S4: #033: Jen Lannon Shares the Latest Research on How Consumers Find Health-Related Information Online
In this episode, we talk about the internet. You know it’s being used to enable great things, but with so much information available at our fingertips, the internet can also be a very confusing place when it comes to finding trusted and reliable health related information. Simple searches produce millions of results, and just 10 make it to the first page. How do consumers find health-related information, and how do we as professionals in the health field help reach those consumers in an effective and clear way? The answers may surprise you.
Today’s guest has answers to these questions and the results of a nationwide survey that was done in the US in June of this year. With me is Jen Lannon, also known on Twitter as HealthTechJen, and she’s the director of brand development for DotHealth, the domain registry for the .Health top-level-domain.
Jen and I share more than just a similar twitter handle, Jen is very passionate about entrepreneurship, innovation in healthcare, and diversity in tech. She is also the co-director of Health 2.0 Miami and she graduated from the University of Maryland.
She’s going to share some surprising insights into how people are using the internet and how the brand new .health extension can be used to help consumers connect with meaningful health information. Jen has also put together a very special offer to allow you, as members of our digital health community, to get accelerated access to the .health extension so you can apply it to your own organization and website. I encourage you to listen to the end to find out how that is going to work, and subscribe to our newsletter to get an email from me on July 20th, or, after July 20th, use the link below to get accelerated access and skip the application process.
Also, I’m pleased to announce that we have released our own website on the .health extension. With the success of this podcast, we’ve been able to reach tens of thousands of innovators around the world, and I’ve been contacted personally by hundreds of people who are trying to get the word out about their business, product or service. I’ve also been contacted by people who are seeking to connect with our sponsors and guests, or they are seeking solutions to hep them address their health needs.
That gave me an idea. I wanted to find a way to help spread the word about these innovations and create a resource where consumers can hear about them. So I worked with Jen and the team at dotHealth to create a new website that allows companies to create their own profiles and showcase their products and solutions. We just released our first version of today.health. This is essentially a sister site to DigitalHealthToday.com and we will continue to grow this to showcase the innovations that are available around the world, and to allow consumers to connect directly with the companies that are working to develop them.
So when you’re back at your computers or when you can take out your smartphones, go over to today.health, create a profile and upload your product and service information. It’s free to create a profile so get in early, upload your information, and let me know what you think. We’ll continue to develop this as we get feedback and find the best way to connect consumers with solutions.
Links and Resources Mentioned:
- Follow DotHealth on Twitter @dot_health
- Complete an application for a *.Health domain (or get fast access by clicking on the buttons on this page!)
- Download .Health’s Consumer Research
- Learn more about .Health: https://get.health/welcome
- Health 2.0 Miami
- Miami Tech
- Jen Lannon on LinkedIn
- Jen Lannon on Twitter @healthtechjen
- Susanna Fox on Twitter @SusannahFox
- Link to Pew Research: 2012 poll by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project
- Digital Health Events
- Join Digital Health Today
