Melody Smith Jones

What are the benefits of online patient communities? I find myself answering this question quite a bit lately. It struck me this week that I have never answered this question on the blog. But, first things first, what is an online patient community? Online patient communities are, essentially, condition specific socially enabled support groups. These […]

The journey into the (officially scientific) exploration of healthcare social media would not be complete without a look into the realm of healthcare specific networking sites that I’ll playfully call “medicinal sites.” These are closed sites that are aimed exclusively for those with either a certain designation or disease state. In today’s lineup, we will […]

Thus far we have covered both blogs and microblogs as we walk through the official scientific study that was completed by the University of British Columbia on the uses of social media in medicine and healthcare. Today we move into the wide world of social networks. Ask ten people in the know to define what […]

In this blog series, we are highlighting the social media categories presented in “Social Media: A Review and Tutorial of Applications in Medicine and Health Care.” This was a study conducted by the University of British Columbia, which offers an extensive digest of the vast uses of social in medicine and healthcare. Today we’re going […]

Earlier this month, I happened upon an actual scientific study of the use of social media in medicine and healthcare conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia. The study was fraught with terms such as “positivistic epistemologies” and “critical-interpretivist theory” to add the requisite ambiance one finds in such studies. All kidding aside, […]

From the fun-loving portal chap that brought us Find a Provider tools that don’t make babies cry (read: Mark Polly), I bring to you a ranking of Mobile Health apps by App Annie. App Annie a ranking app that uses app store analytics and market intelligence to rank and visualize an app’s download, revenue, ranking, […]

Being a consulting firm, here at Perficient we have a “live anywhere, work anywhere” culture. What that means, essentially, is that while I live in Cincinnati, the colleagues that I work with daily live in places like Chicago, Phoenix, Atlanta, Houston…the list goes on and on. Add to that all of the places we travel […]

Over the past five weeks we have been counting down the top 10 trends that will drive the use Connected Health over the next year. Here they are at a glance: 10. M&A Meets Engagement 9. The Connected Healthcare Enterprise 8. Sharing Notes with Patients & Members 7. Care Knows No Bounds: Providing Remote Care […]

Here it is. After 5 weeks of the Connected Health Trend countdown for 2014 we bring you: Trend #1: Health Plans go Business to Consumer Are you at all surprised that the top trend is brought to you by the health insurance industry? Are you even more surprised that this is only the second time […]

Last week, at IBM Connect, I met an individual with the coolest title in all Profession Land: Global Lead for Serious Games. Her name is Phaedra Boinodiris, and after sitting in on her Birds of a Feather chat, along with a post chat dinner filled with good eats and new friends, I wanted to open […]

We are nearing the top of our list, and we bring you: Trend #2: Converting Unknown Consumers into Patients/Members Back in trend #6, I promised that one of the byproducts of the evolution of social media, namely this trend, would surface back up on the countdown. Here it is as promised. Before we get into […]

Last week, I sat in on the session “Healthcare Portals: 5 Core Items for an Exceptional Digital Experience” brought to you by our very own portal experts Michael Porter and Mark Polly. Number 2 in their list of 5 was one near and dear to my heart. It was the famed Find a Provider tool. […]