s got to be a better way.  Each year, healthcare organizations lose an astounding $12 billion due to communication issues. Patients use mobile communications throughout their lives, and would greatly prefer to work this way with their healthcare providers as well – 80% of patients have responded as such.

Mobile messaging in healthcare is a step in the right direction for the future of a better healthcare experience.  Imagine being able to text with your healthcare provider instead of waiting on some phone tree for someone on the other end of the line to pick up.  The rest of the world works well with such nimble asynchronous messaging, it’s about time that healthcare picks up the pace.  And the difference of healthcare results is quite shocking – consider that 98% of patients will read a mobile message vs the abysmal 7% that will read messages through their healthcare portal.

Take a look at the following visual deep dive for more information on how healthcare is going to be more like social media on our smartphones below:

The post Why Can’t Healthcare Be More Like Social Media? appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

One of the issues we were particularly interested in was how elder care facilities could utilize any of the many advancements in digital and social media to mitigate the loss of life and incredible devastation this pandemic has wrought on the residents of their facilities.

Lindsay: We know how busy your schedule is, especially during these precarious times, and appreciate you taking the time to sit down and share your insights with our readers.

Nadia Kiderman: It’s my pleasure. Raising public awareness of what’s presently taking place to our population’s most vulnerable is a public service. And I must say, the media deserves a great deal of recognition and praise for the pivotal role they have played in highlighting the awful plight of residents in so many assisted living and nursing home facilities across the nation. This is truly a tragic situation that has proved devastating and fatal for our nation’s most vulnerable. They are a segment of the population that we ought to be taking every extra precaution imaginable to protect. They are not to be neglected, under any circumstances whatsoever. 

Lindsay: Following the guidance of regulators, advocates for the rights of residents have been precluded from visiting facilities to monitor the situation. What are your thoughts on this development?

Nadia Kiderman: There is no question that these are unprecedented times that in some cases necessitate unprecedented precautions. Having said that, we as a society and those advocating on behalf of residents more generally, cannot afford to allow this development to lead to mistreatment on the part of the staff of nursing homes.

Lindsay: How do you manage the balance between protecting the health of monitors and patient advocates while still ensuring that there is nevertheless some oversight of residents in these facilities?

Nadia Kiderman: There’s no question that it’s a delicate balance. But nonetheless, it’s one that we have to invest far more effort into striking. The need for ensuring residents’ safety and health are preserved is paramount.

Lindsay: Over two million people live in roughly 45,000 nursing homes and assisted living facilities; what portion of these residents would you say are being mistreated?

Nadia Kiderman: While many in the industry do strive for providing the highest quality of care, it’s natural that less inspections and limited oversight leads to a destructive combination. Having said that, this is of course a situation where the health and safety of visitors and monitors has to be taken into account as well.

Lindsay: Of course, during the current crisis, it’s incredibly important that measures are taken into account in order to identify and monitor the spread and reporting of Covid-19 outbreaks within assisted living facilities. What are some procedures that you might recommend?

Nadia Kiderman: Many states have already imposed requirements on nursing homes to inform residents and their loved ones of any Covid-19 cases in the facilities. Those cases are similarly required to be reported to the CDC. This data is also being made publicly available, which is equally important so that we’re able to monitor the situation on a national and state-wide scale.

Lindsay: What are the types of nursing home inspections that CMS is affording patient advocates and others?

Nadia Kiderman: Nursing home inspections are focusing on the control of infections and those incidents that are being categorized as “ immediate jeopardy,” which account for the most serious of violations. Having said that, it’s important that your readers know that most nursing health violations are regarded as “less severe”, and many unfortunately do involve serious and in some cases devastating harm to residents.

Lindsay: Even during these frightening times that surely necessitate the sort of restrictive measures that have been put on families’ abilities to see their loved ones; are there still some sort of alternative routes that families can take to communicate with their loved ones?

Nadia Kiderman: There are some nursing homes that are allowing window visits, that provide families the ability to have face-to-face interaction with their loved ones inside the home. Unfortunately though because of the health dangers posed by this situation, even those are being severely limited. Of course, many nursing homes are connecting residents and their families through facetime, zoom and other similar technologies. Unfortunately that is not an adequate solution to most families; and understandably so. But then again, these are unprecedented times. Let’s hope this crisis ends soon, for all parties involved.

The post Caring for Nursing Home Residents in the Age of CoVid19: Can Digital and Social Media Technologies Be of Use? A Conversation with Nadia Kiderman appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Today I have the honor of presenting to SOMESSO, a social media for business conference in London, England. The event includes talks from some of the top thinkers in Internet and social media marketing for a one-day summit at Emirates Stadium near Highbury in North London. Being on the roster with the likes of Stowe Boyd, Marilyn Pratt of SAP, Merran Wrigley of Sony Ericsson Mobile, SocialText CEO Eugene Lee and Wesley Chan of Google Voice, among many other brilliant minds, is quite an honor.

My presentation (embedded below) is entitled, “Leveraging Social Media in Regulated Industries,” and looks most specifically at the necessary challenges to marketing in the alcohol, wine and spirits industry, which is mostly a self-regulated category. But I also take a brief look at the obstacles faced by social media marketers in financial services, health care, insurance, pharmaceuticals and publicly traded companies. The point of the presentation is to offer advice to those beginning the challenge of working through the laws, guidelines and restrictions to leverage social media.

In essence, the four key tenants of brand behavior for social media success are challenged by guidelines and restrictions in these industries. Those tenants include:

• Companies have to be honest.
• They should be as transparent in their approach to consumers as possible.
• Responsiveness is absolutely imperative.
• Companies must engage their publics in conversations around their products and services.

While these philosophical shifts are seemingly monumental, hundreds of companies are making them. But what happens when the risk-averted culture of corporate communications of the past conflicts with the new way of doing business? What do marketers do when company policy, industry regulations or even prevailing law conflict with how consumers want to engage with a brands†marketing?

Regulated industries have found themselves facing cultural shifts in the basic ways to market themselves thanks to the social web. Most companies in these industries are doing little to adjust and are quickly falling out of favor with consumers.

The big question is,” Why?”

Keeping in mind the four core tenants of acceptance in the social media space previously mentioned, here are some examples of what some regulated industries have to face:

Banking

There are national/federal regulations, not to mention industry and local/regional rules that are applicable to financial institutions and investment companies Worldwide. Some of those policies include advertising rules relevant to truth-in-lending and truth-in-savings and overdraft protection (U.S.), as well as rules governing financial advertising via email, telephone and regulations for the various investment and trading markets.

Sampling a variety of those, here are some financial-industry standards Iâ€ve found that could hinder best practices of engagement in the social media space.

• Bank logos/names must be visible at all times**
• All marketing communications must contain clearly communicated forms of contact for the institution including phone number, email address or mailing address.**
• Any offer, promotion, rate or deal must include all disclosures and stipulations in their entirety*
• All marketing communications must be pre-approved to ensure compliance*

* – Industry or government-imposed regulations; ** – Those imposed by individual institutions (not always applicable)

Those are just a few. One financial institution Iâ€ve researched has a compliance manual for marketing that is over 2,000 pages in length.

Pharmaceuticals

Drug manufacturers and companies that market in the United States are essentially neutered from open conversation with customers thanks to federal regulations. The big reason is that drugs cannot be marketed for anything other than its primary benefit. Ancillary benefits can not only not be referenced, but if a consumer pointed one out on an open conversation platform on a company website, the company is required to report the claim to the Food and Drug Administration which then launches an investigation into that company to ensure marketing regulations have been met.

Health Care

For health insurance companies in the U.S., rules similar to those of the pharmaceutical industry apply. There exists a government-mandated, complex and layered approval system companies must adhere to for communications with the public. One enterprising health care official I found is pre-writing hundreds of 140-character or less Twitter messages, anticipating dozens of potential responses and conversations around Medicare – a health coverage program of the U.S. government – to have them pre-approved by company compliance officials.

She told me, “We owe it to our customers to communicate accurate information to them. In the social media space that requires real time communications. The approval process is roughly 3-4 weeks long at my company. The only way we can provide real-time engagement under the current policies is to have pre-scripted statements approved for use on platforms like Twitter. Weâ€re just going to have to a good job of anticipating the questions.”

Hospitals, clinics and other care providers must also protect the privacy of their patients and are often severely limited as to who can offer medical advice and in what form.

Insurance

For non-health related insurance companies in the United States, the challenges are not much easier to contend with. All 50 states have separate regulations for home, auto, life and other insurance policies and giving out insurance advice is restricted to licensed insurance brokers in the state in question. So an agent in Ohio cannot give advice to a customer posing a question in Kentucky. Opening a corporate conversation about insurance then becomes quite tricky.

Publicly Traded Companies

Letâ€s not forget about publicly traded companies in general. The Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States governs how publicly traded companies can communicate with their investors and the public. Regulation Fair Disclosure mandates publicly traded companies disclose information to all investors (and the public) at the same time. This severely restricts what conversations you can have in the social space. Violating this can result in charges of insider trading and the like.

One company representative I spoke to in preparation for this reported three layers of corporate approval just to respond to a single blog comment.

Spirits

The alcohol, wine and spirits industry is where I arguably have the most exposure and experience. In my role as social media overseer for Doe-Andersonâ€s clients, Iâ€ve been engaged by Beam Global Spirits & Wine to counsel their brands, specifically in their whiskey portfolio, on social media and Internet marketing.

All around the world, the spirits industry adheres to very specific guidelines to uphold extremely high standards in their marketing communications to ensure they are communicating only to their target audiences of legal purchase age (LPA) and above. There are a variety of associations and organizations that set forth these guidelines for the industry. All of the major spirits companies voluntarily join and/or make up the memberships of these organizations, which serve as self-regulatory agencies. Some of these include the European Forum on Responsible Drinking, The European Union which has applicable policies, The Scotch Whisky Association, the Distilled Spirits Industry Council of Australia and many other similar organizations throughout the world. In the United States, the applicable self-regulatory body is the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States or DISCUS.

When a spirits company markets in a country that doesnâ€t have applicable standards, they use those set forth by these organizations anyway. It is absolutely imperative that these companies uphold those high standards and market only to the target audience of consumers of LPA and above. This notion is important to consider since the social media space has global implications. The web tears down our geographic and political boundaries.

The focus on legal purchase age consumers and above is, in essence, the guiding principle of marketing in the spirits industry. One method companies use to help ensure that is by choosing not to advertise in any medium whose demographic makeup is not at least 70 percent legal purchase age consumers and above. This is the DISCUS standard. Beam Global Spirits & Wine is not satisfied with that. Its standard is 75 percent LPA and above. This means for much of last year, MySpace was off-limits for Beam Global brands. Whatâ€s more, if a mediumâ€s audience dips below the standard, its brands wonâ€t go back there until it has been compliant for three straight months.

I’m happy to report that in my experience with Beam Global Spirits & Wine, the notion of upholding those high standards and marketing to legal purchase age and above consumers isnâ€t only a standard the company complies with, but rather a behavior embedded in the DNA of the organization. It has made me proud to work with them.

Looking at the DISCUS standards and the organization’s Code of Responsible Practices for Beverage Alcohol Advertising & Marketing, a document you can download on their website at http://www.discus.org. Here are some highlights of the types of guidelines social media marketers must work with:

• Alcohol advertising and marketing intended for adults of LPA who choose to drink
• Should not advertise or marketed in any manner directed or primarily appealing to persons below LPA
• Advertising/Marketing Communications should only be placed in mediums where at least 70% of the audience is LPA+ (Beam Global – 75%)
• No depiction of children or objects/images/cartoons that would appeal to children
• No Santa Claus (Yep, it is its own rule.)
• No rite of passage messaging
• Actors must appear 21 but must be at least 25
• Nothing that depicts anti-social, illegal or irresponsible behavior
• No indecent images or language
• No religious themes
• No overt sexual activity, promiscuity or sexually lewd images or language
• Websites must have a legal purchase age verification gateway

Notice that last entry. This technology requirement results in two internet marketing facts of life for the spirits industry most people donâ€t have to face. First, the gateway hinders the ability of search engines to adequately and accurately index the site. (This can be worked around with some coding tricks but most spirits company websites are not properly indexed by search engines.) More importantly, the gateway puts a navigation road block up between the website visitor and the websiteâ€s content. This can be frustrating because the social web insists that content be free and easy to obtain. But it is good for the spirits industry because it wants very much to ensure the only people consuming the content are those who are of legal purchase age and who want that content.

The LPA gateway on websites was a conscious guideline agreed upon by the industry because, frankly, it was the right thing to do. The industry website’s search engine results and user experience are often not ideal as a result, but it is the right thing to do to uphold the high standards of the industry.

Before we go further, it is important to point out that across all regulated categories, like the alcohol, wine and spirits industry, the rules, regulations and policies weâ€re talking about are actually in place to help these companies achieve honesty, fairness, appropriateness and ensure accountability to their respective audiences. This presents a challenging irony about regulated industries. The guidelines are in place to keep them honest, transparent, responsive and, in some cases, even conversational. But many struggle with those approaches. Why?

Itâ€s not the policies, regulations or rules that hinder the companyâ€s participation in social media. Itâ€s the checks and balances to ensure that compliance that complicate the process.

Simply put, itâ€s not the rules, but the policing of them. From this perspective the solutions to achieving effective social media engagement in regulated industries is to fully educated and integrate your compliance staff to understand and look for compliant and appropriate ways to leverage social channels on behalf of your brand, company or organization.

Note that I am not arguing that policing be relaxed, rather that the policing agents better understand the opportunity and acceptable standards in the social media environment to identify appropriate communications opportunities while respecting the standards of compliance. Certainly, there may be antiquated policies that need revisiting with regards to this new world of communications, but the point is to make brands more consumer-friendly, not bend the rules.

The specific challenges these guidelines pose general fall into two major categories. First, user-generated content of any kind – comments, images, videos and more – when placed on the websites of regulated industry companies, immediately become marketing messages of said company. This isnâ€t as much by legal definition as it is industry or company definition set forth to ensure they are always in full compliance with applicable guidelines. A comment on the Jim Beam website made by John Smith of Leeds may have been posted my Mr. Smith, but is the responsibility of Jim Beam and Beam Global Spirits & Wine.

The second major area of challenge for social media marketing in regulated industries is the need for immediacy in response and conversation in the social web. As weâ€ve discussed, nearly all of these companies have review and approval processes in place to ensure compliance with the various rules and guidelines the companies must respect. Twitter, for instance, is very much a here-and-now platform where conversations occur in real time. There is little to no opportunity for review and approve time lines.

So how do regulated companies approach social media successfully? Here are my thoughts, based on experience with Beam Global Spirits & Wine, as well as two health care, one insurance and one financial institution client work over the last three years:

1. Get buy-in from above.
   Without C-level support of social media initiatives, challenging the status quo will almost always be met with resistance and hesitation. Keep in mind the CEO is often going to have to convince a board of directors as well. Make yourself available to them, proactively reach out and offer learning.
2. Work closely with the compliance staff or legal team.
   Help them understand the ground rules of engagement in the social media space in general and within the communities of specific platforms as well. The more they understand best practices, see examples of what other companies are doing (hopefully in different categories, not your competition) the better they can approach compliance with new media marketing in mind.
3. Educate, educate, educate.
   The biggest hang ups most executives and compliance or legal staffers have with social media is they donâ€t understand or know the tools well. In my experience, most people outside the technology world think a corporate blog allows random people to post articles on the front page of your companyâ€s website, above the fold. They also arenâ€t aware that the moderation and pre-approval of comments, images, videos and other user-generated content is very much acceptable to consumers, so long as clear policies are stated and the company is allowing constructive criticism to come through as well.
4. Approach review and approval as a team.
   Beyond the previous misconceptions, the next most frequent concern companies have is whether or not they have to staff their blog comments section or company forum 24 hours per day, seven days each week. The answer is, “no,” but it always helps to have multiple individuals responsible for moderation activities working as a team to ensure thereâ€s always someone available.
5. Develop short review timelines with definitive outcomes.
   After explaining the need for urgency to the compliance and legal teams, thereâ€s a pretty good chance they will agree to a 24-48 hour response time on certain items for approval. One should always assume that no response means the item is not approved, but a quick response is not difficult to elicit when you have buy-in. In the case of Southwest Airlines one communications staff and one executive management team member are assigned to approve all blog posts or sensitive comment responses on NutsAboutSouthwest.com. I’ve been told while they shoot for 24-48 hour turn around, they can respond in as quickly as 10 minutes if need be.  Similar approaches can be had with your legal or compliance teams with the appropriate education and agreement that social channels are valuable methods of communication for your brand.

This approach has helped Beam Global Spirits & Wine extend the company’s industry leadership into the realm of social media to go with its similar status in other areas of the alcohol, wine and spirits industry. Some of the social media efforts the company has engineered in the last two years include the use of Twitter to cover the Baja 1000 off-road race in support of Beam-sponsored driver Robby Gordon, “The Stuff Inside,” which is thought to be the first social media-based campaign in the spirits industry, the first-ever spirits industry blog and the industry’s first user-generated content video contest in Jim Beam’s “The Remake” which ended just this week.

As you can see, it is entirely possible to leverage social media marketing and the social web as a company in a regulated industry. But it does take some special attention, effort and patience. To start your company moving on the social web, keep the following points in mind:

• Regulations and guidelines are not impediments. They are necessary and opportunities to innovate in the social media space.
• Your legal and compliance teams are on your team. Just help them understand the environment and they will help you.
• Bureaucratic systems can be nimble if you build consensus. Get buy-in from everyone and the team will accomplish the effort together.
• In the end, you can market through social media while still being compliant with the rules and regulations of your industry.

Those are my thoughts. I’m interested in hearing more examples of challenges in the above and other regulated industries from those of you working in them. I’m also interested to know if you have developed other thoughts on how to work through the challenges to accomplish social media successes in those industries. The comments are yours.

Related articles by Jason Falls (with help from Zemanta)

• Red Tape Won’t Stop Social Media From Changing Your Website (Evenutally) (PR-Squared)
• GlaxoSmithKine and Johnson & Johnson Launch Blogs (Diva Marketing Blog)
• Facebook and Bands: Not Really Friends (Bank Technology News)

The post Leveraging Social Media In Regulated Industries appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

You know the file folders that line walls behind the receptionist at your doctor’s office? The ones with the first three letters of the last name in alphabetical order? That’s where your data is. Who owns it?

Your doctor does.

How many doctors, specialists or therapists have you seen in your lifetime? Do you know what that means? Dotted around the cities you’ve lived, little snippets of your medical past are owned by a bunch of people you don’t know very well. And you know what else? If you go to the doctor today with what turns out is a chronic illness that has been sneaking up on you for years, it’ll take your doctor weeks to pinpoint it.

So what if the world changed?

What if you owned your medical data? What if every time you walked into a doctor’s office you could hand them a sheet of paper, printed from your home computer, or send them to a secure website where you’ve given them access to your personal health record and they instantly knew every facet of your medical history?

Now here’s where this gets good …

What if they not only had snapshots of you when you were sick through the years (what current medical records mostly offer) but had a lifestream of knowledge of your physical, mental and emotional health dating back as far as you did? And what if you could not only own your medical data and continually add to it in states of wellness and not? What if you could find information to help guide your health decisions that, compared to a search, was like comparing a gnat to an elephant?

The future is now.

Sprigley is a brand new software platform, now in Alpha and unveiled to the world exclusively here on SocialMediaExplorer.com. What it does is, for the first time, gives your personal health record to you.

But it’s so much more than just appendectomy scars and cholesterol counts. What Sprigley does is combine your personal health record with a lifespan aggregation of physical, psychological and behavioral data you supply and with social media tools to enable you to make smarter health decisions. It is data portability on a whole new level.

In a two-part video series (both parts below), I sat down with Melanie and Joshua Rosenthal, the husband-wife duo behind Sprigley, to find out what the software is and how it can potentially change health care as we know it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmweWpapabY[/youtube]

After showing it off, we talked more about the software.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9e6U8lEaq4[/youtube]

Social Media Explorer readers now have exclusive first dibs on this software and the Rosenthal’s are anxious to start getting feedback. Go to Sprigley.com and find the contact form (or click here). Send them a note saying you want to join the Alpha and start owning your personal health. They’ll sign you up and you can help them move this software to Beta.

And the Rosenthal’s have my eternal thanks for giving you this exclusive opportunity.

Perhaps I’m playing the wide-eyed optimist here, but the notion struck me that this type of Personal Health Record (PHR) overlay — one that aggregates important data, better informing you and your health care provider and then additionally uses social media tools to enable you to see what care and options those like you have chosen and how satisfied they were — might just be the magic bullet.

• Medial Practitioners — Approach each patient with volumes more data at hand, enabling faster, more accurate diagnoses which means a higher patient load and, thus, higher profits.
• Hospitals & Clinics — Similar benefits to medical practitioners but with less paperwork and less administrative costs, thus, higher profits.
• Insurance Providers and HMOs — Faster, more accurate diagnoses mean contained costs. For those HMO folks out there, that means higher profits. (Did I say that slowly enough for you?)
• And then there’s us, the patients — We have a more complete understanding of our health, or lack thereof. We make smarter self-care decisions. We see preventative measures when we need to see them not when it’s too late. We don’t have to sit in a waiting room for 45 minutes filling out forms. (That alone makes it worth it to me.)

Does anybody lose?

Granted, my understanding of the health care system is limited to the notion I’ve always had to pay way too much to get way to little, except for whatever we paid when my son was born. The care he and my wife got was worth every dime. I play in social media all day, so I’m not wholly qualified to tell you what is wrong with the health care system, or what is even right with it or with Sprigley.

So you tell me. Does this hold the promise I see? The comments are yours and the Alpha awaits. Go sign up.

Other Posts You’ll Find Interesting:

1. Health Care Or Health Snare?
2. Microsoft Beats Google To Online Health Records With HealthVault
3. Taking The Temperature Of Google Health
4. miVitals Takes Aim At Tough Online Health Market
5. What Jenny McCarthey Can Teach Us About Behavior Change And Data

IMAGE: “Stethoscope” by happysnappr on Flickr.

[tags]personal health record, HeathVault, Google Health, Sprigley, health care system, health care, doctors, medical profession, HMOs, health insurance[/tags]

The post New Software Offers Chance To Revolutionize Health Care appeared first on Social Media Explorer.