Cleveland Clinic online patient recruitment strategy

Expect more hospitals to use strategies like the one the Cleveland Clinic is using to win out-of-town business and compete with rivals. Five years ago, the influential Ohio hospital made attracting business that might otherwise gravitate toward other healthcare providers, a key focus of its Web site. The result is the e-Cleveland Clinic, a patient portal which allows visitors to get second opinions, read detailed specialist profiles and watch streamed webcasts of procedures.

- see this article from the Akron Beacon Journal

ALSO: Last week the Palo Alto Medical Foundation announced that 50,000 patients have signed up for its free online service. That puts about 30 percent of PAMF's patient base in the program. For an additional fee of $60 patients get the vaunted ability to email physicians. Article 

PLUS: Two years after President Bush made electronic medical records a national priority, we still haven't made it past the semantics, argues Nancy Ferris. What is an EMR? Who owns one? Article