IVF-Worldwide Live 2012: Yesha’s Talk on the top 10 info technologies we need to know about? and how to deal with them?

IVF-Worldwide Live 2012 
In Vitro Fertilization Clinics Embracing the Digital Age
Berlin, Germany, 20-22 April 2012 Andel’s Hotel

I will give a keynote at this conference connecting the top 10 trends with IVF clinics.
A new audience, that is usually not so keen on new information technologies.

More details here…

The IVF-Worldwide congress will provide you with the knowledge and tools to complement your existing skillset and teach you how to…
  • Increase your online presence and visibility
  • Grow your practice through social media and direct-to-consumer marketing
  • Attract more patients to your unit by targeting select market segments
  • Increase your knowledge and awareness of patients’ needs and priorities
  • Promote patient understanding and compliance
  • Support patients by creating online communities
  • Harness emerging technologies to your practice
  • Improve your unit’s management using best in class tools and programs
  • Promote Education both for your team and your patients
  • Reduce workload and streamline processes by creating online guidelines for patients

A glimpse of speakers’ presentations… More to follow


Michael M. Alper, USA
Medical Director – Boston IVF
Associate Clinical Professor of OBGYN
Harvard Medical School

Presentation Title: Maximizing the internet ability to promote your clinic and support better care.
The internet is an important way to interface with our patients and improve the patient’s experience. The value of the internet includes patient education including injection teaching, communication with the patients for the initial intake, dissemination of cycle-related medication instructions, and the ability of patients to obtain information about their current care. The value of the internet to the clinician so that he/she has instantly available information about patients is invaluable. Paper charts have significant limitations and will limit the growth potential of an infertility practice. It is also a challenge to set boundaries for patients so that electronic communication is not abused and the value of face-to-face interaction is never forgotten

Gerd Gigerenzer, Germany
Managing Director, Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition;
Director, Harding Center for Risk Literacy 


Presentation Title: Fallacies in risk perception among physicians and laymen.
Efficient health care requires informed doctors and patients. The health care system inherited from the 20th century falls short on both counts. Many doctors and most patients do not understand the available medical evidence. This lack of risk literacy is due several factors, including biased reporting in medical journals and in patients’ pamphlets, and the failure of medical schools and continuing education in training doctors to understanding health statistics. These flaws have generated a partially inefficient system that wastes taxpayers’ money on unnecessary or even potentially harmful tests and treatments as well as on medical research that is of limited relevance to the patient. Raising taxes or rationing care is often seen as the only viable alternative to exploding health care costs. Yet there is a third option: by promoting health literacy, better care is possible for less money. I will show how health providers and patients can be taught to deal efficiently with uncertainties.

Avi Tsafrir, Israel
Senior Physician, Reproductive Medicine, IVF unit, Dept of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
Shaare-Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel

Presentation Title: IVF treatment instructions transmitted via the internet: a preliminary experience. 
IVF treatments are ambulatory but intensive and complicated and often based on self-medication according to frequently changing instructions. When based on telephone communication, this method requires intensive labor and is potentially inconvenient for the patient. Moreover, there is a possible risk of misinterpretation. Therefore, we developed a novel internet-based system for the daily transfer of treatment orders during IVF treatments. Using a personal identification code, the patient is able to access the unit’s internet site and access her orders given on the same day. We observe that our patients and team appear to be highly satisfied with the convenience and simplicity this approach offers. Moreover, it provides a reliable record and may reduce the risk of treatment errors.

Yesha Sivan, Israel
Dr. Sivan received his doctorate from Harvard University. He is the head of the Information Systems Program at the School of Management and Economy at the Tel-Aviv-Yaffo academic college. He is also the founder of Metaverse Labs (MVL) – a leading think tank focusing on connecting virtual and real worlds. Dr. Sivan’s professional experience includes developing and deploying innovative solutions for corporate, hi-tech, government, and defense environments. He published in the areas of Strategy and IT, knowledge, 3D3C virtual worlds, and standards. He has taught EMBA, MBA, engineering and design in the areas of the strategic value of IT, the emergence of virtual worlds, and software development in virtual worlds.

Presentation Title: The top 10 info technologies we need to know about? and how to deal with them? 
Much like any other businesses and organizations, IVF units, both private and public, are facing a constant and growing stream of new information technologies. Terms like Cloud Computing, Mobile apps, twitter, Facebook, Tablet, and Smart Computing and the link are emerging to be key factors in today’s new business. Embrace them on time, and win. Embrace them too early, or too late and you lose.
This engaging — full of demos talk — will cover the top 10 technologies, and also present NITA — a New Information Technology Algorithm to deal with such techno-business changes.

Finest Sordal Magnus, Norway
General Manager at Medicus Fertility Centre and lecturer in digital marketing BI Norwegian Business School

Presentation Title: Building a successful digital marketing strategy – a framework
The internet is probably the most important media channel for fertility clinics trying to reach out to new patients in today’s media environment. The opportunities are endless, but resources limited – where should we focus? The speaker presents a framework for how to build a successful digital marketing strategy and touches upon topics like website development, content marketing, search engine marketing, and social media

Wouter Tuil, The Netherlands
Freelance solution architect

Presentation Title: IVF patients’ preferences in service design
Which services should we offer to our patients before, during and after an IVF treatment? Internet applications work particularly well if they designed for a specific user scenario. However, there is no “one size fits all” solution when it comes to medical Internet applications. Some patients prefer interaction with fellow patients while others want to have direct access to treatment-data.

Talya Miron-Shatz, USA
Co-founder, CEO at CureMyWay, a company that develops a comprehensive platform enabling health-related consumers and their providers to structure the decision-making process, overcome psychological barriers, and execute the decisions that were made. Talya has a Ph.D. from Hebrew University, was a researcher at Princeton University and is an Associate Professor and the Founding Director of the Center for Medical Decision Making at Ono Academic College. Talya is a consumer behavior lecturer at Wharton Business School. She publishes in books and peer-reviewed journals and consulted Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Millicom, and other health and media companies. Dr. Miron-Shatz is a sought-after speaker, and her Psychology Today blog ‘Baffled by Numbers’ is widely read by members of the pharmaceutical industry.

Presentation Title: You’re talking to me? Ensuring patient comprehension, motivation, and personalization
Shared decision making is becoming increasingly prevalent, and patients are required to assume an active role in their own care, and in related decisions. Yet materials are often written so that patients don’t understand them, and don’t even feel invited to understand. Likewise, the meaning of medical data and statistics is often incomprehensible to patients, leading them to ask “is this good, bad, or indifferent?”  I will demonstrate how this happens and suggest various solutions for increasing patient comprehension, adherence, engagement, and a sense that the clinician is truly talking to them.

Ron King, USA
CEO of MedMarketLink – whole-brain marketing for specialty practices
A program of Vanguard Communications: Measurably Different

Presentation Title: Converting the E-Powered Patient to YOUR Patient
Today’s patients spend hours on Internet comparison shopping for health care information and physicians. Each prospective patient is judging you, the IVF specialist, long before the first appointment or even a phone call to the practice. Here’s a look at the four phases of the e-powered patient’s decision-making process, and how to use each phase to build a new-patient volume.

Presentation Title: The Doctor as Online Teacher: Growing Your Practice through Internet Content and Conversations
Traditionally, marketing has been a one-way conversation from a seller to a buyer. Not anymore – especially in health care, where the patient is often in charge of the buying and selling process. Today’s health care marketing is a sophisticated, online conversation not just between providers and patients but among millions of patients. Here’s why it’s no longer enough to simply present credentials to prospective patients on your practice’s static website, and how you can properly join the online patient conversations already in progress.

Jonathan Pollinger, USA
Owner of Intranet Future
Social Media Consultant

Presentation Title: How to use social media to improve your business
The lecture will discuss in length the following topics: Social media overview. The value of social media vs. traditional marketing. Overview and optimal set up for  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ Social media strategy and objectives using it for marketing and internal comms/collaboration. Social media case studies including examples from the scientific community. How to use key social media tools eg Tweet Deck. Overall measuring success.

Alexandra Futeral, Germany
Web marketing and users experience strategist at medicalsafari.com.
Alexandra Futeral holds an MBA in International Management as well as a diploma in Social Media from the University of San Francisco. Over the last 15 years, she has gained strong expertise in sales & marketing activities in different business environments. Being a current IVF patient herself, she was confronted with a practical problem of collecting as much information as possible about this new life challenge in order to put the best success factors on her side.

Presentation Title: A real patient’s experience: Summary of international best practices in ART web communication
This presentation will give an overview of international best practices in ART web communication through the eyes of a real patient who also works in the field of internet marketing.
Alexandra Futeral has thoroughly analyzed more than 60 ART centers’ websites worldwide and will give her impressions as a current IVF patient as well as a professional expert in web communication.
She will highlight some of the marketing techniques that will make users click on a page

Annemijn Aarts, The Netherlands
MD and Ph.D. student reproductive medicine, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center,
The Netherlands

Presentation Title: Identifying barriers and facilitators for the implementation of virtual infertility communities.
The study examined men and women in three Dutch fertility clinics where a subscription is available to an online community in which the clinicians provide online information and patients can pose questions to the medical team, or share experiences and find support from peers. The results show that two strategies are needed to increase the proportion of patient subscribers and consequently make them active participants. First, the ‘marketing’ strategy should contain information tailored to different subgroups of the patient population. Second, for a ‘living’ virtual infertility community, incorporating social media, as well as frequent news from clinicians is required.

Veronica Montgomery, UK
Marketing Manager, Barbados Fertility Centre

Veronica has over 23 years of experience working in media and marketing in London, UK. Veronica started her career in publishing, working for the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). Veronica was a Director for Kingsway Advertising in London who specialized in health and represented the majority of NHS Trust hospitals across the UK. For the last 8 years, Veronica has enjoyed the challenge of marketing Barbados Fertility Centre as a center of excellence for IVF.

Presentation Title: Engaging prospective patients through direct to consumer marketing
Notable highlights of the presentation are the use of social media, interactive TV, augmented reality and The Fertility App. The presentation gives a background to Barbados Fertility Centre, our key selling points to convey to prospective patients, a case study with our use of social media, Facebook, Google paid search, twitter, etc., engaging the patients with interactive TV, our use of augmented reality on our exhibitions stands, and our global market presence with the Fertility App in the app store.

For more details about registration please write to us at IVFLive2012@comtecmed

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