Health Scan
At JayRay, we harness the knowledge of health care insiders with a perspective that’s results driven. And because we’ve worked with health care systems large and small, we’ve experienced it all. To get our tips from the trenches, or gather insights on a problem or emerging issue, follow the links below to search our blog, browse by category or subscribe.Blog Links
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May. 28, 2008 at 2:17pm
Orthopedics, pediatrics, semantics - Oh my!
Posted by Kathleen Deakins in Advertising, Care Line Marketing
Comments (1)
“Don’t overestimate the intelligence of your audience” may be sage advice. Yet overestimating their knowledge can be foolhardy or downright dangerous. The last 18 hours presented two telling examples:
Last night my husband and I caught a TV commercial that started with a grandfather playing with his grandson. It also had images of fancy technology and caring providers. The voiceover mentioned orthopedic services several times.
When the commercial was over, I asked my husband if he knew what orthopedic services were. “Isn’t that care for kids?” he asked. He took his cue from the cute grandkid.
Now I’m married to a smart man who “should have known.” Our children have had a total of six knee surgeries. His father-in-law had two knee replacements. He’s entering his “replacement years” and the commercial was wasted on him because it overestimated his vocabulary.
Second example. I just read today’s AHA News Now:
| Nearly half of patients with a history of heart disease have poor knowledge about the symptoms of a heart attack and do not believe they have a higher cardiovascular risk, according to a report in the May 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers from the University of California at San Francisco School of Nursing surveyed 3,522 patients who had previously suffered a heart attack or had undergone a procedure, such as angioplasty, for heart disease. They found that 46% of them scored poorly (answered less than 70% of questions correctly) on a true-false test measuring how knowledgeable they were about heart attack symptoms. |
So underestimating knowledge can be more than a lost opportunity. It can put lives at risk.
The lesson for me is about understanding. Know your audience. Know your audience.
Comments (1)
Great lesson.
Yesterday I took my father to what he called a “cat scan” to look at a spot on his lung, and that I could drop him off and pick him up later, as I had done about a week ago.
What he didn’t catch when the doctor’s office called him was that he was actually getting a “CT-guided biopsy” which required prep, local anethesia, recovery and obviously sticking an instrument of some sort into his lung and time in a hospital bed. So he knew CT, but didn’t catch the more critical part of the message.
5/29/2008 at 6:58 pm
1 | Left by Kurt Jacobson | Aug. 27, 2008 at 1:30pm