The Disease Management Care Blog Annual Report: Three Insights on Social Media in Health Care

It's that time for the Disease Management Care Blog to reflect on the state of social media, both in general and for this blog. 

First off: an annual report for this blog.

Stats: While overall readership in 2013 was down compared to prior years (37,000 vs. 49,000 unique visits) the number of  "regular readers" (at least once a month) has increased from approximately 5000 to 5200.  And these DMCB regulars are a brainy bunch, with ISPs that include health systems, government agencies, policy shops, regional and national health insurers, population health service providers, hospitals, consultants, news organizations, organized medical societies, universities, pharma companies, health care trade associations, foundations, state as well as city governments and other bloggers.  The DMCB doubts many CEOs or SVPs are reading its bloggery; more likely it's front line managers, supervisors and other leaders who are looking for that extra insight.

It's also been a good year for the DMCB Twitter, with over 700 followers. They likewise reflect the spread of health care stakeholders described above.

What has the DMCB's learned in the last year?

A New Wrinkle on An Old Digital Divide: Health writers have pointed out that the socioeconomically disadvantaged and the hospitals that serve them have been unable afford the power of health information technology. Yet, many well-off health care organizations with knowledge and cultural disadvantages are likewise failing to leverage social media to build visibility and enrich their brand.  Some with established accounts are using them to achieve a competitive advantage, but far fewer have actually done anything useful with them.  The DMCB has listened and their silence is embarrassingly deafening.

Cloud Beats Complicated: While the dominant mainsteam media continues to get complicated medical and health policy news stories half right, the good news is that a collective "cloud" of critically thinking bloggers and twitterers are getting things completely right with an on-line wisdom of crowds. As news sources consolidate and their market power grows more concentrated, social media will come to the rescue.

Print and Social Media beat Print Alone: While the prestigious New England Journal has 200,000 subscribers, the DMCB doubts every published article has the same number of readers.  In contrast, Kevin MD has 100,000 readers and a million monthly page views.  To make a real splash, policy authors would be well advised to have their insights appear in both outlets; that's doubly true because the Digital Divide is likewise present in the medical community.  What's more, social media will place an increasing role in increasing awareness - and the implementation - of discoveries from research extending from the bench to the organization of care.

Image from Wikipedia

A Disease Management Care Blog Annual Report for 2011

Now that 2011 is gone, this is a good time for the Disease Management Care Blog pause and take stock. How is it doing?

It likes to think of itself as a unique ongoing journal club on the organization, delivery and financing of health care.  If the DMCB was soup, there'd be three ingredients:

1) reliance, whenever possible, on peer-reviewed and published evidence,

2) a physician's "real world" experience and

3) a ready dash of skeptical humor.

The DMCB must be doing something right.  Despite a narrow mix of medical science, economics, effectiveness and policy, the DMCB has attracted a relatively large and elite readership.  If you're reading this, that means you. 

Sophistication

When it looks at the ISPs of its many return visitors, the DMCB sees dozens of academic institutions, big and small name news media outlets, publishing houses, trade associations, information technology businesses, Congress, CMS, the White House, state government, foundations, commercial insurers, hospitals, health care consulting organizations and population management service providers. Many are household names.

It doesn't stop there. The DMCB has been contacted by and gotten to know folks from all levels in the health care industry.  Based on those conversations, it knows this a smart group.  The author of this blog is a better person for it.

The DMCB knows each regular visitor, twitter follower and Google subscriber has been earned one person at a time. It knows its elite readers are knowledgeable, active or interested in health policy, population health management, the patient centered medical home or primary care. These are not casual readers.

And you have a lot of company:

According to Google Analytics' mix of ISP addresses and cookies, DMCB Ver. 2011 had 29,000 unique visitors with 42,000 visits. A third were repeat (defined as more than one) visits.  While there is no definition of a "regular" reader, the number of visitors with more than 50 DMCB "hits" in 2011 numbered 5153. There were 786 visitors with more than 200 hits. 

The DMCB also has 416 Twitter followers.  According to TweetReach, the DMCB regularly reaches almost 1500 persons with its tweets.  Depending on re-Tweets, that number can exceed 7000. 

There are also 466 Google RSS subscribers. 

These 2011 numbers suggest there are thousands of persons that regularly read the DMCB.  Every individual visitor, follower and subscriber returned or opted-in based on the DMCB content and only the DMCB content. There is no marketing, emailing or use of any services to promote the DMCB. It doesn't have the advantage of a sponsoring institution or explicit link to a big-name business. And it's readership continues to slowly grow.

The DMCB Web Juggernaut

The DMCB is regularly reflected and linked in many prestigious web outlets, include HealthHombre, Health Affairs, KevinMD, Forbes, and many sister blogs. It's also appeared in the web sites of USAToday, Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Dartmouth Atlas, Business Week and the National Review. It's also been linked in the intranet web sites of many insurers, provider organizations, and health information tech companies.

And, by the way, according to YouTube, the DMCB's videos to date have had 33,486 views.

As testimony to its growing web presence, the DMCB is on the first page when the term "disease management" is Googled.  The DMCB's growing web traffic has ironically made its "Comments" section a target by spammers with links to its dubious medical web sites.  With only one unobtrusive Google "Ad" that generates pennies per click, it still got a check for $100 (prompting the derision of the DMCB spouse, but that's another post).  The DMCB has also been offered - and refused - cash to provide link backs.  It also had one complaint lodged over copyright infringement over an image (the post has since been removed, with apologies).  Simply put, folks are paying attention.

Last but not least, the DMCB is proud of its four 2011 peer reviewed publications in Population Health Management, Self Care and the Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research.

And a thank you....

... to the readers who have commented or emailed with feedback, comments and insights.  To the readers who use their precious time and keep coming back.