For a group like OrthoCarolina, having access to a one-stop, one place home for healthcare conversation is terrific.  What better way to get input on the needs of patients and future patients is there?
Our ability to provide expertise to the local community and help those within the market is a truly special opportunity.

As the healthcare discussion continues, resources and destinations like this will prove to be the one best sources for navigating that future.  If a company like ours can give back to the community in which we do business then we’ll be a small part of that future.

As an individual, I see myself using the website as a reference when I have any health questions or issues, especially if there is an area epidemic, e.g., H1N1. My hope is that the comments on the articles or daily issues would be engaging enough that I would want to visit the site to see the daily conversations either to learn more or comment myself. My hope is that it would be newsy/relevant enough to want to check daily to see what the latest is in the healthcare community, but also with enough resources to look up information if I have a question and can’t get my doctor on the phone.

As a professional, I would use the site to reference questions I have about corporate health. I might be interested in updates on health insurance or ways my company can qualify for medical discounts.

Narrowing down the topics the website should focus on to make it relevant locally, but also all-encompassing so you can use it as a resource for any need. Hmm. Obviously anything locally that is happening right now needs to be covered. There’s an outbreak in lice at the kid’s school – relevant. H1N1 – relevant. Also, it’s a really good way to keep things local by including what’s going on in the community right now. However, if you want to use it as a general resource, it has to include stockpiled articles on important issues from breast cancer information to prostate cancer information to nutritional information to exercise information to orthopedic information to geriatric information to pediatric information and of course tons more.

This isn’t necessarily local because these things are universal, but we could get local sources to report on the issues. I think the local aspect comes in when under each category you mention who the best local breast cancer oncologist is and what grocery store has the freshest produce and who the best local personal trainer is and running groups you can get involved with and why your pediatrician is better than anyone else’s, etc. I know that this probably isn’t specific enough, but this the closest vision I have when I think of how I would use the site.

I think the most critical success path for the site is to get local readers and to get them engaged. Quickly. Obviously this would require exposure in the community. I think getting local bloggers to talk about it is one of the best, quickest ways to do that. We need to reach the larger organizations eventually and get sponsorships going, but I think you need to start in the community that’s already heavily engaged online first.

Obviously getting on Twitter is huge and making sure we have conversations with other people on Twitter, not just posting updates and links to articles. I think if we start there then local news stations may use us as a resource when doing stories, they link to us on their website, the cycle continues. Once we have enough tech-y people reading, commenting and using us as a resource, it will be easier to move into the people that may not be as engaged on the web. Then we tell them why they should be. Obviously we’ll reach this audience through sponsorships and a presence in the business community. I think we need to start on an individual basis first, grow that audience, and then move larger.

Kelsey Richards
Director, Advertising and Info! Charlotte
Charlotte Chamber of Commerce

Personally:  I have to subscribe to a dozen different e-newsletters and LinkedIn groups to find out what’s going on in Charlotte healthcare, so I would love a one-stop destination for news, articles, and events.

Professionally: As someone in a business who serves healthcare providers, I need a high-level knowledge of what’s going on in healthcare from a patient/consumer perspective so I can better serve my clients.

What topics need to be explored from our collective local perspective, immediately?

1. Charlotte lies in the middle of multiple nuclear energy facilities. What does the average Charlottean need to know about radiation?
2. Greenways: What’s the plan for improving/linking them, and which elected officials can we petition to ensure funding for this and other Parks/Red projects
3. Community Calendar: What 5K/Fun Run is happening for which disease’s awareness/fundraising and when?
4. So you want to run a 5K/Fun Run in May? Here’s the 5-Week-to-5K plan to get you there
5. Children and pets: What Parents and Owners Need to Know About Child/Pet Safety (always a controversial topic from certain dog breed
6. owners)
7. Spring Sports – what parents can do to help this season’s student athletes

What are the critical success paths for ahealthiercharlotte.com, from your point of view?

1. Differentiation from the local health news collection sites and the other doctor-finder services by focusing on individual Charlotteans’ stories. Just because relatively few people are “from” Charlotte doesn’t mean we don’t like reading about our “neighbors” more than strangers in different cities. Articles by local MDs will also help with this (since their parent organization SHOULD want to syndicate the article, too).
2. A “cause” or service to the community (other than free healthcare content, which users can get anywhere on the web). This could be as simple as a free community calendar where not-for-profits (at a minimum) can post events to bring awareness to their cause and submit photos of their event afterward. This will be the PR key for getting the launch picked up and syndicated.

Now I feel like Gordon Ramsay critiquing a restaurant… “Fresh, Local, Simple.”

Anna Vordermark, Morehead Associates

As an individual, I hope that this site provides the one-stop shopping that I need to fulfill all of my LOCAL healthcare research.  Whether it’s finding a specialist for my child’s allergies, or finding an oncologist (let’s hope that’s NEVER the case) or finding a primary care physician, I need a go-to place to find feedback from experts in the field, patients who are sharing opinions, etc.

When you really NEED a doctor, you have no idea where to start.  You just randomly Google your symptoms and immediately fear the worst.  I hope that A Healthier Charlotte can help me navigate my medical issues no matter what they are and get information from people who have walked the walk on the medical side as well as patient side.

As a representative of healthcare (and this is key):  Content is king online!  AHC needs to tap into the experts in the field who are true experts and provide relevant medical information.  These docs may need to be available to answer online questions; maybe a moderator can be in touch with the expert and update the comments as needed.

I have always felt the most important thing for AHC is for this to be an unbiased site, not just boasting about the sponsors or underwriters.  It’s a fine balance that is often difficult to manage. But if you can do this, it will take off.  I also think you may need to start with a smaller target audience and build out from there.  Don’t necessarily target the entire masses of Charlotte to start — just kind of see where this takes you.  Your readers will be the first to call you out and give you their advice.  Listen to them. Without your readers, you are nothing.  Remember that.  Make them feel as much a part of this site as you are.  Make them feel like they helped build it — reward the ones who follow you from day one.  They will remember that and spread your word for you.  That’s the beauty of this crazy little thing called social media.  You just kind of go with it sometimes!

With numerous healthcare providers in the Charlotte region, there is a wealth of information that can be shared with consumers in a localized fashion. Many healthcare practices have timely and important news that may not necessarily be deemed “newsworthy” by the so-called gatekeepers (traditional media) and as newsrooms and media opportunities diminish, it would be helpful to have a trusted information depot where  trends, news, tips, and advice can be shared with the public.

As the representative for a few healthcare practices, I would offer A Healthier Charlotte as a resource to my clients from both a marketing and public relations perspective – to share editorial content as well as to encourage sponsorship that is reasonably priced.

Topics of interest range from general health and wellness information to latest advances in technology, screening, surgical procedures and medical practices.  Additionally, this could be a hub for health-related events, fundraisers and activities that don’t warrant front-page news but may be of interest to our community.

Important to its success is to keep the format and content fresh, and fashioning this to be more of a news source versus advertising platform.  I think you’ve done that – or intend to do this.  Social media sharing and cross promotion and/or buy in from bloggers and active social media users would be important – and contributions from those folks would lend endorsement and credibility to the product.

Hope this helps!
Kathy Rowan, Rowan Communications