Beyond Impressions

Now, more than ever before, self-care has become a crucial part of mental health and getting through the COVID-19 pandemic. 

We shed some light on self-care through Employer-sponsored support in our last post. There is more to consider as anxiety continues to rise and a sense of self-worth becomes harder to hold onto. As healthcare providers communicate the options available, many eyes are turning to the challenging self-care balancing act performed by parents as they take care for their children and too often neglect themselves.

Read on to learn more about these resources.

When it comes to marketing, content is king – but distribution is queen and the right channel matters. Smart marketers know to go where their target audience lives, learns and connects online. In the U.S. alone, 230 million people consume social media – and the competition for eyeballs is fierce, to say the least. TikTok is the it-app. Instagram wants its Reels to be the vanguard of viral video tomorrow. Or, wait, will it be YouTube’s Shorts? Or Bytes? Knowing which content belongs where is key to brand awareness and conversion. 

Providing employee mental health services and support via Telehealth has its challenges. Today, we take a closer look at Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and how they are adapting to meet employee needs during the pandemic when stressors are high and access to healthcare services might be limited. 

The goal: helping employers communicate comprehensive EAPs that support employee needs in comfortable and accessible ways. Done well, this work supports employee attraction and retention.

Community Care Employee Assistance Program reported in 2018 some very promising national statistics on the benefits of EAPs for employees, pointing to increased effectiveness and productivity, boosted morale, and stronger work life balance. In addition to these benefits, EAPs have decreased sick leave by 33%, work-related accidents by 65%, and grievances by 50%. Fortunately, given the current pandemic, EAPs offer just the types of support services where Telehealth connections (video, phone, chat) work really well.

We recently had a conversation with Nicole D'Uva, Director of Employee Health at Adventist HealthCare in Maryland to understand how the EAP she manages has adapted to meet the needs of Adventist employees. Read on to find out about the adjustments and improvements the health system has made to its EAP since COVID-19 disrupted the work environment. 

Providing mental health services via telehealth has presented barriers. Some of those barriers we are now suddenly finding were false all along.

Today, we take a look at insurance coverage and other issues of access that have made it a challenge for some to receive the support they need through telehealth.

The goal: recognize and resolve those barriers so that care is not delayed for those who need it.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the issue and pushed so many of us to get online for interactions we historically have had in person. The demand for telehealth has increased resulting in temporary measures put in place by the the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) making insurance coverage more readily available for telehealth (video and audio) appointments, including coverage through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

As insurance coverage has become more available, the spotlight has focused on the digital divide. In a recent fact sheet on low-income access to telehealth released by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at HHS, more than 1 in 6 low-income persons have no internet access, and those living in non-metropolitan areas have less access to the Internet than those in metropolitan areas.

Large bureaucratic assessments and policies are one thing. We wanted to know what it is like on the ground. So, we spoke with a few of our industry experts.

Read on to find out what we learned from them about barriers to care and how services are being delivered effectively…or not.

The need for mental health services and the availability of mental health support are not matching up well these days as the demand for service grows.

The goal: increased access, patient volume, and better health outcomes.

Read on for insights into how mental health services are adapting to Telehealth processes. How do we get the adoption rates and outcomes we need?

In our prior blog we discussed the power, popularity and reach of SMS texting.

Now that we’ve reinforced the ‘why’, let’s look at the ‘how’.

The most effective way to build your audience is to use a ‘text to join’ campaign, a simple strategy to entice users to opt-in to a subscriber list that segments them to a specific message or offer. Because SMS plays well with other services, you can easily cross reference users from print, email, web site or any other digital service.

SMS Messaging is an ‘oldie but a goodie’.

SMS protocol predates the advent of smartphones by over a decade. But rather than become outdated, it has increased in use and popularity with 4.2 billion+ people around the world (source: MBA Online) sending 22 billion texts every day (source: Domo). Currently, text messaging is the most used data service in the world (source: Nielsen).

So although SMS stands for ‘short message service’, it could easily stand for super-duper marketing strategy, and one worthy of serious consideration.

Which comes first, brand or design?

Like the chicken and the egg, they are virtually interchangeable; one cannot exist without the other.

Consider these high profile examples of brand and design combining for a truly impactful message.

In our prior blog, we hit the road towards our strategic destination fueled by the proper tactics to keep us on the right track. While strategy and tactics are required to make the trip, they are also very different tools.

Tactical thinking vs. strategic thinking is similar to “which comes first, the chicken or the egg”. One cannot exist without

the other. A strategy needs to be in place before you can determine the ideal tactics to achieve your goal. By the same token, your goal may not be achieved unless you employ the proper tactics. They are different and essential tools to employ in every short and long term business plan.

In our last blog, we considered how our day to day busy-ness can steer us away from our strategic goals by way of side roads, dead ends and U turns.

In this blog we get back on track.

Scheduling time to ‘think big’ may initially seem less productive than tending to the emergency of the moment, but it is essential information that can give clarity to all the smaller decisions you make along the way.  And let’s be real: is the company retreat really about company direction, or is it getting side tracked by company politics?

Some things to consider when designing your strategic plan: