by Marcia Rhodes | Jun 7, 2017 | Blog
“Story telling is the oldest form of teaching,” Matt Cavallo declared when we met on May 23. I couldn’t agree more. Great story telling has always intrigued me. Maybe that’s why I’m in PR. I have always believed that behind every organization is a zealous individual with an epic story waiting to be shared. It’s usually the CEO or founder, though not always.
Matt is a passionate patient advocate who dedicates his life to the fight against multiple sclerosis. He has been named among the top 10 Social HealthMakers by WCG and his blog was selected as one of Healthline’s top multiple sclerosis picks in 2015. His story of being diagnosed and overcoming the physical and emotional challenges associated with having a chronic disease can be read in his memoir, The Dog Story: A Journey into a New Life with Multiple Sclerosis.
What started as a simple half-hour meet-and-greet with Amendola Communications agency staff turned into a 90-minute conversation. Who has that kind of time, you ask? Well, Matt knew how to keep our attention: he had us laughing one moment and fighting back tears the next. It’s a skill few people have but many aspire to. This ability to connect comes in really handy during media interviews at large trade shows (such as HIMSS) where our PR clients (health IT vendors) get to pitch their product or solution to editors who decide on the spot whether they care enough to write about them or not.
GetWellNetwork founder and CEO Michael O’Neil was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of 28. While the medical outcome was excellent, the patient experience was challenging. After four cycles of chemotherapy, he started GetWellNetwork to help hospitals improve performance and outcomes through patient engagement. Michael and his team work tirelessly to ensure the voice of the patient is heard. Today, more than 4.6 million patients use GetWellNetwork technology to engage in their healthcare. Take a minute to watch Michael tell his story in this short video.
Growing up in a family of doctors, ClearDATA CEO Darin Brannan got a firsthand look at the challenges healthcare practitioners face in treating patients using paper and outdated technology. It made him painfully aware of the number of people who die each day as a result of medical errors long before it became national news.
Despite the availability of electronic health records and other technologies that were supposed to solve the problem, reports show that more than 1,000 people still die each day due to medical errors. At the center of this seeming disconnect is a lack of cohesiveness among advanced information technologies. Darin believes that, “Healthcare is less of a science problem, it’s more of an information problem.”
In 2011, he co-founded ClearDATA to apply his cloud computing expertise to healthcare in order to remove the technical obstacles inhibiting patient safety and costing lives. Today, ClearDATA is recognized by organizations such as CB Insights as a leading healthcare information security services company, with $54 million in funding and a customer portfolio that includes some of the largest healthcare providers in the nation.
Dave Bennett, EVP, Orion Health, is passionate about precision medicine. He often tells the story about his son, Carter, who has cystic fibrosis (CF). Here is how he tells it.
Carter’s story
About a decade ago, my oldest son, Carter, was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
Like most kids with CF, Carter had a host of physical problems, like lung infections due to mucous build-up and thrive issues due to pancreas blockage. In eighth grade his lungs needed a thorough cleaning, so he was hospitalized and homebound for three consecutive weeks with a PICC line.
Five years ago, Vertex Pharmaceuticals released a drug designed to address Carter’s specific genetic variation of CF, one that only four percent of patients have.
But when I told Carter’s doctor about it, he said it wouldn’t help Carter because he didn’t have that genetic variation.
Once I pressed the doctor to review 60 pages of Carter’s data, however, the doctor soon reversed his position.
“This is a game changer,” he said.
Now let’s be clear: Carter’s doctor is a great doctor. But he didn’t have the tools to help him analyze that 60 pages of data and connect my son to a promising new drug therapy that went on to stabilize his lung function, end his annual sinus surgeries, eliminate his regular bronchial scopes, made his ED visits a thing of the past, and allowed him to flourish into a six-foot-two-inch, 225-pound captain of his high-school football team. Today, Carter is a thriving college student, our payers don’t have to pay for all the procedures mentioned above anymore, and his mom and I don’t worry about him one bit.
That is the promise of precision medicine exemplified. But in the future, rather than rely on a highly interested advocate like a parent who’s passionate about precision medicine to provide that cognitive support, payers and providers will be able to rely on technology that synthesizes and analyzes the data (e.g., those 60 pages Carter’s doctor couldn’t effortlessly process) and utilize it in the right context at the right time.
“This is my mission,” Dave tells journalists. “I want to help doctors and patients in making decisions about what will help them. To do this work, you really need focus at the mission level, because it’s going to change healthcare for the better and make a difference in people’s lives.”
by Margaret Kelly | May 31, 2017 | Blog
In the good old days of the Internet (we’re talking the 1990s here), clients grappled with the decision to jump on the newest marketing scheme the website. Advertising and PR agencies, as well as marketing directors, had widely divergent opinions about several components that are now taken for granted.
The conversation has gone from, “Do we really need a website?” to “How can we make our website better?”
I was on a marketing team that received a MAME Award for Best Website. (The Major Achievements in Merchandising Excellence golden trophy is to the homebuilding industry what the Oscar is to Hollywood.) My employer strolled into my office and said, “Did I mention you’re going to be the guest speaker on websites at today’s Homebuilder’s Association meeting? We leave in 20 minutes.” After the shock wore off, I must have delivered an intelligent lecture because many of the builders asked me to evaluate their websites.
What surprises me today is that many of the same problems I saw with sites in 2003 still exist. Sure, with WordPress and new design trends, the hot features of today are hero images, video and animation. But in the race to beef up data capture and content marketing, simple, everyday details can easily be overlooked. Vendors and publishers alike can up their game and make it easier for their audience to engage, sign up, download, interact and purchase.
Here are 6 key areas you should evaluate on your website to ensure maximum engagement:
Contact Information
You would think contact information would be a no-brainer. But when I’m wearing my research hat, nothing makes me yell “REALLY?!” faster than wasting time hunting down basic information. Your address and phone number should be easy to find. Your “Contact Us” link should be at the top or bottom of every page. If people can’t reach you when they have questions about your event or product, they will likely move on to the next vendor on their list. Don’t be coy. Give me your 411!
Company Directories
In this digital world, time zones abound and chances are someone out there is looking at your website when you are not open for business. There are pros and cons to both popular methods of people reaching you after hours: “Contact Us” forms and Company Directories.
A contact us form (which is what we have on our own company website) can be programmed one time and simply lives on your website. Visitors can, however, be frustrated if you create a pre-populated and mandatory dropdown-list. What if the reason for contacting you isn’t on that list?
My personal favorite is Company Directories such as the one at HIMSS. It’s easy to find their staff and there’s no question who does what. But, you must keep on top of it and update it often.
Monitoring
So, you’ve got an “info@” email address posted on your website. It’s better than nothing. But who reads your incoming message? More than one person? Do you respond to every inquiry?
Whether it’s someone asking a question or providing feedback, a simple follow-up lets your audience know you’re on the ball.
And please watch the automated replies. It’s great to receive a quick email referencing my trouble ticket number. But it doesn’t make a very good impression to acknowledge you received my email and will respond shortly, and then never get back to me.
Follow up. Every. Single. Time.
Tell me thank you, let me know you’ll consider my suggestion, or forward me to the person who can really help me. Don’t leave me in the dark.
Oh, and remember to redirect the routing of your website mail if you have a change in staff.
Testing
The team members monitoring your web mail inquiries and data capture alike will know the average number of contacts you receive per month. Any sudden drop in those numbers should be a red flag.
Minor updates in website programming, firewalls and email proxy servers can all wreak havoc on your incoming messages. Test your site from time to time. Send yourself an email from the website or fill out any forms to ensure everything is still running as it should.
Social Media Platforms
Are links to your social platforms elusive? Are they current?
I’ve taken over social media duties for many clients and I am dismayed when I discover they have a LinkedIn account but no way to reach it through their website.
If you have multiple channels, make sure website visitors can reach them. By the same token, if you haven’t tweeted since 2013, it might be best to remove the little blue bird until your account is more current.
Yes, websites can be expensive to program. But a laundry list of social media platforms adds an unnecessary degree of difficulty that makes it so much harder for visitors to engage. Our eyes are now trained to look for social graphics and a text list of Twitter and Facebook will be overlooked.
A much better example is to use the icons with which everyone is familiar. No questions here on how I can engage!
But let’s not get carried away. Mashable, gotta love you, but honestly, which Twitter handle do I use when I’m trying to share an article you published?
Social Media Sharing
Publications count on social media to increase readership of their articles. Even vendor websites add sharing buttons to the side of their blogs to encourage readers to engage. What surprises me is how often a pre-programmed post opens in my Twitter profile without basic information such as a Twitter handle.
When you set up your Share buttons, be sure the website plug-in of choice includes your Twitter handle. It’s a common mistake and simple to fix. Also, Twitter doesn’t include links in the character count, but it’s still nice to provide a bit.ly (or whatever service you use) so visitors can RT and comment.
Which is, after all, what engagement is all about. To wit, here are some great examples of engagement done right:
Forbes This site could really improve by adding their Twitter handle and a shortened link, but they get kudos for adding several options of “Tweet This” above the article. Readers will be quick to click that button and get the message out.
Becker’s Hospital Review Share any of their articles on Twitter and the post starts with “Reading @beckershr” followed by the article title and the link.
Health IT Outcomes Push the Tweet Share button and the post is auto-populated with the title of the article, a shortened link, and “via @HITOutcomes.”
Politico’s Morning eHealth Not only does the Share button have all the necessary bits, but the journalists Twitter handles are displayed for even further engagement.
Sometimes it’s the little things that matter. Not only are these suggestions relatively low-cost fixes, the attention to detail will elevate your website to social success.
What suggestions do you have for making websites more social? Please share them below.
by admin | May 30, 2017 | News
Scottsdale, Ariz. May 30, 2017 Amendola Communications, an award-winning healthcare marketing and public relations agency, announced today that Bridge Therapeutics, Inc., has selected Amendola as its agency of record. Bridge Therapeutics, an innovative development-stage specialty pharmaceutical company, will be pursuing FDA and European Medicines Agency (EMA) approval of a patented (U.S. Patent #8410092) novel drug combination for the treatment of chronic pain in opioid-experienced patients.
Bridge selected Amendola after a rigorous agency review process. Amendola will provide a broad range of public relations and thought leadership services that promote Bridge Therapeutics as a pioneer and innovator in improving the lives of patients living with chronic pain through safer, more effective, and less addictive pain management.
Bridge Therapeutics investigational drug compound BT-205 is a unique combination of two synergistic chronic pain drugs the partial-agonist opioid buprenorphine and the NSAID meloxicam delivered in a state-of-the-art sublingual formulation. BT-205 is being developed to replace dangerous, full-agonist opioid-based drugs with a safer and more effective medication.
“We are excited that Amendola Communications will help us to bring our message about safer approaches to those struggling with chronic pain and addiction to the market,” said Alton Kelley, director of business development for Bridge Therapeutics. “Chronic pain affects more 100 million Americans today, which the Institutes of Medicine report is more than diabetes, heart disease and cancer combined. As we go through the FDA and EMA approval and commercialization process, we look forward to partnering with Amendola to help us educate the market about the benefits of replacing dangerous opioid-based drugs with a safer and more effective therapy for those struggling with chronic pain and addiction.”
BT-205 has the potential to be a new treatment option for healthcare providers around the world, and to offer patients an alternative chronic pain therapy. When dosed as a combination drug, buprenorphine and meloxicam have stronger pain relief effects, which allows the use of low dosage strengths of both and reduces the potential for negative side-effects.
Amendola Communications will provide targeted strategic public relations services, including media research, media relations, and the generation of top-tier awards and speaking opportunities. The agency will also be responsible for delivering a range of content demonstrating the thought leadership and expertise of Bridge Therapeutics key opinion leaders (KOLs), including bylined articles, poster presentations, press releases and other materials.
“Bridge Therapeutics offers an exciting and innovative approach to addressing the opioid addiction crisis facing our nation today,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “Addictive chronic pain drugs today kill more Americans than road crashes, and yet the massive chronic pain market in the United States still lacks a non-addictive pain medication. We look forward to promoting Bridge Therapeutics and its key opinion leaders as the company continues to go through its regulatory approval and commercialization process.”
About Amendola Communications
Amendola Communications is an award-winning national public relations, marketing communications, social media and content marketing firm. Named one of the best information technology (IT) PR firms in the nation four times by PRSourceCode, Amendola represents some of the best-known brands and groundbreaking startups in the healthcare and HIT industries. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros delivers strategic guidance and effective solutions to help organizations boost their reputation and drive market share. For more information about the PR industry’s “A Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow Amendola on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Bridge Therapeutics
Bridge Therapeutics, based in Birmingham, Ala., is an innovative development-stage specialty pharmaceutical company pursuing U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) approvals of a patented (U.S. Patent #8410092) drug combination, BT-205, for the treatment of chronic pain in opioid-experienced patients. The investigational drug BT-205 is a unique combination of two synergistic chronic pain drugs the partial-agonist opioid buprenorphine and the NSAID meloxicam delivered in a state-of-the-art sublingual formulation. The dosing and delivery method will be a commercial advantage over the current alternatives. Bridge Therapeutics’ goal is to make the BT-205 compound and other investigational new drug candidates available to millions of patients in which addictive and potentially dangerous full-agonist opioids such as oxycodone and morphine are ineffective and/or unsatisfactory. The company is focused on improving the lives of patients living with chronic pain by developing new approaches to pain management that are safer, more effective, and less addictive. For more information, visit www.bridgetherapeutics.com.
Media Contact: Tara Stultz | 440.225.9595 | tstultz@acmarketingpr.com
by Administrator | May 17, 2017 | News
Interactive patient care leader selects award-winning PR agency to raise awareness in commercial and pediatric hospitals, government healthcare facilities and retail clinics.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (May 17, 2017) Amendola Communications, a nationally recognized public relations, content creation and marketing firm specializing in health care and health information technology (HIT), announced today that it has been selected as the agency of record for Maryland-based GetWellNetwork®, Inc. The partnership began with public relations in late 2016 and expanded earlier this year to include integrated marketing communications to advance greater awareness about the work of GetWellNetwork, the industry’s only true provider of cross-continuum patient engagement solutions.
“Amendola has an award-winning team of public relations and marketing experts and former health IT journalists, all with a wealth of health care technology experience,” said Laura Bramschreiber, vice president of marketing for GetWellNetwork. “Their exclusive focus on health care was an important factor in our decision to partner with them. Amendola was the clear choice given their depth of industry knowledge and connections, as well as their reputation for outstanding client service.”
Bramschreiber continued, “With Amendola’s deep understanding of the market, coupled with their close relationships with key media organizations, the GetWellNetwork story of how we help patients and families take a more active role in their health care journey, is being shared with a wider audience than ever before.”
GetWellNetwork helps leading health care systems create connections with patients in any setting, deliver insights to clinicians in real time, and transform care through an evidence-based model for patient engagement. The company’s open technology integrates with electronic health records and IT applications to extend the value of existing investments and expand the possibilities of care.
“Now that almost every hospital has an electronic health record, it’s about optimizing and improving care delivery. Our team is passionate about driving a deeper understanding in the industry about how GetWellNetwork helps providers use data to create powerful connections to enhance the patient experience and improve health outcomes across the entire care continuum,” said Jodi Amendola, CEO of Amendola Communications. “We look forward to partnering with GetWellNetwork to educate the market about the art of the possible when it comes to delivering truly patient-centered care to every man, woman and child, not just in this country but around the world.”
About GetWellNetwork
GetWellNetwork, Inc. powers patient experience. Our solution, The Patient’s Platform, helps leading health care systems create connections with patients in any setting, deliver insights to clinicians in real time, and transform care through an evidence-based model for patient engagement. Our open technology integrates with electronic health record and IT applications to extend the value of existing investments and expand the possibilities of care. With more than 50 million patient interactions per year, we drive performance improvement, positive outcomes and patient loyalty. Learn more at www.getwellnetwork.com.
About Amendola Communications
Amendola Communications is an award-winning national public relations, marketing communications, social media and content marketing firm. Named one of the best information technology (IT) PR firms in the nation four times by PRSourceCode, Amendola represents some of the best-known brands and groundbreaking startups in the healthcare and HIT industries. Amendola’s seasoned team of PR and marketing pros delivers strategic guidance and effective solutions to help organizations boost their reputation and drive market share. For more information about the PR industry’s “A Team,” visit www.acmarketingpr.com, and follow Amendola on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Media Contact: Marcia Rhodes | mrhodes@acmarketingpr.com| 602.793.1561
by Tim Boivin | May 10, 2017 | Blog
When it comes to product launches, many companies hang their hat on making a big splash at the biggest trade show in their industry. And then they are disappointed.
For those targeting the healthcare IT market, that usually means HIMSS. For those targeting providers, the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) show is often cited as a great launching pad.
For payers, it’s the Association of Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Institute & Expo. For a life science/pharma audience, eyeforpharma Barcelona is a perennial favorite due to the heavy pharma presence in Europe.
But as Caterina Lui of PR Newswire points out on the Beyond PR blog, launching during a big show is not always ideal. And in another Beyond PR post, she provides excellent insights on whether your solution is even truly ready to launch.
One of the biggest drawbacks to launching at such large industry trade shows and conferences is the sheer number of companies who are planning to do likewise. This becomes an even more pronounced challenge if your company is launching a minor upgrade to its platform or app, or if your company is a newcomer or relative unknown in the market.
In both cases, a launch as much as a month or even two months before a trade show can help build momentum going into the show, instead of being crowded out by all the PR noise generated during the show. It allows you a greater opportunity to secure quality time with reporters whose conference schedules (covering educational sessions, filing stories, doing social media posts, etc.) are pretty crammed during the conference. It also allows you to brief analysts at the top firms ahead of the launch.
Here are some other best practices for trade show launches from my Amendola colleagues:
Lisa Chernikoff, Account Director In the best-case scenario for a product launch at a trade show, you can not only include results and ROI from a beta customer or pilot site in the press release, but also have that client available for an interview at the show (or before or after). Clients speaking about their experience with the product is much more beneficial than company execs talking about features and functionality.
Also, make sure that the new product info highlights not only what it is, but also why it really matters for the target audience. What are the larger implications for the market? How does it relate to industry trends and issues?
Chad Van Alstin, Content & Media Relations Manager As a former editor, I always found it challenging to cover product launches at trade shows without some kind of prior knowledge. Simply telling me a company was going to announce a product pretty much melded together with all the other launches after a while.
There has to be some kind of teaser or hook a spoiler that many companies are often hesitant to give away ahead of the show that is released to the media a week or two in advance. Otherwise, it all just becomes noise after a while, especially with a huge show like HIMSS. I think too many companies rely on the fact that editors will simply want to cover whatever it is the company is doing but in a market with so many new names added to a long list every year, that’s just never the case. You have to spoil things a little bit in order to drum up interest.
Amy Koehlmoos, Senior Account Director Leverage the power of social media – create a Twitter campaign around the product launch and use the show’s #hashtag to reach attendees. As with any campaign, frequency is key, but be sure to follow best practices and include plenty of non-promotional tweets to maintain an optimal content mix.
Rich media (images, videos and graphics) will help your tweets stand out above the noise, and don’t be afraid to get creative. People are much more likely to share a clever meme than a picture of a widget.
Stephanie Janard, Senior Writer — If you’re launching a new software solution, there’s no hard and fast rule that says you have to actually demo it. In this era of value-based care, why not stage a demo that 
shows how life can be better as a result of using your newly launched software or app? Likewise, if you have a tangible, physical product to demo, make a real show of it preferably with a real-life example. If you can get champion customers on the act, all the better.
So there you have it from the A-Team experts (and PR Newswire). Should you bet it all on a trade show launch or not? It may be a crapshoot, but make sure you evaluate all your options both at the show and in other timeframes before committing your entire marketing budget to the effort. And please share your thoughts below on what you have seen that works well for a product launch either at, before or after a trade show.
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