Tag Archive for: Forbes

GrandCare gets “called out” by Forbes on Social Media!!

To tweet or not to tweet….that is the question….

Back in March, I spoke on a social media panel for the 2012 What’s Next Boomer Summit hosted by Mary Furlong & Associates.  I spoke ( too quickly and spastically.. or so I’m told…) on guerilla marketing and using social media to promote your brand on a panel with Stephen Chen from NewRetirement.comAndy Cohen from Caring.com and moderated by Lori Bitter from The Business of Aging. When the panel was finished, Deborah Jacobs of Forbes introduced herself and said she was in the process of writing an article for Forbes on dos and don’ts for social media from a business perspective.  She wanted to know if she could interview me on my thoughts.  Not being one to hold my thoughts back (like….ever), I eagerly agreed.

I told her about how we got the word out about GrandCare Systems, back in 2005 when the market was in its prenatal stage.  As a high tech start-up, we didn’t have a large marketing budget and we certainly didn’t want to throw money at a deaf audience. There was so much education that needed to be done on digital health technology in general, much less which one to choose.  It was a bit of lucky thing that social media was really starting to hit its prime right around that time period as well. In the early days, having more time than money and the fascinating NEW world of social media was a perfect mix.  I unofficially began what would later be coined as our social media campaign.

It was odd and exciting because there really were no rules. There was nobody out there that could really say you were doing something wrong, because no etiquette had been defined (yet).  Nobody was considered an expert, because people were still exploring and experimenting and really trying to see how the new platforms worked and how they could benefit a business.  It was the perfect time to just try marketing strategies out. I still remember when LinkedIn was new enough that you could simply send an inMail to someone (and maybe you still can do this a little bit) and they would actually respond…well…if they were actually continually checking their account. Through LinkedIn, I managed to get in touch with people that I believe would have never responded to a basic email.

This reminds me a bit of back in the mid-nineties when email was new enough that you actually READ them! Remember when forwards and chain letters were actually things that people read and weren’t embarrassed to send?  It’s all about timing and the number one thing we are aiming to gain is someone’s attention.  Getting someone’s attention will continually evolve…we will need to move to new platforms to keep them engaged and interested in what we have to say and it will be even more important HOW we say it; whether it’s a video, a picture, an insightful comment, a quote, humor, etc.

The resulting article that Deborah released today on Forbes.com was an interesting and insightful piece on what social media etiquette might be…  She did a great job and I was proud to be a contributing source.

And as far as Deborah’s grandstanding? A+ for grace!!! 🙂

How To Grandstand (Gracefully) On The Web

by Deborah Jacobs

“For Laura Mitchell, who describes herself as a “grassroots guerrilla marketer,” the key to using social media is starting an engaging conversation. In 2005 she co-founded GrandCare Systems–a Milwaukee company that provides elderly people with technology that helps them age in place.

Mitchell writes her own blog, then drives traffic to her posts by a variety of routes. For example, if she sees an article somewhere else that interests her–say on Forbes.com–she might comment directly on the FORBES site; quote the article on her own blog and link to the FORBES story; then go on her LinkedIn groups and post her comments on LinkedIn, along with a link to her blog.

“Social media is about providing information on yourself and your interests,” says Mitchell. “That includes where you work and what you do.” Whether you’re selling a product, a service or entertainment, think of your website as a store, and social media as the tool that draws people into that store, she adds. The key is to offer some insightful comment, rather than purely trying to get attention.

By using that approach when she commented on an August 2010 NPR segment, Mitchell brought her company prime billing on the Discovery Channel …

To read the entire article, click here

Forbes weighs in on Hospital Readmissions…

I wanted to share the article in Forbes on the healthcare crisis and the problem with Hospital Readmissions.

Regardless of what happens, our healthcare system needs to change. The statistics Forbes shared are overwhelming. Healthcare consumes 17% of our GDP and as a society, we have been known for paying for pounds and pounds of cure. We need to shift our mentality to start paying for those ounces of prevention. The in-home care service is critical to help support patients as they transition from hospital to home. But, that is only one piece of the puzzle. The hands on care is necessary and can help to relieve loneliness, isolation, provide transportation support and act as a helpful resource. But there are more things at play. Many cannot afford round the clock care and may not want someone living with them all hours of the day. That’s why a combination of digital health technology tools, in-home caregiving services and medical provider support is necessary for successful transitions. We just wrote a whitepaper called “Healing in Place”, which explores the successful transition piecing together the home health providers, technology, hospital staff, family and patient to seamlessly provide care and make sure they remain happy, healthy and safe at home. GrandCare is passionate about helping to provide the digital health technology (activity of daily living remote monitoring, digital health/vitals monitoring, medication reminders/alerts, socialization/webchats, touch-based resources & instructions).

 

FORBES:  A Low-Tech Business That Can Prevent Hospital Readmissions

by Zina Moukheiber, Contributor

I cover health IT and Middle Eastern billionaires.

One of the provisions in the Affordable Care Act that is likely to remain untouched by the Supreme Court is linking Medicare payments to hospitals to a patient’s outcome. According to a 2009 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Medicare’s fee-for-service program, nearly 20% of Medicare patients discharged from a hospital were readmitted within thirty days, and 34% were rehospitalized within 90 days. Hospitals are now scrambling to comply with the new rules that go into effect this year, and that includes making sure older patients are looked after following discharge.
 Lily Sarafan sees an opportunity—and it’s at the opposite spectrum of the smart home as envisioned by Intel’s Eric Dishman. “We’re positioning for post-hospitalization,” says Sarafan. The 30-year-old is the president of Palo Alto, Ca.-based Home Care Assistance, which is in the very low-tech business of providing expert caregivers by the hour or as live-ins. Their non-medical tasks include assisting with walking, making sure patients take medications on time, driving them to doctor appointments, and cooking healthy meals. (Home Care Assistance posts on its site a testimonial from famed MIT linguist Noam Chomsky who praised it in helping his late wife).

The help is not cheap. Home Care charges between $20 and $30 an hour, and up to $300 a day for live-ins. The company generated $50 million in revenues last year, and Sarafan says it is profitable. Anthos Capital, a private equity firm founded by former Goldman Sachs partners invested an undisclosed amount…

To read the entire article go Here