Communications Meeting 2010-08-10

Notes from Communications Workgroup
Date: August 10, 2010
Time: 1:00 PM ET
Attendees:
David Kibbe, Janet Campbell, Karen Donovan, Susan Leonelli, Brian Ahier, Rich Elmore, Didi Davis, Uvinie Hettiaratchy

Actions

#	Date	Action	Status	Owner	Due Date
1	08/10/10	Draft profiles for assigned audience by Face to Face meeting	Open	WG	8/16/10
2	08/10/10	Post initial communications matrix to the wiki for review by WG during Face to Face	Open	Uvinie Hettiaratchy	8/16/10

Agenda

1. Review of goals
   1. Who are the key audience segments?
2. Prep for Face-to-Face Planning Session
   1. Proposed target results: Segment "understanding", communications objectives for each segment, key messages for each segment
   2. Proposed prep work: Draft for each segment: What are the key attributes of each audience segment?
3. Review of actions and decisions

Notes

Uvinie Hettiaratchy
· We’re excited to have this workgroup. There is a definite need for messaging for all the key stakeholders.
· We have been working on this offline and have been coordinating with the NHIN Direct Overview team. Rich has helped out considerably with that and has already put in the initial legwork for jump starting this workgroup.
· With that, I’d like to hand it over to him.

Rich Elmore
· I think it’s important to have a proper understanding of the various pieces of NHIN Direct to make sure there’s a good level of understanding and engagement of stakeholders.
· There is a great group of us here with a variety of different stakeholders.
· We have a terrific start to be able to work together and make sure that NHIN Direct gets understood. We want to make sure that people understand the value and alleviate some confusion.
· What we’re trying to do is work towards our Face to Face meeting next week.
· The goal of that session is to move forward as far as we can for what a communications program might look like.
· Would like to see an understanding of goals and feedback on the audience segmentation. Make sure that an HIE understands the needs for health.
· Thanks to Janet for spearheading a good foundational overview.
· I was hoping to 1) review the goals and 2) talk about key audience segments. We don’t want to get it too granular or too high level. We want the right balance and to define the segments and the key messages for those segments.
· If we can get the segments defined then we can work on that during the Face to Face meeting.
· Let’s start with review of goals and open up for conversations.
· The goal of the Communication workgroup is: to provide clarity about what NHIN Direct is and how it fits into the health information and transformation ecosystem. Key audiences include State HIEs, RECs, HIOs, health systems, providers, and the larger general health community and media. Foundational work on the NHIN Direct Overview has been developed by the Documentation and Testing Workgroup.

Round the Room on goals

Janet Campbell	These look really good. It looks like part of the objective is to provide materials for others could use, for example a PowerPoint presentation. Ready-made press kit would be cool. Appreciate emphasis on other media besides just documents. It’s important to start thinking about visual representation.
Karen Donovan	Agree with Janet’s comments. Appreciate groups that are identified.
Susan Leonelli	The only thing I could think to add is a view into logistics. Not only what it is and what the implications are, but when it’s coming and what actions.
Rich Elmore	Great suggestion, and I think this group would be in collaboration with implementation geographies group and other groups.
Brian Ahier	I like how you put this together. Particularly with State HIE planning going on and local HIOs. Beginning with HIMMS and our state, I’m on the Strategic Planning workgroup - one of the biggest questions from workgroup members and providers around the state is what are the implications on the NHIN Direct project on our community? Same true for local HIEs. Real focus on getting the message out will be helpful.
Didi Davis	Agree with all the comments. Looking forward to outcomes.
Rich Elmore	Nothing to add.

Rich Elmore
· Thank you for that feedback. It’s a great opportunity to facilitate engagement for a wide number of partners who can help us get the word out. I think the key thing that you stressed is the understanding of key audience segments which will drive a lot of the work we have to do.
· Can we spend some time on this call to get some initial thoughts on this. This will be a foundation for understanding those segments and how we can meet those needs.
· We start with another round to get your thoughts on what are the right segments – HIEs/States/RECs , then talked about health system segment, and then general audience segment. Shouldn’t we also have a provider segment? I want to frame it a little bit to start thinking about response. What are the right segments? Whose in them?

Janet Campbell	I know less about the HIE bucket, and what the distribution of folks might look like. Thinking about health systems, I think a further complication might be that people here might divide up too. For example if there is a divide between a general audience who is engaged, versus someone who just comes in temporarily, we might need to further segment.
Rich Elmore	If you have particular thoughts on the right target groups are, I’d absolutely be interested to hear.
Karen Donovan	I agree that this is a good starting place. What else do you think would be included in the health system segment? Would like to give this more thought
Susan Leonelli	Thinking about general audience bucket, what I’m thinking we should consider strongly is some specific messaging for physicians. Not sure if rolling up physician audiences underneath RECs is good enough or direct enough. Would like a special category. We won’t communicate directly with patients, but if physicians need to turn around conversation, creating some language that physicians can adopt at a patient level would be helpful.
Brian Ahier	Agree with last comment. Would really advocate we do reach out to rural providers in small practices. Having message to this target audience will be helpful. Rich Elmore - I got confused as to where to place RECs. What are your thoughts? Since RECs will be focused on electronic health record adoption, the RECs will not only be targeting small practices and rural areas. Specific message for small practices and providers is really important.
Didi Davis	I’m in TN and working in REC. I agree with all comments with one caveat: that each of the RECs along with state organizational strategic operational plans are a bit different. While there is some focus on communication, we should not lump everything in one box. Along with meaningful use guidelines and all of the wonderful legislation out there, there needs to be a coordinated effort. I don’t know how to get people aware and point them to one site. I think we should have a linkage for all the states to have customer information. Rich Elmore - Is your thought that this group should put out the raw material and the States can then tailor that? Didi Davis - Yes, there needs to be linkage there.

Rich Elmore
· If I can just recap what we talked about – the need for specific messaging for physicians, patients and health systems being mid/large practices, HIOs and potential for us to be able to serve up states and rural providers and small practices. This list sounds like the starting point.
Susan Leonelli
· It would be nice to see this represented graphically: for example, with the stakeholders going down the left side in a communications matrix. Not every stakeholder needs the a full communication plan.
· We can start with discrete messaging and then bundle together.

Uvinie Hettiaratchy
· I have created an initial communications matrix which we can use to start with. Did not want to post before this group had a say. I can post that to the wiki for review for the Face to Face meeting.

Round the Room on Rich being a lead for the workgroup
· Full endorsement by the whole group.

Rich Elmore
· We spent some time talking about segmentation and groups.
· Next, objectives and messages.
· We’re going to now move into how we can move into next week.
· 1) What are we trying to accomplish next week? 2) What prep work do we need to complete between now and then?
· Meet to have a good understanding of the proposal. Along with that, the communication objectives for each of those segments and the key messages for that.
· Another possible topic would be a communications plan and what are our leveragable assets?
· I want to make the best use of our time next week. We have four hours together. What are the most important things we want to accomplish?
· Round on objectives for Face to Face:

David Kibbe	I will not be there during the meeting. I think one of the most important things is to make sure that we’re all on the same page. There are a lot of moving parts and it’s probably worthwhile to make sure we are all comfortable with our own sense of messaging. That would allow us to sharpen things later on down the road.
Janet Campbell	I think the list generally looks good. We might want to start identifying the best media to communicate through – this group would do well with a brochure, poster, etc.
Karen Donovan	I also will not be there in person. I’m hoping there’s a way to dial in. I think the stakeholder groups are solidified. Looking at how to communicate with each of those segments – HIE vs. physician, good to identify early on.
Susan Leonelli	Would also like to add some top line thinking about points of communication in time. Will there be certain points in time – for example, preliminary information and then reach back out, etc. Are there two or three points in time to use as markers to stage our communication?
Brian Ahier	I would like to slide back to priorities, objectives, and messaging. Of course we’ll have some shifting priorities, and messaging may time over time. Our first customer is the Implementation Geographies workgroup if we can figure out where we want to go in providing the right messages and resources for them to be unified in messaging.
Didi Davis	Priorities will be very important and brainstorming about the different media.

David Kibbe
· There is an overview document being created. That is available to all of us. Also, I have a healthcare blog on Direct. People are free to look at that as well.
· Any other information out there that we can supply?

Rich Elmore
· Arien did some messaging at the OSCON conference. Brian Ahier published that.
· I think Doug Fridsma did an update to the Policy Committee.

Brian Ahier
· I think social media and blogs allows for one avenue. We can also send information to states and RECs and other organizations that may also include articles in newsletter as one of their web postings.
Rich Elmore
· To recap, I think the list of our objectives for the Face to Face meeting wasn’t largely changed. There should be a draft available from Documentation and Testing workgroup. We want to solidify the stakeholder groups, timing and character communication, and prioritization. Finally, we want to look at the messaging and resources around messaging.
· We can craft that into an agenda for next week.
· We need to profile these various segments – physicians, patients, health systems, State HIEs/RECs, rural providers, general audience. I think we need to describe what those segments represent and how they relate to NHIN Direct in terms of value and concerns and what they need to know and the value NHIN Direct would provide. Basic profiling information would be good. If that makes sense as some prep work, I’m wondering if we get some folks to volunteer to do that profiling. I’m thinking of something that’s bullet oriented and descriptive of the segment. Make sure it helps us as a group.

Round on volunteers to address that for next week

David Kibbe	Glad to help. I’ll try and put together something for the physician group. Should I email it in?
Rich Elmore	What we’re looking for is understanding, so whatever forum works for you.
Janet Campbell	No direct experience. Maybe come up with list of common questions?
Susan Leonelli	I’m a patient. I’m a physician so I can help with that.
Brian Ahier	On HIE planning team and local HIO planning organization and RECs.
Didi Davis	Will provide input, especially from State/REC center as well as HIEs/HIOs.
Uvinie Hettiaratchy	Also another key stakeholder would be vendors – why they should incorporate the reference implementation, how NHIN Direct will be used, and why it makes good business sense. Janet, I think that might be a good place to get your perspective. Janet Campbell – Sounds good.

David Kibbe
· Another important group are the hospitals and knowing how to talk to CIOs in hospitals.
Rich Elmore
· Anyone who would like to take the mid/large hospital segment.
David Kibbe
· I could take a shot at it. It’d be great if we could.
Brian Ahier
· Maybe we can pull in an additional member who represents that community.
Rich Elmore
· I think the one remaining one would be the rural providers in small practices.
David Kibbe
· Would be glad to take that on.