2009 was a year in which healthcare engagement took some giant leaps forward. By the start of the year, platforms for digital engagement had matured to the point where it was possible to reach and engage with a wider community of health stakeholders than ever before. Read more

Treating more than half a million patients a year from its clinics across the US, you might expect Mayo Clinic to know something about patient needs. What impressed us especially about Mayo Clinic’s healthcare engagement is that it has gone far beyond the natural reach of its physical clinic locations to improve healthcare for patients all around the world. Read more

At the heart of the vision behind TuDiabetes is a simple goal: to provide a platform for people touched by diabetes to connect. And the social network websites at www.tudiabetes.org and Spanish version at www.estudiabetes.org, run by The Diabetes Hands Foundation, do just that – with almost 20,000 members between them spanning the globe, they form a highly active community of people joined by a common medical condition. Read more

In contrast to many of the rich engagement strategies we’ve highlighted in the Healthcare Engagement Strategy Awards, computertan.com is a very simple, directly engaging campaign. The concept is straightforward: raise awareness of the dangers of skin cancer through overexposure to UV rays; reach those most at risk of UV overexposure by luring them to take a free trial of ‘a revolutionary new online tanning service’. Then instead, give them hard truths about skin cancer. Read more

One of the things we like about the ‘Get Real. Get a Prescription’ campaign is the way health stakeholders concerned about patient safety in the UK, worked in partnership to educate consumers about the risk of buying medicines online through unregistered pharmacies. Read more

The J&J Health Channel is used for proactive engagement – it follows others, and makes regular updates and comments. Now, it’s easy to use video for broadcasting messages – we see this all the time amongst healthcare and pharmaceutical organizations. But this channel is also open to comments, and some videos do have a lot of comments! Read more

It’s not the fact that Patientslikeme has a community of 50,000 patients that wins it this Award. It’s not the incredible way it grew a community of almost 10,000 Fibromyalgia patients in 2009 – with over 850 more joining in just the first three weeks of 2010. It’s not even the fact that 10% of US patients diagnosed with MS, and 20% of ALS patients, join Patientslikeme. Read more

These were the most exciting people in healthcare engagement in 2009 – people who brought significant change to healthcare engagement. We haven’t ranked these four winners – they’re here for different reasons but they’re all making a real difference and they’re already inspiring those around them. Watch these if you want to learn how to make a real difference! Read more