RediClinic Helps Fight Flu Season

by Reid Schwartz, Vollmer Austin

It’s that time of year again: we’re on the brink of flu season, a time when people across the country rush to protect themselves and their families from the potentially deadly virus. We at Vollmer are particularly aware of flu season since we represent RediClinic, high-quality, affordable healthcare clinics located in H-E-B grocery stores in Texas to spread the word about health-related issues affecting the community.

This year, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) warns that the flu bug already has reared its ugly head in states across the U.S., and is strongly recommending that all men, women – including pregnant women – and children older than six months receive the seasonal flu vaccine as soon as it becomes available.

Our friends at RediClinic offer the following tips as we enter the flu season:

PREVENT IT!

The best way to prevent the flu is to get vaccinated. There are two types of vaccines this flu season.

The traditional flu shot is the most common and well known vaccine available, and involves an injection given into the muscle. The flu shot will be available soon, so check with your local clinic or doctor’s office for availability.

Have a problem with needles? The FluMist® is a needle-free, nasal-spray flu vaccine that is approved for children and adults 2-49 years of age. This vaccine is administered with a gentle, quick spray in each nostril – one of the places where the flu virus enters the body. FYI, FluMist® is now available at RediClinic, so drop on by!

Remember the 2009 H1N1 virus, better known as the swine flu? This year, the CDC expects the H1N1 virus to cause illness again along with a number of other influenza viruses. Luckily, this year’s flu vaccine (both the injectable and the flu mist) will protect against the 2009 H1N1 and two other influenza viruses as well, so you’ll only need to get one vaccine to protect yourself from all of those strains.

TREAT IT!

Sometimes, try as you might, you get bit by the flu bug. Should this happen, walk-in to your local clinic (no appointments are necessary at RediClinic!) and a clinician can perform a diagnostic test for your symptoms, then provide effective treatment options to get you better faster.

Remember, many people, including the elderly, young children and people with certain health conditions are at a higher risk for serious flu complications. The flu also can make chronic health problems worse. The best way to protect yourself, your family and the people you come into contact with from the flu virus is to get the flu vaccine each year as soon as it is available.

With all that said, if you do get the flu this year, please stay home and take care of yourself. You’ll be doing us all a huge favor!

Stay healthy!

Adding a New Face and Singing the Benefits of Retail Healthcare

by William Melendy with Nisha Gidwani, RediClinicWilliam Melendy

Four years ago, a little known concept arrived at five Houston area H-E-B stores. The concept was simple: take away the hassle of seeing a healthcare provider for common healthcare needs. You know the ones, they usually take about 15 minutes to diagnose, but take several weeks to get an appointment or require an unwanted visit to the emergency room.

Enter RediClinic. Today RediClinics are open seven days a week with extended hours in fifteen Houston and six Austin area H-E-B stores. These clinics are staffed by nurse practitioners and physician assistants who treat 25 to 30 of the most common medical conditions and provide preventive care.

So how do you communicate a totally new concept in healthcare that matches the way that we live today, in a totally new way? Armed with this challenge, the RediClinic marketing team developed a social media strategy incorporating Facebook, Twitter and website enhancements to complement its traditional marketing tools.

Setting up Facebook and Twitter accounts seems like a simple process. Personal accounts take mere minutes. However, setting up business pages to have a professional and consistent look with a company brand is a bigger challenge. Two full days into the process and our pages were far from complete!

Bring in the professionals! Vollmer social media expert Dayna Steele spent a few hours at our offices and we were on our way learning the tricks of Facebook. Dayna was able to show us the nuances in both Twitter and Facebook to ensure we posted in the right format, communicated effectively with our targets and used the tools available within the social networking sites to create the look that we wanted. With Dayna’s guidance we were able to direct our web designers at First Creative to use FBML coding to create a location search and newsletter sign-up option on our Facebook page. Who even knew FBML existed?

On our own it would have taken time, effort (and maybe tears) to get to the point we are now. The experts at Vollmer were able to teach tricks of the trade and in the end save us time, money, and frustration.

So become a fan of RediClinic on Facebook and Twitter and I’m sure that you will agree that we have brand centric and professional pages. All thanks to our social media experts at Vollmer.

March 2009 Vollocity

The March 2009 issue of Vollocity is now available online at http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs094/1102149892691/archive/1102452568284.html.

Check Your Pulse

by India Chumney-Hancock, VOLLMER Houston

The Healthcare industry can be confusing and competitive for even the most sophisticated companies with everyone from hospitals, physicians, and payors to consulting and technology companies trying to break through the clutter. How does a company compete for coverage and market share with industry giants?

Know industry trends and keep up with legislative issues. These are the two things that even the smallest healthcare organization can use to their advantage. The market is an opportunity, rather than a battle for share or dominance. So many clients focus their attention on what the competition is doing rather than focusing on positioning themselves as thought leaders. It’s the company that focuses on innovative solutions to the healthcare crisis that gets noticed.

So how do you turn the issue of Medicare and physician reimbursement into something people care about – focus on the patient and the care the physician is able to provide to that patient. Educate the media on the medical home concept and introduce them to the company and physicians that live by that model rather than those that see it as a pilot program. How do you address the new IRS regulations for community benefit and charity care – help a tax-exempt hospital tell its story and show that this is not something new, but something that is at the core of the organizations’ mission.

The more a healthcare company is willing to step up and quickly respond to current events and latest research the more successful it will be in growing and increasing awareness. The most important tool to public relations success is to stop comparing yourself to the biggest players in the market, and focus on what differentiates the company from the competition. The differentiator may not be the most profitable side of your business, but the halo effect can do wonders to a company’s perception and position you as the dominate player in the market.

I’m a healthcare junkie. I keep up with the trends, read industry books for pleasure, and save healthcare articles that I read on vacation so that I can contact the reporter when I return to work. Why? Because I believe that everyone has a story to tell and the more people understand the healthcare industry the closer we will come to finding a solution.

Healthcare is about collaboration and identifying solutions that meet the underlying goal of all healthcare providers – access to quality care for patients. Healthcare is evolving every day be it technology, reimbursement, information sharing or the latest procedures. The company that invests in an advocate who is identifying ways to put that company in front of its key stakeholders is the company that will be seen as the industry leader. People are looking for someone to explain and lead them in the ever changing, complex world of medicine. Check your company’s pulse. Are you ready to take the lead?