Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Yet another blog.
Those of you who've been reading me for awhile may remember that, about a year and a half ago, I spotted and commented on an article in NYT about a new health care company, founded by Steve Case, whose intention it would be to bring consumers into the effort of changing the medical landscape in the U.S. That intended company, Revolution, launched itself this month. My initial notice of the launch involved an email I received on January 4th inviting me to participate in a free trial "preview" membership, to last through the end of 2007. I finally got around to activating it early this morning before I went to bed.
The membership includes the ability to create a health care blog on their site, which I decided to do, in order to record my success, difficulties and failures as I attempt to use Revolution to manage and advocate on behalf of my mother's health care. I also discovered last night that The Mom and Me Journals dot Net is listed on their Caregiving page (at the bottom), along with most of the blogs I regularly try to visit and a few others, as well [11/14/08 Update: This blog list no longer exists on the page to which I've linked. I think they've deleted their list of resource blogs outside of their site. A link to the old domain that handled this journal is available on my Revolution Blog but, for the time being, I can't log in to change that link.]. I decided that it might be interesting to create a blog on that site devoted exclusively to my attempts to use Revolution to negotiate my mother's health care. I started that effort a few minutes ago. If you're interested, you can click into that blog here. It's also listed to the right in my inbound links section.
My initial registration (which wasn't the same as setting up an account) email invited me to "Share this site with others who can help us revolutionize health care. Simply forward your invitation email with the special URL to friends and family." However, I noticed, when I set up my account this morning, that it looks as though one can avail oneself of the free, one year "preview" membership by simply clicking into the site and navigating to the membership link. My understanding is that, currently, this preview membership is open only to health care clients within the United States. If you click in and find that availing yourself of this membership isn't possible through there, let me know and I'll forward a copy of my initial invitation. If you have never emailed me, in order to make sure that I do not accidentally junk your request, please type the words "Revolution Preview Membership" in the subject line. You'll find my email address at the very bottom of my links section.
I'm only vaguely sure how often I'll get over there. As you know, I'm working on a few more site specific projects and have yet another queued that I haven't yet launched. Ahhh, the life of a full time caregiver! One of the requirements of preview membership is that one must log in and use one of the tools, any of them, at least once a month, in order to keep membership active. I think I can do that. I assume, as well, after the year's period of free membership, if one decides one isn't interested in paying for membership, any information one has posted at the site, including a blog, will be become inaccessible and possibly deleted. It's probably a good idea to make sure that, a year from now, you can live without the site and any information you've posted.
So. The Revolution is here. It will be interesting to discover how revolutionary it really is.
Time, now, to awaken The Mom.
Hmmm...I just thought of a possible addition to Revolution that would be of certain value to caregivers for the elderly and demented: A tool that allows users to rate nursing homes, skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. This is a reminder to myself to post on that possibility over at my Revolution blog...
...later.
The membership includes the ability to create a health care blog on their site, which I decided to do, in order to record my success, difficulties and failures as I attempt to use Revolution to manage and advocate on behalf of my mother's health care. I also discovered last night that The Mom and Me Journals dot Net is listed on their Caregiving page (at the bottom), along with most of the blogs I regularly try to visit and a few others, as well [11/14/08 Update: This blog list no longer exists on the page to which I've linked. I think they've deleted their list of resource blogs outside of their site. A link to the old domain that handled this journal is available on my Revolution Blog but, for the time being, I can't log in to change that link.]. I decided that it might be interesting to create a blog on that site devoted exclusively to my attempts to use Revolution to negotiate my mother's health care. I started that effort a few minutes ago. If you're interested, you can click into that blog here. It's also listed to the right in my inbound links section.
My initial registration (which wasn't the same as setting up an account) email invited me to "Share this site with others who can help us revolutionize health care. Simply forward your invitation email with the special URL to friends and family." However, I noticed, when I set up my account this morning, that it looks as though one can avail oneself of the free, one year "preview" membership by simply clicking into the site and navigating to the membership link. My understanding is that, currently, this preview membership is open only to health care clients within the United States. If you click in and find that availing yourself of this membership isn't possible through there, let me know and I'll forward a copy of my initial invitation. If you have never emailed me, in order to make sure that I do not accidentally junk your request, please type the words "Revolution Preview Membership" in the subject line. You'll find my email address at the very bottom of my links section.
I'm only vaguely sure how often I'll get over there. As you know, I'm working on a few more site specific projects and have yet another queued that I haven't yet launched. Ahhh, the life of a full time caregiver! One of the requirements of preview membership is that one must log in and use one of the tools, any of them, at least once a month, in order to keep membership active. I think I can do that. I assume, as well, after the year's period of free membership, if one decides one isn't interested in paying for membership, any information one has posted at the site, including a blog, will be become inaccessible and possibly deleted. It's probably a good idea to make sure that, a year from now, you can live without the site and any information you've posted.
So. The Revolution is here. It will be interesting to discover how revolutionary it really is.
Time, now, to awaken The Mom.
Hmmm...I just thought of a possible addition to Revolution that would be of certain value to caregivers for the elderly and demented: A tool that allows users to rate nursing homes, skilled nursing and assisted living facilities. This is a reminder to myself to post on that possibility over at my Revolution blog...
...later.
Comments:
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Originally posted by Mona Johnson: Wed Jan 24, 07:21:00 AM 2007
Gail, thanks for the link to Revolution. I looked at the caregiving page, and thought it was odd that the only caregiver blogs were "ours" - mostly caregivers for persons with dementia. Then I saw that the two biggest ads on the page were for Aricept....
Originally posted by Gail Rae: Wed Jan 24, 01:43:00 PM 2007
Excellent catch, Mona! I tend to ignore the inundation of advertising on the web, so I didn't catch this. What I did catch is that, yet again, caregiving is misrepresented and figured, well, I'll see what I can do about that. Considering the advertising: Just now, when I went into the page only one ad appeared but, again, it was for Aricept, which is interesting, considering that I attempted to look through the caregiving blogs started there (which is actually very hard to do...that's another problem with the site: When you try to bring up a list of blogs, you get a list of posts, instead...) and it appears as though most of them have to do with caring for someone much younger, often with cancer, usually with a brain tumor.
The site's advertising policy, which I read yesterday, appears to be user friendly and less weighted toward the company than usual, but, interestingly, in Steve Case's introductory video, when talking about health resources, refers to "the very best brands, like Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic". I picked up on this because one of my neighbors to the west (who has sinced died) sought out the Mayo Clinic to address her problems and became so disgusted and confused with the endless vortex of tests and speculation that she finally went back to her own doctor.
The fact that the founder of Revolution recognizes branding, I decided, will keep me circumspect. Your observation has just upped the level of my circumspection.
Originally posted by Christian (RHG) : Wed Jan 24, 04:19:00 PM 2007
As a Revolution Employee, I was very excited to read about your new blog on the Revolution site. I just want to clarrify one point- even if you do not choose to remain a member after 2007, you will still have full access to the blogs, forums, tools and doctor ratings.
Also, I think your idea regarding the nursing home ratings is great. We want the site to be as useful and revelvant as possible. I would like to encourage you to keep the ideas coming.
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Gail, thanks for the link to Revolution. I looked at the caregiving page, and thought it was odd that the only caregiver blogs were "ours" - mostly caregivers for persons with dementia. Then I saw that the two biggest ads on the page were for Aricept....
Originally posted by Gail Rae: Wed Jan 24, 01:43:00 PM 2007
Excellent catch, Mona! I tend to ignore the inundation of advertising on the web, so I didn't catch this. What I did catch is that, yet again, caregiving is misrepresented and figured, well, I'll see what I can do about that. Considering the advertising: Just now, when I went into the page only one ad appeared but, again, it was for Aricept, which is interesting, considering that I attempted to look through the caregiving blogs started there (which is actually very hard to do...that's another problem with the site: When you try to bring up a list of blogs, you get a list of posts, instead...) and it appears as though most of them have to do with caring for someone much younger, often with cancer, usually with a brain tumor.
The site's advertising policy, which I read yesterday, appears to be user friendly and less weighted toward the company than usual, but, interestingly, in Steve Case's introductory video, when talking about health resources, refers to "the very best brands, like Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic". I picked up on this because one of my neighbors to the west (who has sinced died) sought out the Mayo Clinic to address her problems and became so disgusted and confused with the endless vortex of tests and speculation that she finally went back to her own doctor.
The fact that the founder of Revolution recognizes branding, I decided, will keep me circumspect. Your observation has just upped the level of my circumspection.
Originally posted by Christian (RHG) : Wed Jan 24, 04:19:00 PM 2007
As a Revolution Employee, I was very excited to read about your new blog on the Revolution site. I just want to clarrify one point- even if you do not choose to remain a member after 2007, you will still have full access to the blogs, forums, tools and doctor ratings.
Also, I think your idea regarding the nursing home ratings is great. We want the site to be as useful and revelvant as possible. I would like to encourage you to keep the ideas coming.
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