HHS.gov/DigitalStrategy

Bullying stops teens from being who they want to be, prevents them from expressing themselves freely, and might even make them feel unsafe. Bullying can happen anywhere, both in person and online. In this age of constant connectivity and understanding the value teens place on their social networks, it’s only fitting to try and better reach them digitally.

It’s no surprise that teens and tweens are highly visual and socially oriented. They’re constantly on their phones and social networks sharing photos, providing encouragement to their friends, and communicating in a variety of ways. We saw this as an area where StopBullying.gov could grow and help reach teens where they are.

This week, StopBullying.gov launched a Tumblr page. This social network is a service popular among teens and preteens which allows users to post photos and other content to a short-form blog. We will use this page to engage youth from across the country to take a stand against bullying in their schools. In bringing StopBullying.gov to Tumblr, we hope to start a conversation and encourage followers to be more than a bystander.

The StopBullying Tumblr page will feature inspirational and proactive messaging through graphics, quotes, and animated gifs, all aimed at encouraging teens to engage with each other in a positive way. It will use plain language to talk to teens and tweens. These messages will focus on being a good friend, drawing inspiration from positive social outlets, all in an effort to stop bullying.

This approach plays in to the Digital Strategy as it not only uses the places where teens most interact, but it also takes a more creative approach, relying heavily on graphics to drive our messaging. As the site evolves, we will include user-generated content to tap into the creativity of teens across the country. This will be a great tool to solicit ideas from teens and make them a part of this national conversation on bullying.

We hope you “stumble” upon our StopBullying Tumblr page and share not only with your social networks, but also with the teens in your life.

What other health-related topics would you like to see start a tumblr account?

New Healthcare.gov is Open, CMS-Free

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:09:28 +0000

Site Tags:

API, Content Strategy

David Cole, Development Seed with contributions from Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

This is a cross-post from a Development Seed blog about upcoming improvements to Healthcare.gov. The author is a contractor leading the technical strategy and development of heathcare.gov. From his work previously on President Obama's White House staff, he is a known advocate of open source software and government innovation.

Recently HHS CTO Bryan Sivak outlined a new vision for healthcare.gov. The site will relaunch this June with a completely rethought design and architecture.

The new healthcare.gov follows a new CMS-free philosophy. It will be a completely static website, generated by Jekyll . This shift will allow HHS to move away from the use of a content management system for managing Heathcare.gov. Website generators like Jekyll work by combining template files with content and rendering them to static html pages. These generator tools provide a balance between content creation and editing flexibility resulting in an incredibly fast and reliable website.

The new website’s code and content will be accessible in two important ways. First, everything HHS does will be published on GitHub . GitHub is an open source code repository developers can use to share and collaborate on projects. This service is the new standard for sharing and collaborating on all sorts of projects , from city geographic data and laws to home renovation projects and even wedding planning, as well as traditional software projects.

With the new Heathcare.gov’s code available on GitHub others will be able to reuse the entire code-base as they see fit. This is incredibly valuable because some states will set up their own state-based health insurance marketplaces. They will be able to easily check out and build upon the work being done at the federal level.

The second key component of the new heathcare.gov’s openness is that all content will be available through an API. This is a tool that allows for the reuse of information and content. Other governmental or private sector websites will be able to use the API to embed content from healthcare.gov. As official content gets updated on healthcare.gov, the new content will update automatically appear on websites using the healthcare.gov API.

As we redesign Heathcare.gov we will be posting blogs related to the project here. If you have questions or comments about the changes let us know.

TXT4Tots Message Library

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 04:00:00 +0000

Site Tags:

API, Social Media

New opportunities for reaching people with short messages about health-related topics are constantly emerging –and HHS is taking note. From the food safety tips tweeted by @FoodSafetygov to the text messages used by Text4Baby, brief messages on health topics are extremely popular. @FoodSafetygov has nearly 30,000 followers on Twitter, and Text4Baby has reached more than 500,000 moms since the program launched in 2010.

Hot on the heels of these successes, HHS is launching the TXT4Tots library to provide messages to parents about health and wellness of children ages 1 to 5.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) recently released the TXT4Tots library of messages in English and Spanish. The TXT4Tots library consists of approximately 250 brief, evidence-based messages on nutrition and physical activity. The messages are designed to educate and empower parents, caregivers, and health care providers. The TXT4Tots messages were developed through collaboration between HRSA and the American Academy of Pediatrics and are based on the Bright Futures Guidelines for Health Supervision of Infants, Children, and Adolescents.

The TXT4Tots message library offers
nutrition and physical activity
messages in both English and Spanish

The TXT4Tots library is designed as a resource to be incorporated into a wide variety of existing or new programs and platforms. At HHS, we understand that there are multiple ways to use technology for health promotion, consumer education, and outreach. This library allows developers and entrepreneurs to use the data however they’d like. The TXT4Tots library is also available in API-enabled formats in English and Spanish, allowing for the seamless integration of TXT4Tots into mobile or other electronic platforms.

Some examples of nutrition and physical activity messages, which are available in both English and Spanish, include:

Fighting a picky eater can be a real challenge, have your picky eater help you make the meal. Let them set the table or stir the vegetables.
You are a great role model. Show your preschooler the healthy choices you make by snacking on fruits and veggies together.
Activity idea! Play freeze dance. Put on your child’s favorite music and take turns turning it off and on!

The name TXT4Tots describes the library and does not necessarily imply the need for dissemination via text messaging. Although the TXT4Tots messages could be disseminated through text messages, they could also be distributed using a variety of channels. The messages can be incorporated into social media, websites and web services, mobile applications, email, print materials, product packaging, or other innovative distribution methods.

What other health-related topics would you like to see turned into a tip library?

Pillbox Opens Data to the Public

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:33:56 +0000

Site Tags:

Nicholas Garlow, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Monday, March 25, 2013

Pillbox is opening up government data. Government agencies, communities who need to solve challenges, members of the medical field, and public citizens can all benefit from this application. Project Manager David Hale designed Pillbox with the intent to make government data accessible and usable for the public.

What is Pillbox?

Pillbox is a web based program that allows you to visually identify unknown medications online. The process of building the tool has proven to Hale that when you bring together the expertise of the government and the needs of the public, you can create a better product than you expected.

How is Pillbox making government data accessible to the public?

We spoke with Hale to better understand how cross-collaboration between government agencies and the public can lead to success. Listen to the podcast to learn what the tool is and how it benefits you.

Link to Podcast

Transcript

You’re listening to The HHS Center for New Media podcast, where new and innovative media projects are introduced, shared, and discussed.

“As a government agency, as public health agency, we are the experts in our data. We’re the subject matter experts.”

David Hale works at the National Library of Medicine, and is Project Manager for Pillbox.

“But citizens and communities and health IT developers…they’re the experts in the context and how this is used at the point of care.”

Pillbox is a web based program that lets users visually identify unknown medications based on color, size, shape, imprint and score.

“So when you click on the shape tab, you see silhouetted shapes of different types of drugs. When you click on the size tab, there’s a little slider, an image of a pill, and a dime, and you move that slider.”

The process for creating that tool has brought together government agencies including the National Library of Medicine, Food & Drug Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

We designed that so that it was really language independent. It doesn’t matter if you’re a native English speaker or not. It’s really built on more iconography than it is on reading text.”

Bringing pharmacists, computer scientists, and database administrators together allowed Hale and his team to combine drug label data with generic and brand name medications.

“It’s that partnership between the National Library of Medicine and the Food and Drug Administration that’s really benefited the project in terms of taking our own data and restructuring it in a way that can be used outside of the government.”

Hale involved citizens and communities in building the program. He talked to emergency medical staff, physicians, and the public to gain a better understanding of how Pillbox could empower people to indentify unknown medications.

“We believe that you need to bring those citizens and those communities into your development process prior to releasing that data.”

For Hale and his team, that’s one of their most important lessons.

“Bring them in, show them the data, talk to them about the challenges their facing, and work with them to restructure that data in a way that’s useful for them.”

The latest development of Pillbox is an API, or Application Programming Interface. The API allows people to leverage the data sets to build their own applications.

“By doing this, we free ourselves from the platform and we really start to focus on the data, and that’s led us to this idea of driving traffic to our data, instead of driving traffic to our website…and that’s the model we’re trying to follow is to push our data as far out as we can so that it can be leveraged by really anyone who has a use for that data.”

To learn more about Pillbox, visit Pillbox.nlm.nih.gov. If you would like to get in contact with David Hale, you can email him at david.hale@mail.nih.gov.

You’ve been listening to The HHS Center for New Media podcast, where new and innovative media projects are introduced, shared, and discussed. If you have a project, media tool, or idea that you want to share with other HHS employees, please contact newmedia@hhs.gov.

Thanks for listening. I’m Nicholas Garlow.

Taming the Information Overload Beast

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:33:19 +0000

Site Tags:

Jennifer Olsen, Fusion Cell Branch Chief, OPEO/ASPR/HHS

Monday, March 25, 2013

As you might expect, immediately following a disaster, there is an overwhelming amount of information and misinformation buzzing around about the event, its aftermath, the immediate impacts, and long-term effects. This information pours out from big new organizations, government agencies, non-government organizations, community leaders, and individuals alike. In assessing the situation and deciding how to respond to it, it is not just responders, but also the public, who need to wade through this information overload and figure which sources are useful and which aren’t. To protect health and save lives, we have to integrate and analyze these multiple data sources incredibly fast.

Social Media to the Rescue?

Adding to the fray now is social media. During recent disasters, we've seen and read stories about people being rescued by Tweeting and so on, but the usefulness of social media in public health emergencies goes beyond the anecdotes. Epidemiology research actually shows that social media and news media sources can indicate disease outbreaks even before traditional formal surveillance systems. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) uses informal information sources to aid in many of their outbreak investigations. It’s common knowledge that people use Google and other internet search tools to research symptoms when a family member or friend is sick. Taking it a step further, an uptick in these searches may indicate the emergence of a disease, giving us early indicators of new and emerging disease outbreaks.

Taming the Information Flow

The HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response wants to standardize how all that information is converted into actionable knowledge and create a collaborative culture that helps public health and medical decision-makers and responders across the nation. To make this happen, we are looking for private industry, government agencies, academic institutions, non-profit organizations, and just regular every day people to participate in a series of discussion forums.

The forums will help us identify innovative ways to utilize new types of information during a public health response–so everyone is better informed, better prepared, and better able to respond fast to protect health and maybe even save a life. Ultimately, the question we’re asking is this: how do we efficiently and effectively manage large volumes of internal and external disparate data sources necessary for situational awareness and rapid decision support, as well as discover new indicators and warnings of events of public health significance?

We’re calling this discussion series the “Fusion Forums.” Meeting information can be found at www.phe.gov/fusionforum or contact fusion.info@hhs.gov.

Calling all Innovators: Demo @ the Next Health Datapalooza

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:21:41 +0000

Site Tags:

API, Entrepreneur, Security Privacy

Todd Park, US Chief Technology Officer/ Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer, HHS

Monday, March 25, 2013

This is a cross-post from a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy blog.

“Transformation” is the best description of what is happening in health care right now. We are seeing historic changes in how health care is administered in the United States—with increased focus on quality of care versus just paying for a service. We are seeing changes in how people can enroll in health insurance—with the upcoming establishment of a new market place that will help more people get insured in this country than ever before. And, we are seeing changes in how people understand and make decisions about their own health—with an increasing number of tools and services becoming available to help individuals access health information and manage their own personal health data.

Data is fuel for innovation, and developers and entrepreneurs are key players who can turn that fuel into innovations that matter. That’s why one of the many ways the Federal Government is contributing to the transformation of health care is by unleashing vast amounts of data from the vaults of government, while rigorously protecting privacy. These public data resources, made openly available in machine-readable form, include a broad range of useful information—from comparison data about different health insurance plans, to product recall data from the Food and Drug Administration, to epidemiological data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to scientific information from the National Institutes of Health, and much more. In the hands of developers, innovators, and entrepreneurs, these data are powering game-changing solutions, with much more on the way.

If you or your company has developed an application, service, or sensor fueled by health data, YOU could be featured at the fourth annual Health Datapalooza (HDP IV) on June 3 – 4, 2013, by applying here by April 5, 2013.

The Health Datapalooza is the biggest meeting of health data professionals, developers, entrepreneurs, government officials, venture capitalists, and investors in the Nation. Any developer or company that completes the application process will receive a discount code that reduces the cost of registration to attend.

Apply today to be part of Health Datapalooza IV—get exposure for your products and services, network with fellow innovators, and build connections that can help your company grow.

Publications 2.0: Enhancing Customer Experience

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 15:18:04 +0000

Site Tags:

Minority Health, Social Media

Kathryn Hambleton, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Monday, March 25, 2013

SAMHSA’s publication distribution center maintains more than 1,000 science-based behavioral health publications and ships more than 13,000,000 products annually. The distribution of these publications is central to serving their mission and core audience. Recently, SAMHSA brought together new media technologies to better carry out this service, and their online presence for publications ordering has been transformed into the SAMHSA Store.

SAMHSA’s publications store
is available at store.samhsa.gov

Taking inspiration from Amazon.com, the SAMHSA Store delivers an engaging web-based “shopping” experience. The store features product categories to help visitors identify products that may interest them, including the 50 most popular products, recently added products, and a selection of featured timely publications.

The product pages (such as this National Suicide Prevention Lifeline magnet page) allow opportunities for shoppers to “Like” or “Tweet” about a given product, display tags to allow visitors to navigate to publications on similar products, and include the product’s intended audience. Each product page also includes a helpful section with both related products and relevant websites for additional information.

Delivering related websites is one way that the SAMHSA Store recognizes that not all products of value are items that can be ordered and shipped. In addition to websites, the site also shares other communication products with visitors, such as downloads, featured hotlines, and a locator for treatment centers. The store was also built with the flexibility to incorporate additional features such as ratings, commenting, and API development.

In more ways than one, the Store demonstrates that SAMHSA understands the needs of their customers and has used emerging technologies to adapt and improve the way those needs are met. SAMHSA is also continuing to improve the Store by soliciting feedback through various channels, including their Twitter and Facebook accounts as an extension of the customer service engagement.

Visit the SAMHSA Store
Read more about the project on GovLoop
Learn more about customer service in government

What can your agency do to improve the services delivered to your customers? Where does your agency look for inspiration?

#CorazonChat: Teaming up to promote heart health

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:08:55 +0000

Site Tags:

Chelsea Perugini, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Thursday, March 21, 2013

To close out February’s American Heart Month, a group of HHS agencies banded together to execute our first bilingual Twitter chat to promote awareness of Latina heart health. Rather than hosting multiple events through multiple offices, each participating agency contributed to one coordinated, bilingual chat session. This strategy allowed us to pull resources from many different offices for the best possible discussion, while simultaneously embracing the Digital Strategy’s principle of using shared platforms to do more with less.

What is a Twitter chat?

A Twitter chat is a conversation on Twitter that uses a designated hashtag (#) as a way to sort and organize tweets. Others can follow the discussion on Twitter by using the same hashtag. We coordinated within HHS and teamed up with outside agencies to deliver an hour-long discussion. The Twitter chat was held on February 28^th using the hashtag #CorazonChat .

To make the chat available for future reference, we created a ‘story’ using Storify that allows you to look at the information provided during the chat at your leisure. This way, you can see the questions asked of us and our responses whenever you’d like.

What We Did

Before the Chat:

We chose to work in partnership with people and organizations that had a Spanish-speaking audience, like The US FDA’s Spanish Language Twitter .
We invited organizations to participate who we knew appealed to our intended audience, like Latina Magazine .
We asked individuals with large Latina bases of Twitter followers to engage in conversation with us, and their followers, during the chat.
We registered #CorazonChat on the health hashtag database, Symplur , to inform the health community about the chat.
We created a question and answer script to organize our partners. This gave everyone equal time during the chat to discuss their current initiatives and answer questions.

Results:

Hundreds of Twitter users participated in the chat.
There were more than 1,000 posts related to #CorazonChat .
Analytics show us that the largest demographic group that participated in the chat was females ages 25 – 34 years old, which was our target demographic.

“@hhslatino: Physical activity is good for your heart. How often should we be exercising? #corazónchat @american_heart” #dailywalks

— Jessica Sofia Valle(@JesSofiaValle) February 28, 2013

at least 150 minutes per week of moderate or 75 minutes per week of vigorous exercise bit.ly/YCstHO #corazonchat” @power2endstroke

— Pamela G. Johnson (@AHA_PGJohnson) February 28, 2013

Lessons Learned

Think about what you want participants to learn and what type of action you want them to take after the chat. Create Tweets in advance that represent this message.
Invite other departments/experts to join the chat that will be helpful in answering questions.
Clarify with other agencies/groups participating:
- What types of messages will you post?
- Will the messages they post match the point of view we want to convey?

If you do not know how to respond to something, redirect a participant to a .gov source that can answer their question.
Ask questions or re-tweet questions from others using the selected hashtag if you are not getting a lot of traffic.

For more Twitter chat best practices visit A Guide to Hosting a Twitter Chat.

ASPR Fusion Roundtable: Innovation and Creativity in Public Health

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:16:35 +0000

Site Tags:

Content Strategy, Public Focus

Sara Harris, Management Analyst, ASPR Fusion Cell

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The U.S. public health emergency response community spans 50 states, 16 territories, and multiple time zones. It encompasses government agencies, universities, non-governmental organizations, and private industry. It is, in a word, vast. With such an enormous network, it can be difficult to share innovative ideas and create a sense of community.

Enter the ASPR Fusion Roundtable. Launched in January 2013, this online community is a public forum for state, local, tribal, territorial, federal, and private sector stakeholders in the public health community. Roundtable participants can share ideas about public health situational awareness, emerging technologies, novel data sources for public health, and innovative data sharing and collaboration. This public forum allows individuals to provide insights that will help increase innovation and expand information sharing in the field of public health emergency preparedness. Community members can offer new ideas or give other users a pat on the back by voting up the inventive ideas of others. Discussions arise organically and are community-centric.

This coordinated approach to public health communications also leads to cost savings, a key aim of the Digital Government Strategy. The ASPR Fusion Roundtable arose out of a desire for people to be able to get together and share ideas in a time of limited travel funding. This community allows members to share ideas on their own time, from their own computers or tablets, closing the gap of hundreds of miles and hundreds of organizations.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) manages the system and regularly changes the conversation topic with new discussion topics, called campaigns. The first campaign is on the use of social media in public health emergency management. The second campaign will kick off soon and focus on the benefits and challenges of data sharing. Visit the ASPR Fusion roundtable to share your thoughts on either topic.

Contact us if you have any questions about the ASPR Fusion Roundtable. And don’t forget to follow @ASPRFusion on Twitter.

The Power of Infographics

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 14:43:41 +0000

Site Tags:

It is our job as digital communicators to present information to our audiences in ways that engage, inform, and—most importantly—make sense. But that’s not always easy. We can ensure we communicate clearly by writing in plain language and using usability best practices. Sometimes we need more than that, however. One powerful approach is infographics.

You’ve probably seen many infographics and never knew they had a name. For us, infographics are a way to promote the idea of sharing information, a tenet of the Digital Government Strategy. For example, we developed an infographic for BeTobaccoFree.gov last fall to explain what happens to your body when you quit smoking. Since it was posted, it has been liked, shared, pinned, and tagged on social media sites more than 100 times—a good number for HHS.

How Do You Make an Infographic?

First, you begin with an idea. Think about what you want to communicate. Add some factual data to back up your message. Then incorporate design, working with a designer will help you brainstorm ways to communicate your content visually. Mash it all together, and you get an infographic. Sometimes they tell a story. Sometimes they are charts and diagrams that illustrate a point. Sometimes they encourage someone to take an action.

Key points for making infographics:

Tell a Story: The best infographics communicate a clear story by pairing creativity with insightful images. With a marriage of data and graphics, everyone lives happily ever after. Take the version here for example, when considering one’s life after quitting smoking. It offers very clear benefits throughout the path of quiting, from the first few minutes to decades later.
Keep it Clear: You want to create an infographic so you can quickly explain complex data or share your message. Don’t get it twisted. Focus on your story, and keep to the main points. Don’t add anything extra that doesn’t support your story—clutter only weakens your overall message.
Be Unique: Search for the phrase “infographic” in Google Images. You’ll see how many infographics are out there and how easy it is to get lost in the mix. Make sure that your final infographic is a unique representation of the data you want to share. If your final product is just like everyone else’s, why would they share yours?

HHS recently created an HHS Infographics Group/Pool on Flickr that brings together all the infographics from across the Department. Take a look. There’s more than you might think.

What HHS information would you like to see displayed in an infographic?

Increasing Public Participation in HHS Regulatory Activities

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:01:33 +0000

Site Tags:

Plain Language, Public Engagement

After Congress passes a law and it’s signed by the President, the executive branch has to turn the law into regulations—rules that spell out things like which specific activities a law covers, who a benefit may apply to, and what the exceptions are.

HHS’s many regulations include rules that allow us to provide health coverage for millions of Americans and implement a 21^st century food safety system.

The public plays an important role in creating federal regulations by commenting on proposed rules. Those comments help shape the final regulations we publish.

For the last several years, we’ve been working to improve our regulations process by using modern tools and understandable language. Our updated process will make the commenting process clearer, easier, and more open—all key tenets of the Digital Government Strategy.

Improving the Process

On January 18, 2011, President Obama issued Executive Order 13563, Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review. In response to the Executive Order, HHS established the Public Participation Task Force. This Task Force has representatives from several divisions of the Department. The Task Force aims to increase public participation and encourage an open exchange of ideas about HHS’s federal regulations.

Some of the Task Force’s recent accomplishments include:

Updating the HHS webpage dedicated to federal regulations to include more interactive features
Partnering with HHS’s Innovations Team to explore new technological advances to engage the public and meet with external experts to identify areas of improvement
Conducting an HHS-wide assessment and working with agencies to better promote public participation in regulatory activities

Reviewing existing regulations

As part of the Department’s review activities, we are looking for feedback on existing regulations. We’re asking for the public’s help to identify those that are obsolete, unnecessary, burdensome, or counterproductive. We’re also looking for suggestions on how to modify other regulations to increase their effectiveness, efficiency, and flexibility.

Visit our Retrospective Review webpage to learn more.

Future actions

Soon the Task Force will explore some new initiatives: using social media to increase awareness of the Department’s rules and increase meaningful public comment on proposed rules. We also plan to develop interactive graphics for our website to help explain HHS’s regulatory activities.

For more information, please contact RetrospectiveReview@hhs.gov.

Call to Action: How else do you think we can improve the Department’s regulatory activities?

How else do you think we can improve the Department’s regulatory activities?

Get “In the Know” on Social Media

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:16:04 +0000

Site Tags:

Minority Health, Social Media, Womens Health

CDC NPIN

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Many federal agencies are choosing to use social media to help meet the goal of doing more with less. Why? Because social media tools offer free and easy pathways to reach out directly to the public. There are staff or contractor costs associated with operating them, of course, but the platforms themselves are no-cost and easy to use.

But how do you know if you’re using the right platforms? And are you using them to their full potential?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Prevention Information Network (CDC NPIN) is hosting a webcast series titled, “In the Know: Social Media for Public Health” to answer these questions. Each webcast will feature social media experts discussing how to use the latest tools for the greatest public health impact.

NPIN’s “In the Know” webcast series aims to celebrate the diversity and power of social tools. Over the next three months, these webcasts will provide basic information, tips, and hints on how public health organizations can use social media to promote public health and expand outreach initiatives. The webcasts will also provide a great opportunity to ask questions and learn from fellow public health practitioners. Use hashtag #SM4PH to follow along and ask questions on Twitter. You can also submit questions before or during the webcast to info@cdcnpin.org.

Each webcast begins at 2:00 p.m. (EST). Dates and topics include:

March 12 – LinkedIn and SlideShare
April 2 – Gaming and Mobile
April 23 – Facebook and Image Sharing (Instagram, Pinterest, and Flickr)
May 14 – Google+ and YouTube
June 4 – Social Media Measurement and Evaluation

Learn more and register for the upcoming webcast series. We look forward to your participation!

Follow @CDCNPIN and #SM4PH and help spread the word.

NOTE: This article was originally posting on the AIDS.gov Blog.

The CMS Data Navigator API

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 13:21:10 +0000

Site Tags:

API, Medicare

Last week we told you about the many open data resources available at HHS. The success of these resources depends greatly on how easy they are for developers to use. Recently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) realized that this key audience was having a hard time using their open data site. So they developed a tool to solve this problem: the CMS Data Navigator.

CMS Data Navigator available at dnav.cms.gov

The CMS Data Navigator is an easy-to-use search tool that helps visitors looking for CMS data find the appropriate data and information resources they are looking for. You can use the tool to search based on CMS programs, such as Medicaid or Medicare, or on specific health care topics or places care is given (like hospitals or nursing homes). The menu-driven navigator displays search results by document type, making it easier to locate specific kinds of information

Launching this week is the next step in the Data Navigator’s evolution, the CMS Data Navigator Application Programming Interface (API). The new API is designed to give websites and applications the ability to take the information in the CMS Data Navigator and integrate it into other applications.

Why Developers Should Use the New API

We want third party developers to use the CMS Data Navigator API for two reasons:

First, one of the major tenets of the Digital Government Strategy is that data is the fuel of innovation. At HHS, we believe CMS data is like jet fuel—it is some of the most powerful information we collect, and therefore the most useful for creating new tools to analyze health care. Some of the most sweeping changes in health care right now are powered by CMS data, including state health insurance exchanges, payment reform, and quality measurement.
Second, we want developers to use our API because third party applications can get to audiences the government cannot. It is naïve to think that the public is going to go to the source of the data every time they have a question. We don’t expect you to go to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) when you want to know the weather forecast; we know you will go to the weather app on your phone–which is based on NOAA’s data. In the same way, we want developers to create tools with our data that improve the lives of Americans every day, whether or not the public knows where the data comes from.

If you’ve had an interest in CMS data in the past but felt the process of finding the data was cumbersome, give the CMS Data Navigator a try.

If you’re a developer, tell us how you think you could use CMS data to build an application.

Twitter Chat on Latino Heart Health

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 18:26:30 +0000

Site Tags:

Nicholas Garlow, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

To conclude American Heart Month, HHS is bringing together a variety of partners to talk about Latino Heart Health, in a bilingual #CorazonChat ;on Twitter. In coordination with the HHS Office of Women’s health, American Heart Association, HHS Office of Minority Health, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and others, HHS will use@HHSLatino to host the Twitter event on Thursday, February 28th at 2:00 PM ET.

Who is Involved?

Moderator and host will be @HHSLatino.
Partners include @WomensHealth, @SaludDLaMujer, @American_Heart, @MinorityHealth, @US_FDA, @FDAenEspanol.

How can I participate?

You can RSVP to the Event and Share it on Facebook.
You can ask questions leading up the event and during the chat using#CorazonChat.

For More Information

Make the call. Don’t Miss a Beat. |Haga La Llamada.
Million Hearts offersSpanish-language resources and toolkits

New iPad App: Solve the Outbreak

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:19:43 +0000

Site Tags:

Content Strategy, Mobile Apps, Mobile Strategy

Scientists and gamers alike can now play disease detectives through Solve the Outbreak, a new iPad app from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The app lets users play the role of an officer in the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) by navigating three fictional outbreaks based on actual events EIS officers have solved. Players get clues, review data, and make decisions to determine the cause of the outbreak.

Solve the Outbreak game on iPad

In the game, participants become familiar with health tips, definitions, and information about epidemiology (the study of the causes and effects of health-related events). Players advance in rank as they earn points and can post their results on Facebook and Twitter to challenge their friends and followers. New outbreak cases will be added in the future.

The game is designed to help the public learn how CDC responds to and solves outbreaks, increasing general knowledge about real-life public health issues. This new approach to organizing and presenting information is intended as an innovative way to engage with the public, which is an overarching principle of the Digital Government Strategy. By developing a game that can be played and shared, the CDC is bringing new meaning to the Strategy’s tenets “anywhere and anytime.”

This application allows CDC to illustrate the challenges of solving outbreaks and how Agency disease detectives work on the front lines to save lives and protect people 24/7.

The Solve the Outbreak application is available in the iTunes store.

What other health topics do you think would work well as educational games?

Million Hearts™ en Español

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 23:12:38 +0000

Site Tags:

Content Strategy, Minority Health, Public Focus

A key component of the Digital Government Strategy challenges us to be more customer-centric in our development of websites and use of technology. By designing and developing websites with the customer in mind, we better serve the American public.

Continuing their initiative to serve the public, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has produced all new Spanish language material for Million Hearts™.

Heart Health a Major Concern for US Hispanics

Spanish language Million Hearts™ website

A recent survey found that high blood pressure among Hispanic/Latino groups is of particular concern. More than a quarter (26.1%) of Hispanics/Latinos reported having high blood pressure. Nearly a third (30.4%) with high blood pressure report they weren’t taking the medication that could reduce their risk for heart attack and stroke. Just 40.7% of Hispanics/Latinos said their blood pressure was under control.

Clearly there’s a need for heart health resources in Spanish. In response to this need, Million Hearts™--a national public-private partnership seeking to prevent 1 million heart attacks and strokes by 2017--released new educational resources tailored to help Hispanic/Latino individuals take control of their heart health.

Heart Health Resources in Spanish

The new educational resources provide action steps and tips:

The “Four Steps for Heart Health” fact sheet encourages individuals to work with their health care team and focus on the Million Hearts "ABCS"—Aspirin for people at risk, Blood pressure control, Cholesterol management, and Smoking cessation—to help prevent heart attacks and strokes.
“How to Control Your Hypertension/Learning to Control Your Sodium Intake: a Fotonovela” includes multi-generational advice on getting high blood pressure control by reducing sodium and is designed to be integrated into community health programs.
The Million Hearts website “En Español” offers guidance and tools for improving heart health, including a heart risk calculator, a journal to record blood pressure readings and track progress, and links to other resources.

The National Alliance for Hispanic Health guided the translation and development of materials, helping to ensure the cultural integrity of the content. This non-profit, science-based organization focuses on improving the health and well-being of Hispanics in the United States.

Visit the new Spanish version of Million Hearts™.

What other HHS websites would you like to see in Spanish?

HHS.gov/DigitalStrategy Version 3.0

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Site Tags:

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Thursday, February 21, 2013

In January we told you how we made HHS.gov/DigitalStrategy mobile friendly. Putting the site in responsive design was the first significant update we made to the site since it launched in August 2012.

Today we’re happy to show you version 3.0, with updated landing pages and a new tagging system.

Landing Pages

This site’s structure aligns with the general principles of the Digital Government Strategy. This enables us to meet the Strategy’s requirement to report on our progress towards its milestones. However, we want the site to do more. We see HHS.gov/DigitalStrategy as an opportunity to highlight examples of best practices in digital communications across the Department.

As we’ve published content over the last six months, articles have fallen into five primary categories. These are what you see in the site’s main level navigation. While the blog serves as our editorial section, the first four sections—People First, Open Data, Mobile, and Working Better—are similar to the topic sections of a newspaper. Within each section, you can find different stories on that topic area, offering insights or best practice recommendations.

To reinforce the distinction between the four topic sections and the blogs, we’ve updated the landing pages to showcase all of the stories we offer on that topic. These updated landing pages show you what is going on in the people first, mobile, open data, and working better realm around HHS.

Developing a Tagging System

From Google Analytics, we learned that visitors are unlikely to enter the site from the homepage. Instead, visitors enter through a specific article or on the landing page of one of the site’s sections. Knowing this, we thought visitors would benefit from having easier access to related content. We achieved this by cross-connecting content with topic based tags.

After reviewing each article and blog post on the site, we found that content fell into 18 different categories. We used these categories to create individual tags, which we then assigned to each page. You can find the tags on the right under ‘Popular Topics.’ We offer a short description of the tag’s meaning on its specific page.

In addition, we’re using visualization software in the right rail of the site to weight the popularity of each tag based on the number of articles and blogs we have related to it. As you can see, at the time of this post, we’ve had a lot of ‘public engagement’ stories and fewer ‘Medicare’ items.

Users can also click the tags at the top of each article and blog to find related stories.

Future Development

We plan to use this site as a test bed for new ideas at HHS. Soon we will be launching improvements to our commenting system, which will allow you to post comments using your own names or pseudonyms, thumbs up ideas, and get email alerts so you can follow comments on a post.

What other features would you like to see us try out here?

Open Data Resources at HHS

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:23:09 +0000

Site Tags:

Content Strategy, Mobile Strategy, Social Media

HHS first launched the principle of open data in 2010 with its cornerstone Open Government Plan. As the Open Data movement continues to grow, HHS continues to publish new APIs and open data resources for the public.

Through the use of open data, we provide the public with the high quality health data collected by our offices. This data can benefit the public. Actively marketing this data inspires individuals and organizations in the private sector to find innovative ways to develop useful applications, products, and services.

Open Data around HHS

Several open data programs exist at HHS, including:

CDC Data & Statistics – The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) provides access to a wide range of public health data.
HCUP Databases -- Databases on healthcare cost and utilization in the U.S. are available from the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality (AHRQ).
HealthData.Gov – HHS provides open access to health information and health datasets generated or held by the U.S. government.
CDC WONDER – The Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) shares public health data and information. WONDER is unique because it does not require special expertise. The data is ready to use on desktop applications including word processors, spreadsheet programs, or statistical and geographic analysis packages.
Health System Measurement Project: The Health System Measurement Project tracks government data on critical U.S. health system indicators. The website presents national trends data, as well as detailed views categorized by population characteristics such as age, sex, income level, and insurance coverage status.
Health Indicators Warehouse: The Health Indicators Warehouse (HIW) is a database of community health statistics from around the county. The HIW brings together quality health measurements from various offices and programs in the U.S. in a single, user-friendly data source for national, state, and community health information.
CMS Data Navigator: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provides data and information resources available through this menu-driven search tool. The tool provides data and information for specific CMS programs--such as Medicare and Medicaid--as well as specific health care topics.
Data.Medicare.gov: Data.Medicare.gov is a resource for the public, health policy researchers, and the media to access data about important health related topics, such as hospital comparisons, dialysis facilities, home health agencies, nursing homes, and medical equipment suppliers.
FDA Recalls Database: The Food and Drug Administration provides a list of regulated products recalled in press releases and other public notices. HHS works with industry and state partners to log information about recalls that may potentially present a significant or serious risk to the public. Not all recalls have press releases, thus some are not available in the database.

12 Big Ideas and Predictions for 2013

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 17:40:55 +0000

Site Tags:

Anthony Calabrese, Web Manager HealthCare.gov, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Monday, February 11, 2013

We saw some big changes across the federal government with the introduction of the Digital Government Strategy in 2012. And it was a big year for innovation at the Department of Health & Human Services, where I’m part of a great team that’s working to transform us into the digital age. Looking forward, 2013 promises to be even bigger!

My colleagues at the Digital Communications Division at HHS and the Federal Web Managers Council have teamed up to bring you 12 big ideas and predictions for 2013:

The result of a search query on
USAJobs.gov for positions with
"Social Media" in the job title.

Help Wanted: Community Manager, Social Media Manager, Social Media Strategist, Social Media Coordinator will become official titles for positions within the federal government. Why does this matter? The right social media team can react quickly and effectively in time of crisis and take advantage of a Super Bowl-sized opportunity on the fly.
2013 will be the year that ‘m-dot’ died. More web managers will move to responsive design for their websites or mobile apps for targeted content.
Not just responsive design. Responsive content too! Citizen engagement and better customer service will lead to a self-sustaining feedback loop that fuels constant iteration and constant site improvement.
At your service! The success of the Project MyUSA (formerly MyGov) will mean we are finally giving citizens the level of customization and personalization they’ve been getting for years from private sector services.
May I have your attention please? The use of rotating homepage billboards will continue regardless of their value or interest to the public.
AP… what? Structured content and “content as data” will be game changers. This year, everybody will finally understand what an API is and what it does .
#%@! Analytics and sentiment analysis will have a big impact on social media strategy in 2013 and beyond.
[INFOGRAPHIC] Infographics like this will grow in importance as a light, sharable, and printable alternative to video.
Here’s to your health! Health data will hit the mainstream as key parts of the Affordable Care Act kick in later this year. And HealthData.gov will exceed 500 open datasets.
Open Government: Open source platforms will continue to dominate as content management systems offer opportunities for collaboration across the federal government.
Git with the program! If you haven’t heard of GitHub , Twitter Bootstrap , and LESS CSS , you will by the end of 2013. They may change the way we do web.
Not just for zombies. Gamification, incentivization, and competition on social media platforms will help our content to go viral. Engagement – it’s not just for zombies anymore.

Let us know what you think and share your own ideas and predictions in the comments.Stay tuned for 12 more predictions coming soon…

Reblogged from the DigitalGov Blog.

HHS on Pinterest

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 16:18:10 +0000

Site Tags:

Entrepreneur, Public Engagement, Security Privacy

You’ll probably be seeing a lot more of the federal government on Pinterest now that the General Services Administration (GSA) has negotiated a federal-friendly terms-of-service agreement with the social network. At HHS we see the social network as an opportunity to share information on a variety of health and wellness topics. But what is Pinterest? How can it be used for health and wellness?

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a social bookmarking website. It lets people share content in a unique and visual way. Pinterest works like a corkboard—content found anywhere on the Web can be “pinned” to a virtual board. And you can create an endless number of boards.

Many users create boards to pin their favorite recipes from different food-related websites or to organize and share items they want for their birthday or homes.

You can also browse boards created by others to discover new things and gather inspiration. You can also follow other users’ boards. When someone you follow pins new content, it appears in your Pinterest feed.

Who is using Pinterest?

The majority of Pinterest users are female. About half of those females are 25-34 and have children. Pinterest receives approximately 1.36 million visitors every day, with the average amount of time spent on the site being just over 15 minutes.

Why is Pinterest so popular?

In only two years, this website has become the third-most popular social network . It falls behind only Facebook and Twitter based on monthly site visits .

With GSA’s newly minted terms-of-service in hand, several HHS offices and programs are launching accounts to promote social and health issues.

How can we use Pinterest to achieve our mission?

As the social network has grown, it has become characterized by its highly visual experience. Images convey their own meaning or can contain text to clearly promote a message or idea. Similarly, infographics have proven to be popular because they convey information both verbally and visually. Pinterest’s idea of sharing images fits in line with HHS’s desire to share important health and safety information to the public.

“Get the Facts” Pinterest board by AIDS.gov

AIDS.gov sees potential in this platform because it wants to meet people in the online spaces they are currently using. Pinterest is another social media tool AIDS.gov can use to:

Combat HIV/AIDS stigma
Promote HIV testing
Share resources

Last week, AIDS.gov launched their first Pinterest board in observance of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Prevention Information Network (CDC NPIN) uses Pinterest to:

Share content on hepatitis prevention
Promote HIV/AIDS campaigns
Encourage people to get tested
Broadcast important messages related to HIV

You can visit the CDC’s Pinterest page to learn about campaigns such as Testing Makes Us Stronger and Let’s Stop HIV Together .

The Heart Truth uses Pinterest to give women a personal and urgent wakeup call about their risk of heart disease.

In the near future, we’ll launch the first board managed by HHS’s Digital Communications Division. The board will feature content from FoodSafety.gov. We will showcase tips on food preparation and how to prevent food from spoiling during and after storms or natural disasters.

Metrics Metrics Metrics

In our efforts to make our digital strategy work better, we’re also tracking and analyzing content from several of our major websites pinned on Pinterest. By looking at what get’s pinned (and what doesn’t), we hope to improve the quality of the images and content we offer on our sites. To see what users on Pinterest are pinning from your website, go to www.pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite/ .

Related: AIDS.gov Blog Getting Started with Pinterest

What would you like to see HHS pinning about on Pinterest?

Introducing Blue Button +

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 17:13:46 +0000

Site Tags:

Are you a developer using Blue Button or someone who cares about consumer health? Check out Blue Button +. In the next step of Blue Button evolution, Blue Button+ launches and provides a blueprint for the structured and secure transmission of personal health data.

This is a cross post from Heathdata.gov by Pierce Graham-Jones, West Health Innovator-in-Residence (HHS), and Ryan Panchadsaram, Presidential Innovation Fellow, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.

Since launching the Automate Blue Button Initiative six months ago, HeathData.gov has been working toward two aims:

Ensure that every American can get access to their digital health information.
Help application developers use that data to build products and services that help individuals with their health.

Blue Button is a symbol for patient access to their personal health information in a useable and safe digital format. It has spread from the federal government to the private sector.

Thanks to the efforts of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the Office of Personnel Management and Blue Button pledge community, more than 80 million Americans can now download their health information with a click of a button.

Blue Button Improvements

While it’s been a positive movement for consumers, developers have made us aware of certain weaknesses:

The files lack structure, and
Consumers must manually move the files from the provider or payor to their third party applications.

Over the past six months, through a public-private collaborative process and building off of Meaningful Use Stage 2 standards, we have developed common implementation guidance for providers, payors, and developers to overcome these weaknesses. It’s called Blue Button+ .

What is Blue Button+?

Blue Button+ is a blueprint for the structured and secure transmission of personal health data on behalf of an individual consumer. It meets and builds on the view, download, and transmit requirements in Meaningful Use Stage 2 for certified EHR technology.

Structure: The recommended standard for clinical health data is the HL7 Consolidated Clinical Document Architecture also known as the Consolidated CDA. The C-CDA is a XML-based standard that specifies the encoding, structure, and semantics of a clinical document. Blue Button+ adopts the requirements for sections and fields from Meaningful Use Stage 2. For health plans sharing financial and claims data with their members, there is no existing standard – but the guide recommends critical data fields and suggested formats for sharing this data with consumers as well.

Transmit: In alignment with Meaningful Use Stage 2 standards, Blue Button+ uses Direct protocols to securely transport health information from providers to third party applications. Direct uses SMTP, S/MIME, and X.509 certificates to achieve security, privacy, data integrity, and authentication of sender and receiver.

Diagram of automated data transmission system for Blue Button +.

Automation: To support meaningful applications for patients, health data needs to be seamlessly transmitted when their record is updated. Blue Button+ makes it possible for a patient to request an “on-going” share of their information.

Trust: The community has begun to assemble the digital certificates that identify third party applications and “bundling” them together into easy-to-install packages. These packages can be automatically loaded into your system, so patients can be confident that their data can be transmitted to the destination of their choice.

Privacy & Security: We worked with HHS’s Office for Civil Rights to assemble a Q&A that relates to the Blue Button+ use cases.

We must thank the 68 committed organizations in the Automate Blue Button Initiative and Standards and Interoperability Framework developed by ONC. This guide would not have been possible without the amazing contributions of many EHR vendors, health plans, health systems, patient advocacy groups, application developers, and government leaders.

Next Steps

If you are an EHR vendor, payor, or provider: read the guidance, provide feedback, and let us know how you are implementing these standards. Leading data holders are already implementing these capabilities today; we will be demonstrating them at the HIMSS 2013 Annual Conference and Exhibit in March, and throughout the year, as they are put into practice.

If you are a third party application developer: we hope this is the opportunity for access to personal health information that you have been looking for. Check out the guide, there is section for you .

And if you are a consumer or patient, go ahead and ask for your health information via the Blue Button – it’s your right to access the information your doctor or health plan has about you!

Learn more at bluebuttonplus.org .

National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day Twitter Chat Tuesday 2/5

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 22:08:53 +0000

Site Tags:

Minority Health, Social Media

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Monday, February 4, 2013

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with its partners, will be hosting a Twitter event tomorrow, Tuesday, February 5, at 2pm ET, to commemorate National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD), which takes place annually on February 7.

For the Twitter chat HHS has already asked for and received numerous questions. Staff will be answering these during the chat. This is an opportunity to hear from members of African American communities across the United States, subject matter experts, and other participants as they address specific questions about HIV and AIDS in African American communities.

For more information on the event, visit blog.AIDS.gov.

Join the chat by using the hashtag #NBHAADchat or follow @DrDeanCDC for the latest information on the chat.

Top 10 Innovations of 2012

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:30:52 +0000

Site Tags:

API, Entrepreneur

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Friday, February 1, 2013

2012 was a busy year for innovation at HHS. Hear from Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer and Entrepreneur in Residence for HHS, as he lists the top 10 accomplishments in innovation at the Department. Accomplishments include the adoption of a Department-wide collaboration tool to the development of even more applications using healthdata.

Coordinating Cross-Platform Messages on Food Safety

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 22:23:31 +0000

Site Tags:

Content Strategy, Social Media

Super Bowl Sunday is a great American tradition. And, like any great American tradition, Super Bowl Sunday involves food. American's eat more on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year, except Thanksgiving.

At HHS, we see questions about proper food safety techniques pour in through Facebook, Twitter, email, and website traffic analytics. To support this surge of food safety interest, we use a coordinated content strategy to share information about cleaning, preparing, cooking and properly storing food. Tips and food safety suggestions are organized and dispensed through several different platforms. Each supports the overall goal of ensuring Americans have a happy, and healthy, game day.

Food Safety across the Web

FoodSafety.gov offers information on food safety from several HHS agencies and federal departments. In addition to maintaining the website, we use several platforms to promote its message, including:

Facebook
Twitter
Email
'Keep Food Safe' Blog
Meat and Poultry Hotline
Ask Karen (our virtual food safety representative)

These channels offer timely tips to help make everyone's game day meals winners.

What Can You Do on Game Day?

Inviting friends and family over to enjoy a buffet and watch the game is a popular way to celebrate game day. However, leaving cold foods out of the refrigerator and allowing hot foods to cool for too long can leave the door open for bacteria that can cause food poisoning.

Leaving some foods at room temperature for more than two hours can put them in the "Danger Zone," with internal temperatures between 40°F and 140°F. The "Danger Zone" is the perfect environment for harmful bacteria to grow and multiply. Because the game itself takes about four hours—and Super Bowl parties can last for several hours longer than that—it's important to pay attention to this on game day.

A lot of food combined with a lot of people focused on the big game creates a significant risk of food poisoning. There's no better time to pullout the food safety playbook and check your steps:

For more information, view our Parties and Large Groups general information page.

Please call our toll-free hotline at 1-888-674-6854 or visit us online at AskKaren.gov—available in English or Spanish—if you have other food safety questions. Please continue the discussion on our Facebook page .

Where else would you like to see Food Safety tips from HHS?

Creating SEO-friendly Content

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:20:53 +0000

Site Tags:

Katie Messner, Web Manager Usability.gov, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Last week, we told you how search engines work. This week we’re going over creating useful and findable content. To be clear, the goal isn’t to write for search engines. The goal is to write for users. By putting people first and writing consumer-focused and accessible content, what you are producing is inherently search-engine friendly.

How to Write Useful and Findable Content

Writing useful and findable content is an integral part of any successful digital strategy. When creating content:

Focus content around tasks. Focus on your users’ questions and make sure that your site provides the answers. Use words and phrases that your users actually search for. You can identify user tasks by performing market research and analyzing both qualitative (usability task analysis, user feedback data) and quantitative data (metrics analysis). This type of research also will help you meet plain language requirements because your content uses the same wording that your users are.
Create meaningful “on-page” elements. On-page elements include but are not limited to titles, meta descriptions, filenames (URL), alt text, and sub-heads. By researching the terms that users use and implementing them in these areas, you can boost your rankings and increase click-through rates on a search engine results page (SERP). Remember that search engines and social media platforms may pull your site’s metadata as part of a SERP listing or post description. Be mindful of what you include in your meta tags.
Ensure content is original. Content duplicated from page-to-page or site-to-site confuses users and search engines see it as spam. Go through your content to ensure that each page has unique, original content. Search engines now penalize sites with thin content. Thin content includes content that is completely duplicated (true duplicate), mostly duplicated with few discrepancies (near duplicate), or pages that are full of structure with too little content on them (low unique ration). Well thought-out information architecture and cross-linking reduces the need to duplicate content.
Structure your site in an intuitive way. Users like simple layouts to navigate and find information; similarly, search bots do, too. Create an information architecture that is deep enough that content buckets are meaningful and not too broad, but shallow enough that finding desirable content doesn’t require too many clicks. In general, the more clicks it takes a user to get to desirable content, the lower search engines rank it. This means that search engines perceive content closer to the homepage as more valuable.
Build strong linking networks. Links from other sites to your content essentially act as references or endorsements in the eyes of search engines. When external sites use keywords in their link text, they are helping to build your authority for that keyword or phrase. The more authority that site has, the stronger the signal to the search engine that you’re an authoritative source. Beyond building authority, it’s also important to remember that linking fundamentally is how search bots crawl. In order for a search engine to crawl a page, there must be at least one link to it. Orphan pages (pages that aren’t linked to form another page) are not crawlable. Having a link in a sitemap to an orphan page may not be sufficient for search engines, either. Also, remember that search engines do not fill out forms, so not expect pages within a funnel to get crawled.
Keep content up-to-date. It is possible for old, evergreen content to rank high in the SERP because it has built its authority overtime as a go-to resource. However, freshness is now a factor. Maintaining fresh, up-to-date content is more desirable to users and therefore to search engines.
Make content sharable and engaging. The more your content is shared, the more links you build. Consider social platforms as content hubs; leverage them to drive traffic back to your site. Among other ways, you can create sharable content by having share buttons on your page, paying attention to metadata, and including visual elements throughout your content. Also, by creating ways for users to engage through commenting or rating your content, you help to build your authority. User comments often can help you rank for the longtail, which are specific, less competitive words and phrases that make up the bulk of search queries.

Following these tips should lead to user success and ultimately search engine optimization. Remember, keep the focus on users and business goals and mold your content strategy around that. What makes for a good user experience will be search-friendly.

Next week we’ll move on to measuring the effectiveness of the tips above by discussing how to actually measure SEO success.

How Search Engines Work

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:23:29 +0000

Site Tags:

Katie Messner, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Thursday, January 24, 2013

People want relevant information fast. They go to their computer–or, increasingly, their mobile device–do a quick search for the information they’re trying to find, quickly browse through the first page of links that comes up, and are on their way.

As of February 2012, PEW reported that 73% of Americans use search engines to find information. Because of this, search engine optimization (SEO) is a necessary part of your overall digital strategy. After all, if you have valuable content but users can’t find it, nobody wins.

So the question becomes: how do you create findable content? Web managers who follow user experience best practices by providing customer-focused content have a leg up on the competition.

Building a Search Engine Optimization Strategy

This is the first blog in our 3 part series on SEO. Through this serious, we hope to provide you with an understanding of

How search engines work
Writing SEO friendly content
Measuring SEO success

Getting Started: Understanding How Web Search Engines Work

In general, for content to appear in search results, it must be:

Published to the Web
Found by search engine crawlers (bots)
Indexed by search engine databases
Ranked in terms of relevance for each query based on a set of factors (an algorithm)
Searched for (queried) by a user

The user receives ranked results for their query on the search engine results page.

Major Search Engines: Similar, But Different

What sets search engines apart really comes down to step 5 above. To rank terms or phrases in order of relevance, search engines apply an algorithm to their process. An algorithm is a mathematical equation that calculates and assigns a value for any given webpage in relation to a given search term.

Although each company’s algorithm is technically unknown secret, so as to avoid competitors stealing one another’s algorithm and to prevent web managers from manipulating results, ranking factors typically focus on:

On-the-page factors like content relevancy, proper HTML elements marked-up, site architecture
Off-the-page factors like links, social signals, trust, authority
Not having violations (black hat SEO tactics) used
Not having bots blocked

Next week, we’ll discuss how you can use the know factors of the search process to write SEO friendly content. Check back with us soon for the next installment in this series.

Roll Up Your Sleeves, Get Involved, and Get Civic-Hacking

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:06:45 +0000

Site Tags:

Entrepreneur

Brian Forde, Senior Advisor for Mobile and Data Innovation, U.S. CTO Nicholas Skytland, Program Manager, NASA’s Open Innovation Program

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

This is a cross-post from a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy blog.

Civic Hacking Day is an opportunity for software developers, technologists, and entrepreneurs to unleash their can-do American spirit by collaboratively harnessing publicly-released data and code to create innovative solutions for problems that affect Americans. While civic hacking communities have long worked to improve our country and the world, this summer will mark the first time local developers from across the Nation unite around the shared mission of addressing and solving challenges relevant to OUR blocks, OUR neighborhoods, OUR cities, OUR states, and OUR country.

National Day of Civic Hacking is a call to action for anyone who wants to make a positive impact on their town, city, and country. A coalition of leading organizations, companies, and government agencies have banded together to issue this challenge with the goal of promoting transparency, participation, and collaboration among governments, startups, and citizens. These partners will support Civic Hacking Day by hosting activities across the country that invite anyone to become part of the civic hacker community—whether you’re a newbie or an expert—and by connecting people in person or online during the weekend celebration.

The event is taking place in conjunction with Random Hacks of Kindness and Code for America‘s Brigade meetings and is being modeled after the Innovation Endeavors ’ Super Happy Block Party.

This is an opportunity for citizens in every town and city across the Nation to roll up their sleeves, get involved, and work together to improve our society by cultivating an ecosystem for innovation and change. Activities are already being planned in Augusta, GA; Alexandria, VA; Asheville, NC; Austin, TX; Bend, OR; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Denver, CO; Detroit, MI; Grand Rapids, MI; Honolulu, HI; Lexington, KY; Oakland, CA; Palo Alto, CA; Portland, ME; Milwaukee, WI; New York City, NY; Philadelphia, PA; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; and Tucson, AZ.

Ready to get involved in YOUR community? You can learn more about the National Day of Civic Hacking at: http://www.hackforchange.org/.

Leveraging Social Networks to Communicate During Public Health Emergencies

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:24:11 +0000

Site Tags:

Entrepreneur, Mobile Apps, Public Engagement

A crisis tests the effectiveness of your digital strategy. Superstorm Sandy presented the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with one of our most serious tests in recent memory.

In the aftermath of the storm, people in effected communities scrambled to plug in their smart phones anywhere that still had power. Mobile phones served as a lifeline for those checking in with loved ones and connecting to the outside world. Suddenly, people had questions about a variety of new issues, including health concerns, food safety questions, and proper cleanup procedures.

HHS needed to get the right information into the hands of the people who needed it, when they needed it. The key was communicating short, actionable messages that people could access without draining their mobile phone batteries. Twitter, with its 140 character limit, seemed to be the answer as millions were already using this social media channel to update their status and look for emergency information. HHS was able to use Twitter to share information effectively with those who needed it.

HHS used existing Twitter feeds to effectively communicate storm-related information to more than 1.6 million subscribers. These posts answered people’s questions and alerted them to hazards they might not have been aware of.

Using these accounts, we were able to quickly distribute information to help keep Americans safe and healthy before, during, and after the storm. Some examples of the tweets sent out by various HHS accounts during Sandy include:

The @samhsagov Disaster Distress Helpline (1-800-985-5990) provides 24/7 immediate help to those who need crisis counseling.

— HHSGov (@HHSGov) November 9, 2012

Using a generator? Symptoms of CO poisoning incl headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea, chest pain & confusion. go.usa.gov/Ysgk #Sandy

— ASPR (@PHEgov) November 3, 2012

Follow HHS on Twitter

Don’t have Twitter? You can sign up for receive messages from any of these accounts through your mobile phone’s text messaging system (SMS). Just text ‘follow @[the account your interested in]’ to 40404 and you’ll receive tweets as text messages.

In an emergency situation, receiving text updates is better than opening up the Twitter app because it uses less battery power. Also, even if your mobile network gets congested or you can’t connect to the Internet during an emergency, text messages can typically get through.

HHS offers a one-stop shop for all the disaster information during public health emergencies at phe.gov/emergency. PHE.gov consolidates the information we put out so you don’t have to go to multiple websites once you’re back online.

There are a number of tools you can use to help you prepare for the next disaster:

Follow the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response on Twitter at @PHEgov to receive information on public health emergency preparedness, response and recovery.
Start a conversation with your friends and family. Learn who you can count on, and find out who’s counting on you.
Create a communication and disaster response plan using the Lifeline Facebook apps.

How else can HHS help you through public health emergencies?

New Electronic Health Record Design Contest Winners Announced

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 17:37:35 +0000

Site Tags:

Ryan Panchadsaram, Presidential Innovation Fellow

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Three months ago HealthIT.gov challenged graphic designers to help HHS reimagine what patient health records could look like. We hoped that by making a patient health record more user-friendly, we could help prevent medical errors, empower patients to make better health decisions, and even save lives. HeathIT.gov received a record number of submissions from graphic designers (more than 230). Reviewers and curators were inspired by how the entrants used design concepts to make the record more human-centered and easy to use.

Winning entry 'Nightingale'

What's special is that professionals (and students) inside and outside the health care industry participated in this graphic design contest to propose real solutions. Each one of them took the simple Blue Button text file and transformed it into something more useful for a patient, their family, and the people that care for them.

The Best Overall Design came from a group of graphic designers and strategists that work together at gravitytank in Chicago. Their entry--called Nightingale --beautifully displayed a person's medications and medical history that made it easier to understand.

You can see the passion for the design challenge in each of the submissions. Studio TACK , MedPop , Blue Button Narrative , and M. Jackson Wilkinson all submitted detailed entries that captured their thought process in redesigning the patient health record. The entries from Method , Josh Hemsley , and Andrew Conn explored how the health record adapts to different form factors, like print, computers, tablets, and smartphones. The teams behind hGraph and Health Summary weren't afraid to think outside of the box.

This challenge attracted graphic designers who can engineer too. Tony Webster and Vince Lane each built out their entries and submitted working prototypes.

HealthIT.gov put together a showcase of the winning design entries for all communities to admire and learn from. The reviewers also selected a set of entries that challenged the status quo and have included those in the showcase.

Keep following this effort because it is not over. What's happening next is exciting. The curators are going to select a final design (that may combine elements from various submissions) to be built and open-sourced on the code-sharing site GitHub . The objective is to build the Bootstrap framework for the new patient health record design. With these tools, electronic health record software companies across the country will be able to integrate the final design into their products and contribute to the open-source project.

Follow along at healthit.gov.

API 101

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:03:20 +0000

Site Tags:

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are all around us. From posting a picture from Instagram to your Facebook page or clicking on a direct link on your favorite website to buying an item from Amazon, you spend a significant of time interacting with APIs and probably don't even realize it.

What is an API?

In the simplest terms, an API is a way for one system to pull information out of another system.

As humans, we consume structured information in a variety of situations every day, such as:

Flipping through channel listings
Using a recipe to prepare dinner
Reviewing bus schedules
Checking the scores of last night's game

For each of these, we know what to expect because of the information's structure:

Check out GSA’s video on what APIs mean for the federal government.

The channel listings contain the name, time, and a short description of the program
Recipes contain ingredients, measurements, and instructions
Bus schedules tell you the route number, stops, and times
Game scores list the sport, team names, and final scores

Online services also take advantage of structured information. For example, when you look up a restaurant on a smartphone, you can click on the address and you'll automatically get directions to the eatery in your phone's navigation program. In this example, the API in your smartphone knows what the address is (a place on a map) and that you'll probably want to get there from where you are now. It takes out all the hard work, so you can focus on eating!

All of these tasks use an API. APIs provide structure to information so computers can use and understand that information, the same way you use and understand a recipe or bus schedule in a single glance.

Why are APIs important?

By adding structure to information, you can find what you're looking for quickly. APIs are especially valuable because they enable developers and entrepreneurs to create applications that sort, package, and serve up information in different ways—creating new tools and programs using the same information.

Integrating information from multiple sites can make your content more powerful. Consider Google Maps. Google Maps has integrated the Wikipedia's API, enabling you to get information from Wikipedia alongside the Maps' information when you look up a place and select "Wikipedia" from the menu. There are millions of these types of applications and reasons for combining content APIs.

APIs at HHS

Currently, HHS offers 32 APIs on subjects from biomedical research to health care costs. Our Healthcare Finder API helps the public find health insurance that is best suited to their needs. Whether they are looking for private insurance for individuals, families, or small businesses, or public programs that may work for them, heathcare.gov shows the public which insurance might be best for them.

Visit www.healthdata.gov. Tell us what datasets you think should be API-enabled and explain how the data might be used. [Note: on www.healthdata.gov, you can also tell us health datasets you’d like to see added.]

From Competition to Coordination on Social Media

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:35:20 +0000

Site Tags:

Entrepreneur, Mobile Apps, Mobile Strategy, Public Engagement

HHS has almost 150 Twitter accounts. That may sound impressive, but it is not something we are necessarily proud of. HHS is a huge department–its mission spans many service areas–and with this size comes communications and coordination challenges.

We have multiple accounts for online social media networks—such as Twitter and Facebook—that support offices, Op Divs, campaigns, and individuals. Many of these accounts target the same audiences and publish information on similar topics. Why would we want citizens to subscribe to multiple sources from several different government programs on the same topic to get information? The Digital Government Strategy is confronting this issue as it applies to websites. But we need to consider how it applies to our social networking efforts as well.

When we compete with ourselves, we not only dilute our messages and confuse people, we also create more work for ourselves. Every time we create a new account, its audience begins at zero, and it must build a following to be an effective communication channel. This takes time and effort. Imagine if we could partner with existing accounts that already have the ears and eyes of our prospective audience, saving us time and energy to focus on providing quality content.

The HHS New Media Database is trying to make that collaboration a little easier. When a program is considering starting a new account in support of a campaign or initiative, we encourage them to look through the database for other accounts that cover similar topics or reach the same audience. We can identify a point of contact for any account an inquirer wishes to partner with to connect the two groups. This encourages them to work together in a combined effort to effectively reach their audience.

Consider this example:

The new site BeTobaccoFree.gov does not have a unique Twitter account, but rather leverages the previously established audiences of other Twitter accounts from across the Department focused on reducing tobacco use. BeTobaccoFree.gov has consolidated those existing accounts into one Twitter Fall on the Say It, Share It page, which displays all mentions of the #BeTobaccoFree hashtag. Further cross promotion is done with the @HHSGov Twitter (which reaches over 200K followers) and list serves that deliver messages on behalf of BeTobaccoFree from time to time.

Get started! #2013 in your year to quit. go.usa.gov/gSqB #BeTobaccoFree

— HHSGov (@HHSGov) January 8, 2013

How can HHS better engage the public using social media?

Maps and Mapping at HHS

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:45:44 +0000

Site Tags:

API, Content Strategy

Kathryn Hambleton, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Thursday, January 10, 2013

The work of HHS impacts Americans all over the country. Displaying information on maps can demonstrate the relationship between sources of information, show off the great work your office is doing, and allow for people to quickly find information relevant to a particular locality. You can create basic maps that plot simple location points, or you can implement with more advanced features including regions with layered display options.

Get Started with Mapping

Mapping involves first and foremost having the geo-located data appropriately organized and exported in the right file type: Usually an XML or KML. Without getting into the technical weeds here, just know that a map can only be as good as the data behind it.

There are many 3rd-party technologies available for mapping. HHS has signed TOS-amendmentswith Socrata and ZeeMaps, thus clearing legal barriers to using those products. A TOS-amendment with MapBox is also in the works.

Who in HHS is using location?

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has used location-based data to display information from programs that are part of The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act.

The Community College Consortia comprises five regional groups of more than 70 member community colleges in all 50 states.
The Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program provides funding to selected communities to build and strengthen their health IT infrastructure and exchange capabilities.
The Health Information Technology Extension Program consists of Health Information Technology Regional Extension Centers(RECs).

AIDS.gov has created a HIV/AIDS prevention & service provider locator widgetusing data from multiple federal agencies. Check it out:

Find HIV/AIDS Prevention & Service Providers

Enter your address, city and state, or ZIP Code:

For more information on this widget, please visit AIDS.gov.

ATSDR is using location to organize the Public Health Assessments & Health Consultations according to the state or U.S. territory and also by the ATSDR regions where they originated.

These are only a few examples of mapping being used in this Department. Are there other mapping examples in HHS? What do you think are the biggest barriers to implementation?

Now Open for Submissions: The Healthfinder.gov Mobile App Challenge

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 22:17:25 +0000

Site Tags:

By: Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

It’s important to know where to get the latest, most reliable information when making decisions about your health. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) designed Healthfinder.gov to provide resources on a wide range of health topics, including resources from over 1,400 government and non-profit organizations.

While this information is useful online, it could be more useful in the palm of your hand. How do we get it there? We want your help to figure that out. HHS just launched a competition on Challenge.gov asking you—the public—to develop a mobile phone application for Healthfinder.gov.

About the Mobile Phone Application Challenge

As users of health care services, we invite you to join forces with developers and health professionals to design a mobile phone app that makes the Healthfinder.gov’s content customizable and easy to use. The mobile application should allow users to access and use Heathfinder.gov’s wealth of information on the go.

The mobile phone app needs to include the Quick Guide to Healthy Living topics and information about preventive services covered under the Affordable Care Act. The app could also include:

Myhealthfinder tool
Real-time communication tools to stay in touch with family and friends
Community health services/locators
News, analyses, and blogs from outside resources
Social media and online networking communities
Other related open source tools

Healthfinder.gov content syndication and API is provided at Healthfinder.gov’s content syndication page. The winning development team will be awarded a cash prize of $50,000 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Learn more about this opportunity and how to enter at Challenge.gov.

Building Responsive Design Websites at HHS

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Site Tags:

Milestones, Responsive Design

How are you viewing this article right now? Google Analytics reports suggest there is a 20% chance you’re looking at it on a mobile device. In October we quietly relaunched this website in responsive design, making it the first responsive design site in HHS’s Digital Communications Division.

Responsive design is an approach to web development that uses special code to ensure a site is easy to read and scroll across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones).

While this is a new approach to website design for our team, other HHS agencies have already debuted responsive design sites. AIDS.gov was recently launched in responsive design, as was the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ updated Medicare.gov. Both sites use a version of the proprietary content management system (CMS) Percussion—the same one we use on many of our sites. This Digital Strategy site, however, was built using Drupal—a free, open source CMS. So launching this site in responsive design was an entirely new experience.

Why Create a Website in Responsive Design?

Responsive design enables websites to
function seamlessly on all these devices,
no matter their browser size.

As electronic devices evolve, the tech community is forced to rethink how we build websites. Instead of designing websites to look good only on desktop computers—with fixed widths and large graphics—we now use fluid layouts. When we use this more flexible approach, images resize automatically and ‘browser sniffing’ creates consistent user experiences across devices. A media query is information sent from your phone to our website server describing what type of device you’re using.

The alternative to responsive design is to create a completely separate version of the website for mobile devices. This increases the risk of the sites becoming out of sync or outdated.

Through responsive design we can support traditional computer users as well as tablet and smartphone users, all from one URL and code base. This approach embraces the Digital Strategy’s principle of “build once, use many times.”

How Responsive Design Works

When a device pulls up our website:

A ‘browser sniffer’ (also known as a media query) notes the physical characteristics of the device you’re using and identifies whether it is a computer, tablet, or smartphone, as well as your screen size.
Once your device is identified, the website display adjusts to your device type.

View of HHS.gov/DigitalStrategy
displayed on a desktop, tablet, and smartphone
using responsive design.

From a design standpoint, we must determine at which point the website will change from its desktop layout to the smaller version. The point (based on screen width) this change occurs is called the “breakpoint.” The breakpoint on the Digital Strategy site is 740 pixels, which is a size comparable to the landscape view of smartphone screens.

Because specific screen sizes vary, responsive design incorporates the use of fluid design. Having a fluid design structure allows images and text to resize or move slightly to adjust to a device’s screen size. This ensures that you see the best layout for your screen and means we don’t need to design for every kind of mobile device (of which there are hundreds).

You can also test this out in your desktop by manually resizing the window of your Web browser. Click the option at the top right of your browser to toggle between full screen and a smaller view. Then use the resize option at the bottom right or left to reduce the width of your browser. At about a quarter of the screen width you’ll notice the site changes its layout. This is the breakpoint.

The Future of Responsive Design at HHS

We are applying the lessons learned since launching Digital Strategy in responsive design to other priority sites. You can help us test these by visiting each site and letting us know what you think. If you find any issues, use the comments section below to tell us about them. Please include the specific URL and describe the problem you’re seeing.

How is this site working for you on mobile devices?

HHS Video Sharing on YouTube

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 18:41:54 +0000

Site Tags:

Content Strategy, Social Media

Video sharing hit the mainstream with the launch of YouTube’s video hosting site in 2005. It’s hard to remember a time when you couldn’t watch your favorite music video or digital short right when you wanted to. Offering this service led YouTube to staggering success.

According to YouTube , more than 800 million unique users visit YouTube every month. In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views—around 140 views for every person on Earth. And let’s say it took you one minute to read this far into this blog post. In that time, 72 hours of video was uploaded to YouTube.

Video Hosting on YouTube

When HHS began publishing digital shorts, recording press events, and holding video contests, it was a natural decision to choose YouTube. We want to meet the public where they are, not just where we are. So we chose to use YouTube rather than design a stand-alone video library for HHS.gov. And like any content we post to a social media site, you can find our videos embedded on our .gov website as well. In this way we demonstrate one of the key mandates of the digital strategy: Meeting the public’s needs rather than our own.

Hosting our videos on YouTube allows us to share our videos anywhere, anytime, on any device. YouTube has remained at the forefront of technical development and routinely improves the compatibility of videos for new devices. This means we don’t have to check the compatibility of our videos with every new product on the market.

Using YouTube also led to significant cost savings for the Department. Designing, developing, hosting, and maintaining a video library that contains hundreds of videos is expensive. By using a free hosting service—which also happens to be the leader in the online video field–we can devote time and resources to other projects.

Why YouTube is Great for Digital Strategy

We’re not done, though. YouTube has additional functionality that sings to the tune of the digital strategy, such as metrics. YouTube has an integrated a sophisticated analytics system, allowing video administrators to determine the popularity and user interactions of their own videos. YouTube managers have access to audience demographics, audience retention rates on videos, information on where and when people are watching the videos, and more.

A bonus of this approach to video hosting is that, because YouTube is a Google product, YouTube’s analytics system integrates with our existing Google analytics program. This means we don’t have to develop an all new analytics system just for videos.

Visit the official HHS YouTube channel and subscribe to the videos that interest you.

What videos would you like to see on HHS’s YouTube channels?

CDC Launches Influenza Application for Health Care Professionals

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 18:42:30 +0000

Site Tags:

Mobile Apps

Physicians and other health care professionals are constantly on the move, taking care of patients and juggling the demands of life. This can make it difficult to find time to visit CDC’s website for the latest influenza news and recommendations.

To support clinicians in their evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of influenza during the flu season, CDC launched a free mobile phone app for clinicians and other health care professionals. The CDC Influenza App provides the latest recommendations and influenza activity updates on iPads, iPhones, or iPod touch devices.

CDC Influenza (Flu) app for iPad

The mobile phone application provides easy access to a wide range of information, including:

National flu activity
Influenza vaccination recommendations
Diagnosis and treatment of influenza
Laboratory testing for influenza
Guidelines on influenza antiviral drugs and influenza infection control

Videos featuring CDC subject matter experts discussing influenza topics are available as well, and viewers can order CDC posters and pamphlets in the workplace or distribute to patients.

When mobile devices connect to the Web, the CDC Influenza App automatically downloads the latest CDC content directly from the CDC website. Visitors can personalize their experience within the mobile app with features like highlighting, notes, and bookmarking. It’s also possible to email information directly from the app. The CDC Influenza App supports content sharing through social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. The CDC is planning to support Android devices in a future update.

Download the CDC Influenza app for free today from the Apple App Store ! As an official application of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC will continue to support the mobile phone app with new features and updates.

What other apps would you like to see?

Usability.gov: Tell Us What You Really Think

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:28:43 +0000

Site Tags:

Accessibility, Public Engagement

Katie Messner, Web Manager Usability.gov, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Thursday, December 20, 2012

As we begin our redesign of Usability.gov, it is our mission to make it the leading resource for user experience guidelines and best practices. The website redesign will ensure that the site stays credible and timely, while still providing some reference material that remains applicable over time.

We plan to follow the same usability best practices and methods outlined throughout the site and share our progress and lessons learned with you as we go.

We’re Open to Your Feedback

To provide useful tools, content, and guidance, we need your help. We’re looking for your feedback and are open to the responses we receive.

We‘ve created a user feedback survey for the site to easily gather your thoughts and suggestions. Our goal is to:

Learn what works on the site
Determine what you would like to see changed or added

Please take the survey and tell us what you think. This survey will be available until January 1, 2013, but make it your resolution to respond today.

You can also join the conversation by commenting below. Talk to us on Twitter using hashtag #UsabilityReboot and follow @UsabilityGov to learn more about the redesign.

Yammer Social Networking: An Internal Communications Win!

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 15:25:20 +0000

Site Tags:

Mobile Strategy, Security Privacy

Recently HHS launched a Department-wide social networking tool called Yammer to help employees better engage with one another. The Department has more than 75,000 employees spread across semi-independent organizations throughout the country. This presents great challenges. Having an internal social network open to all employees allows HHS staff to communicate and collaborate with one another across geographic and bureaucratic divisions to solve problems.

How Social Networking Tools Can Improve Internal Processes

There are many examples of “Yammer wins” already. Last week, one of our employees was attempting to get a website unblocked from our departmental internet filters. After submitting his request, he posted a note on the social network to discuss the process and find out what others thought.

His observations appeared in HHS’s Yammer newsfeed, and several others quickly chimed in with stories of their own experiences. Within a short period of time Andrew was connected with the person in charge of his request. In just a few hours his ticket was complete. This was much quicker than the 24-hour standard turnaround time.

While the fast turnaround time was great for Andrew, the more important effect of this exchange came from the conversation itself. Because Andrew’s note popped up in the general HHS newsfeed, other employees were able to make suggestions on improving the process. Users wanted:

To receive an email notification when their request had been submitted
To see next steps included in that email
To receive a resolution email letting them know their request was completed

The tech team was able to begin working on site changes immediately with the feedback they received. It was that quick.

This is truly a collaboration success story for internal communications. It’s a great example of how social networking tools can add value to large organizations.

How do you think Web 2.0 technologies can help internal communications in government?

New Tool to Protect Health Privacy on Mobile Devices at HHS

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 19:18:38 +0000

Site Tags:

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Health records are open to potential risks when health care providers and organizations use laptops, tablets, and smartphones to view or update patient records. However, research shows that only 44% of survey respondents and surveyed organizations encrypt the data on their mobile devices. And according to a recent study, less than half of the surveyed health care organizations discuss ways to protect mobile devices in privacy training.

Worried About Using a Mobile Device for
Work? Here's What to Do

To address the issue of data security in an increasingly mobile digital environment, HHS launched HealthIT.gov, which provides guidance and support to protect health information. Called “Your Mobile Device and Health Information Privacy and Security,” this site provides:

Resources such as videos, fact sheets, and downloadable posters to educate health care providers and organizations about protecting and securing health information against potential risks
Frequently asked questions that offer solutions to common issues, including how to respond when a mobile device is stolen and safeguarding health information while using public wifi
Actions health care providers and organizations can take to determine their mobile device security needs and develop and implement appropriate device policies and procedures

Through education and simple measures health care providers and organizations can greatly reduce the risk to health information.

Using Technology to Improve Prescription Medication Use

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:31:33 +0000

Site Tags:

Mobile Apps, Public Engagement

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Monday, December 17, 2012

Taking prescription medications as directed can improve health and quality of life, especially for people with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. But patients don’t always follow directions, and it is becoming a public health issue. People often:

1^st place winner Remind Me Again

Do not fill prescriptions when they’re needed
Stop using medications before they should
Take less of the medication than directed
Split pills
Skip doses

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that not following the instructions on prescription medications can lead to new health problems. In fact, patients who do not follow their medication’s instructions have a 50-85% higher mortality rate than those who do.

Through the Managing Meds Video Challenge, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology invited the public to submit short videos sharing how technology can help people manage their prescription medications effectively and improve health and safety.

The winners all show different uses of health technology—from smartphones to the Web—to help them remember to take their medications. The top three entries and the popular choice award all received cash prizes.

Watch all the winning videos at Challenge.gov.

You can follow the sponsor of the contest on Twitter at @ONC_HealthIT or use #ManageMeds to join the conversation.

Super Early Bird Registration for Health Datapalooza 2013 Now Open!

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:25:03 +0000

Site Tags:

API, Entrepreneur, Security Privacy

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Registration for the Health Data Initiative Forum IV: Health Datapalooza is now open! Now, through December 21, 2012, take advantage of the super early bird registration. Next year’s event will be held June 3^rd and 4^th 2013.

Health Datapalooza IV is the fourth annual national conference born from government efforts to liberate health data and addresses the effective use of health data by companies, startups, academics, government agencies and individuals.

The two-day event includes:

Keynote presentations, newsmaker panels, breakout groups, training sessions, meet-ups, code-a-thons, and other interactive sessions focused on health data applications.
Rapid-fire announcements of business deals, data competitions, new academic programs and projects, cross-sector collaborations, and other opportunities for engagement.
An “Apps Expo” which allows attendees to explore innovative new tools and services, and interact directly with the developers and data experts who create the applications.

The hallmark of the event is a national competition that searches for the best and most innovative uses of health data in apps and products and that culminates in live demonstrations of the winning applications to Forum attendees.

HHS CTO Bryan Sivak Talks Health Data on NPR

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:41:14 +0000

Site Tags:

Mobile Apps, Security Privacy

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

HHS Chief Technology Officer Bryan Sivak was featured in yesterday's Kojo Nnamdi Show in an hour-long segment entitled, "Liberating (And Protecting) Health Data."

You can listen to the full segment in which Bryan was featured on the program’s website, transcript here .

Key quote: “In a lot of ways, we are trying to act as a catalyst or an enabler for this sort of sea change in health IT. There are any numbers of departments that work on various aspects of this, and it's everything from encouraging doctors to pick up health technology, to implement electronic medical record systems, all the way through to enabling patients to access their data in a machine-readable and seamless format.” – HHS CTO Bryan Sivak

Email Newsletters Putting People First

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 19:33:50 +0000

Site Tags:

Mobile Strategy, Public Focus

We are putting the principles of the digital government strategy into practice at HealthCare.gov. Earlier this year we released the HealthCare Finder API. We are now moving forward with consumer-friendly improvements to our email newsletter efforts.

In mid-November, HealthCare.gov made the following changes to our GovDelivery e-newsletter efforts:

Your Feedback: We added six new topics to our email updates list based on consumer feedback and frequently asked questions.
Plain Language: We followed plain language best practices to rewrite all 16 topic names and descriptions.
Mobile-Ready: Our subscribers now have the option to receive updates by text message on their mobile device.
Shared Services: We leveraged the GovDelivery Network to promote our best topics as featured content. During the sign-up process, users are prompted to subscribe to related topics from across HHS and the federal government.

The results since November 14^th have been dramatic:

From October 14 to November 7: We received nearly 7,500 new subscriptions.

From November 14 to December 7: We received more than 40,000 new subscriptions.

That’s an increase of 440% from the previous reporting period.

And more changes are coming! We are kicking off a month-long testing effort to improve the content of our email newsletters. We hope to begin using better email templates that provide a great user experience on your desktop, tablet, and smartphone. Soon you may be able to sign up for updates by texting us.

What kind of digital communications would you like to see more of from HealthCare.gov? Email, blogs, social media, infographics, video or something else?

Glad You Asked: Making PubMed Mobile

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 21:51:10 +0000

Site Tags:

Glad You Asked, Mobile Strategy

Chris Bernstein, Digital Communications Division, HHS

Monday, December 10, 2012

On several of our posts, we’ve asked you to tell us what information you’d like to see optimized for mobile devices.

Recently, four commenters asked for the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) popular PubMed tool to be made mobile-friendly. The good news is it already is—in two different ways!

PubMed application for iOS

The PubMed mobile site allows you to search the same 22 million citations you can access on the desktop site from your mobile browser. You do the same thing using PubMed mobile applications for iOS and Android smartphones.

We like that NLM chose to create both a mobile site and an app version.

In this case, the staff at the NLM wanted to offer the wealth of information available through PubMed in a quick and accessible format for mobile users. They weren’t trying to add additional functionality to the mix, just bring this popular tool to the palm of your hand.

To access the mobile site, just search for ‘pubmed’ in the browser of your smartphone and you will be redirected to the stripped-down mobile version.

For those who use PubMed more often, you can quickly access the tool through the downloadable app. This can save time otherwise spent navigating to the website.

This dual approach allows NLM to meet the needs of two kinds of users. Frequent users can rely on their app and infrequent users can use the tool through the mobile site. It’s a win-win!

Updating with the Times: Hello from the new Digital Communications Division

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 21:23:34 +0000

Site Tags:

Prudence Goforth, Director, Digital Communications Division

Thursday, November 29, 2012

I’m delighted to announce a significant milestone in the evolution of the Department’s communications efforts: Effective today, ASPA’s Web Communications and New Media Division becomes the Digital Communications Division.

Why change our brand?

When I came to HHS in 2006, it was to head the Web Communications Division. We essentially built and managed websites for the Department.

HHS’s web outreach grew, and so did we. We started adding audio, then video. Then came Facebook and Twitter. And so we launched the Center for New Media, and became the Web Communications and New Media Division.

Now we see mobile exploding onto the scene. Just this September, Facebook reported that more than half of its one billion active users were using Facebook on tablets and smart phones. Mobile use of our sites is growing 20-30% a year. PayPal reported yesterday that financial transactions on mobile devices increased 120% this holiday weekend over last year.

This year brought the new Digital Strategy, memorializing principles we’ve embraced for a long time. We now create sites using responsive design. We’re transitioning to more open source tools and platforms. We’ve began creating APIs to make our data easy for others to use. We moved to the cloud.

So we considered renaming ourselves again to reflect all we do. Someone suggested we become the Web, Social Media, Mobile, Open Source, and API Division (WSMMOSAD?). How silly would that be?

Instead, we decided to go right to our foundation: Digital—the common thread that unites all of our efforts across platforms, tools, and technologies.

And so, starting today, we become: The Digital Communications Division (DCD).

It will some take time to officially make the change. But as we know, change is fast these days—and inevitable. We think this new name positions us well for the future, whatever it throws at us.

QuitPal: An Innovative App to Quit Smoking

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 20:25:08 +0000

Site Tags:

Mobile Apps

What if the tools to quit smoking were easier to find than cigarettes?

Hoping to capitalize on the popularity of smartphones—more U.S. adults have them in their pockets than cigarettes—the National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed QuitPal, a mobile app to help people quit smoking.

NCI’s new app QuitPal

The free app provides tools to help those who want to be smoke-free with research-based strategies, including:

A calendar function to set quit dates, track financial goals, and schedule reminders
A log to track daily smoking habits
Graphic features showing money saved and packs of cigarettes not smoked
Health milestone alerts and craving tips to keep users motivated
Facebook and Twitter integration to update friends when goals are reached
Video diary features and the ability to receive personalized video messages from loved ones
Access to NCI’s Cancer Information Service by toll-free phone line or live Web chat

Because most mobile applications designed to help smokers quit are not based on research, they often lack the information needed to be successful. To address this gap, NCI conducted three rounds of research with smokers to guide the development of QuitPal.

To begin, NCI met with focus groups of current smartphone users to learn how participants select the health-related apps they use. Researchers also asked the participants why they use some apps and delete others.

In a second round of testing, NCI shared design mock-ups of the app with adult smokers with smartphones. Researchers gauged the participants’ reactions to the mock-ups and asked how important the participants felt current features were.

In the third and final round of testing, the app was field tested to confirm the stability of the code. During this time the app was beta-tested with adult smokers. User feedback was then incorporated before the public launch.

NCI’s research shows that behavior intervention reinforces positive health change and can help smokers quit. Based on this research, QuitPal offers specific information to keep smokers busy during cravings and tips to stay away from temptations.

Visit SmokeFree.gov to download the app or search “QuitPal” in the iTunes App Store. It is available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

See a list of HHS mobile apps to support a healthy body and mind.

What other apps would you like to see?

Introducing assets.cms.gov

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:38:15 +0000

Site Tags:

API, Medicare

Jon Booth Director, Website & New Media Group, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Have you heard about assets.cms.gov? Probably not, but if you work on or use CMS' websites, it is a tool you use every day.

The Web & New Media Group (WNMG) started building assets.cms.gov about 10 months ago and completed the full launch of the site as part of the Medicare.gov redesign on August 21, 2012.

assets.cms.gov represents a shared code library for all of CMS' public websites. As websites (ours and everyone else's!) have grown in complexity over the past decade, they have come to be built on many common code and image libraries. These include the following file types:

Website headers & footers
Javascript libraries
CSS (stylesheet) files
Shared images
HTML snippets

Many of these files are developed by CMS and/or contractors, but there are also many common code libraries used across almost all commercial and Federal websites these days. Common libraries used by CMS include:

jQuery
Twitter Bootstrap
YUI (Yahoo! User Interface Library)

By placing all of these common code files onto assets.cms.gov, we can use the same code across all of CMS' websites. assets.cms.gov supports both a global directory of assets used across all websites as well as folders for site-specific code libraries (e.g., www.cms.gov, www.medicare.gov, etc.).

Some of the benefits of this approach include:

The ability to cache files across all of CMS' websites, resulting in better website performance
The ability to release new versions of code libraries across all websites at once
A common set of code built & tested to Section 508 compliance and cross-browser performance

I've mentioned how WNMG is using assets.cms.gov to support development of the public websites, but any CMS web-based project can be built against the assets.cms.gov framework. Using assets.cms.gov for your web project gains you all of the benefits above and also saves you development time by leveraging the work that has already been done.

assets.cms.gov Documentation & Downloads are available online. We are continuing to iterate and grow the amount of documentation online, so please check back frequently.

If you are interested in using assets.cms.gov for a web development project you are working on, please let us know in the comments. We are happy to address any questions you have or to provide additional information. Your feedback will help make this project better!

Health 2.0 Developer Challenge Award Winners

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 17:53:34 +0000

Site Tags:

Glad You Asked, Mobile Strategy, Social Media

Chris Bernstein, Web Communications and New Media Division, HHS

Monday, October 22, 2012

HHS held an Innovation Challenge and patients were the winners!

Winners for the Blue Button Mash-Up Challenge and the EHR Accessibility Module Challenge were announced last week during the Health 2.0 Sixth Annual Fall Conference in San Francisco.

The first Challenge required applicants to ‘mash up’ Blue Button data with other open health data and information. “Blue Button” data is personal health information a patient can download through their health plan, doctor, or hospital.

The second Challenge asked solvers to create and test a tool that makes it easy for people with disabilities to access and interact with the health data stored in their electronic health records (EHR).

The Blue Button winner, iBlueButton , submitted by Humetrix of San Diego, is a dual-app system. The Patient version provides an intuitive, secure solution consumers can use to connect to their Blue Button and other health records. The Physician version transmits in-app generated Visit Summaries or Patient Records using Push technology to the patient. iBlueButton includes features such as patient-optimized and physician-optimized displays and dashboards, medication look-up, and new tools to download or print health information.

Diagram of iBlueButton Patient and Physician app relationship

The EHR Accessibility winner, Pinaxis, created Apollo, is a fully accessible Internet portal that will allow patients to interact with any provider’s existing EHR system over the Web. Apollo’s patient portal is designed to enhance the user experience for patients, which is currently plagued by serious accessibility concern hindering use by people of diverse disabilities, including those who have vision, hearing, intellectual, manual dexterity, mental health, developmental and other types of disabilities. This tool is currently being tested as a prototype; more information can be found with the Pinaxis Medical Group .

The challenges are part of ONC's Investing in Innovation program which utilizes prizes and challenges to encourage innovation. The goal of these challenges is to obtain solutions to intractable health IT problems. A list of past winners of ONC challenges can be found here. Aligned with the administration’s innovation agenda, i2 is the first federal program to operate under the authority of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010, signed into law by President Obama on Jan. 4, 2011. For details, see http://www.health2challenge.org/category/onc/ .

Glad You Asked: Information on Smartphones and Social Media

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:56:26 +0000

Site Tags:

Richard Stapleton, Deputy Director, Web Communications and New Media Division

Thursday, October 18, 2012

So we are making information more accessible on Smartphones and Social Media, how does this help me if I don’t use these technologies? Several have asked us such questions.

Comment:

I have neither a "smart phone" or a Tablet. I am 70 yrs. of age and "home bound", I have a normal dumb new cellphone, I also have a MacPro Desktop Computer. I spend all day on this computer doing important things.

Medicare is very important, it is astounding that so called smart phones are being catered to, and astounding to me that now that includes such importance regarding anything Medicare! I did not read that Mac's were mentioned above. Anyone who bothers to even read these comments need to know so called Smart Phones are not safe, and totally inappropriate for information regarding Medicare. So what is coming soon for all of those like myself? As for Social Media, nothing important should ever use the so called Social Media. We are in a time where hackers already are doing well. Social Media for all important things is totally inappropriate.

My mind is totally fine, please get some sense and do not use either Social Media or Cellphones. Your wonderful new plan is quite Scary!

Comment:

I find the web articles invaluable. I do not use Twitter. It's on my iPhone, but being a baby boomer I have never been shown how to use it effectively. I know technology is rapidly inserting itself into emergency management and public health, but many of us seasoned vets haven't fully embraced it.

Comment:

The government shouldn't require us to use social media in order to comment on health care programs.

We should have reliably neutral information on choosing health care programs

Response:

The mobile friendly updates we’ve made to Medicare.gov and Cancer.gov don’t mean new information can only be accessed on a smartphone. The great information that is on these traditional desktop sites can now just be viewed quicker and easier on smartphones. We have not separated the information by any means. We are working to bring that information to the broadest audience possible, so we’re making it viewable across all platforms. Designing a website so it can be viewed well on a desktop computer, table, smart phone, and anything else in between just means we’re optimizing the great content on that one site for all users. This actually saves the government money by not requiring us to double and triple efforts based on specific technologies.

The same can be said for our moves into social media. Offering “Twitter Townhalls” and Trending Illnesses in Social Media doesn’t mean that this information is only accessible in these formats. If you have a question about bullying, you can still call the StopBullying helpline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) . If you have questions about trending illnesses around the country, you can still get that information from the CDC. We are just offering new opportunities to talk with subject matter experts across the digital landscape. This doesn’t mean traditional avenues are no longer available.

Bring Your Own Data: Opportunities and Challenges in Using Citizen-Generated Data

Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:35:14 +0000

Site Tags:

API, Entrepreneur, Public Engagement

Sara Harris, Fusion Cell, Office of the Asst. Secretary for Preparedness and Response, HHS

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Have you ever reported traffic congestion or an accident to the local radio station or a smartphone app? Have you measured snow or rain fall for your local TV station? These are basic types of citizen-generated data.

Emergency health response agencies, including the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), already uses citizen-generated data passively collected through social media channels like Twitter to track trending illnesses. At ASPR, we want to learn more about other applications of citizen-generated data and how this data can help us understand what is going on in a community following a disaster. Why are citizens participating in other projects? What is the quality of the data that is reported? What challenges or limitations exist when using citizen-generated data?

As we discussed this concept with colleagues at other agencies we quickly realized we weren’t the only ones interested in learning more. So, with our federal agency partners and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, we will be hosting a day-long forum Nov. 14, in the Washington, DC area entitled: “Bring Your Own Data: opportunities and challenges in using citizen-generated data for situational awareness.”

This event is open to anyone who may have an interest in citizen-generated data. Whether you’re a part of academia or the government, an environmentalist or epidemiologist, we’d love to see you there!

During the forum, we’ll hear about and discuss how citizens have contributed to studies, the value citizen-generated data has brought to projects, and the lessons learned through citizen involvement. At the end of the forum, we hope to have a better understanding of the challenges to using data provided by citizens, ideas for overcoming the challenges and limitations, and how this data can be used for situational awareness.

The event will include discussion and panel presentations on the following topics:

Transforming Research with Passive Citizen Data
Bring Your Own Data—Participatory Data Collection
Building Situational Awareness With Passive and Participatory Data
ASPR Challenge Competition Winner Announcement
What can we learn from citizens generating ecological data?
What can we learn from citizens sharing genomic and personal data?
How Federal Agencies and Federal Partners are Using Citizen-Generated Data

For more information and to participate in the forum, visit the registration page. If you have any questions about the forum please feel free to contact fusion.info@hhs.gov.

What kinds of citizen-gathered information is available and how would you suggest using it?

Round Five of HHSinnovates Concludes: Lessons Learned

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 14:02:24 +0000

Site Tags:

Gregory Downing, D.O., Ph.D.Executive Director for Innovation for the Immediate Office of the Secretary at HHS

Friday, October 12, 2012

On Monday September 24, 2012 Secretary Sebelius announced the winners of the fifth round of the HHSinnovates Program and the winner of the first ever “People’s Choice Award”. For this competition, we saw projects initiated by numerous offices and agencies across the Department.

HHSinnovates People’s Choice Award winners from NIOSH

For the first time ever, the HHSinnovates Program featured a “People’s Choice Award”, in which all six finalists were showcased for public voting. The results were astronomical; nearly 18,000 votes were cast and more people than ever before were exposed to the great innovations led by HHS employees in collaboration with our partners. The three projects selected as the Secretary’s picks were the Food and Drug Administration’s 100,000 Genome Project, the Health Resources and Services Administration’s National Health Service Corps Jobs Center, and the Center for Disease Control’s Coal Dust Explosibility Meter. In addition to being a Secretary’s pick, the Coal Dust Explosibility Meter was selected for the first ever People’s Choice Award. The Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Thomas Friedan, personally accepted this award on behalf of his agency. The three projects that were honorable mentions are the Indian Health Services’ Online Food Handler Training Project, the National Institutes of Health’s RePORT, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ (NIAID) Free Stuff.

In consultation with innovators, important and interesting lessons learned were identified.

Fail and fail fast – Fail? A concept not usually embraced in government, but the HHSinnovates program encourages risk-taking and the innovative spirit. As noted at the awards ceremony by Dr. Thomas Friedan, “Fail early and fail often so long as we know we’re failing so we can adjust our way of working because ultimately we are going to be successful by getting that feedback loop and iteratively improving the effectiveness of our work. Innovation is about continuous improvement.” A key strategy used by many of our innovation teams was to divide their projects up into phases and to test out each phase as quickly as possible in order to discover the “failures” and correct them as expeditiously as possible.

Persistence Pays Off – There were six finalist teams in the fifth round HHSinnovates, out of an initial pool of 62 nominations; some of those submissions were from applicants who had previously submitted their project. Those who resubmitted solicited input from the review team and improved their submissions and worked with others in their agency.
Don’t stop innovating because you did just enough – This has been a reoccurring theme for many of the finalists from the previous five rounds of HHSinnovates. After being selected as an HHSinnovates finalist, many of the teams don’t stop innovating, they continue to work on their project to make it better, be it increasing functionality or making it scalable. For example, of the most recent finalists, NIAID’s Free Stuff project team already has plans to scale their project to other parts of NIH, which may lead to savings of thousands of taxpayer dollars. Ultimately, the HHSinnovates program celebrates HHS employees who solve critical problems, think in creative ways and implement innovative practices; just because the awards ceremony is over doesn’t mean teams stop progressing and innovating.

The next round of HHSinnovates starts October 22nd, with public voting occurring later this winter. To watch the awards ceremony in its entirety and for more information on all past winners of the contest go to the HHSinnovates page.

Congratulations to all the participants!

Using Videos on Facebook to Encourage Dialogue

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 15:42:45 +0000

Site Tags:

Kathryn Harben and Lauren Elsberry, both of the Million Hearts™

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Million Hearts™ recently launched a new educational program—Team Up. Pressure Down —to help pharmacists engage consumers in a conversation about blood pressure control. Animated videos and custom Facebook tabs provide a targeted method for reaching audiences with useful educational tools.

According to a recent Vital Signs report from the CDC, more than half of Americans with hypertension (also known as high blood pressure) don’t have their blood pressure under control. Millions more Americans aren’t even aware that they have the condition. Controlling high blood pressure is a key component of the Million Hearts™ initiative. Team Up. Pressure Down. offers support for pharmacists and other health care professionals to help patients more effectively manage their blood pressure.

Blood Pressure Basics Animated Video

A key component of the program’s outreach strategy is the use of animated videos embedded on the website and the tabs of the Million Hearts Facebook page to explain what blood pressure is, how treatments work in the body, and why viewers should care. In the past few years, online video consumption has risen dramatically and videos are a popular content type for sharing with friends.

The three short animated films created for Team Up. Pressure Down. invite viewers into a quirky neighborhood (featuring a pill-bottle shaped pharmacy) and introduce them to engaging characters (including Franny, the family dog). This one-of-a-kind video series--created using 2D and 3D animation--adds a fresh perspective to a very serious topic, and explains the role that pharmacists can play in helping people manage their high blood pressure.

Customizing Facebook Tabs to Promote Health Resources

Team Up. Pressure Down. resources are available in custom tabs on the Million Hearts™ Facebook page (and at millionhearts.hhs.gov). Million Hearts™ made the decision to post the videos and other resources on Facebook because of the great success to date with reaching and interacting with people interested in heart health. Targeted Facebook advertising has helped the initiative acquire 52,000 fans who match the ages and ethnicities of people at greatest risk for heart attack and stroke.

With higher-than-average engagement rates and a large existing fan-base, the strategic decision to house Team Up. Pressure Down. materials on Facebook was almost a no-brainer. The custom tabs are designed to provide easy-to-understand information to the people who need it, where they already are. The tabs prompt users to “Share” and “Like” resources, extending the reach of the program by capitalizing on users’ social connections.

With the added benefit of attracting more pharmacists to the Facebook page through the Team Up. Pressure Down. campaign, pharmacists and patients can participate in the conversation online. The Million Hearts^TM Facebook page now brings patients and pharmacists to the same space to comment on postings and begin a dialogue to help patients understand the value of teaming up with their pharmacist offline too.

What ‘People First’ Means for You

Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:23:35 +0000

Site Tags:

Public Focus

A big part of “People First” is customer feedback. Many of the HHS websites ask, “Was this page helpful?” and seek feedback on your user experience. We use that information to make our websites better. On Digital Strategy, we’re asking you for ideas, and we’re listening. That’s what “People First” is at its core.

In an article promoting the consolidation of consumer content into “Web Supermarkets,” where you get all the information you need in one stop, we asked you this…

What would you like to see in a Web supermarket? Tell us your experience and suggest a topic you would like consolidated on a single website.

The responses have been great! Many of you want websites on specific diseases and illnesses. You’ve also suggested we have consolidated information on child care, disaster preparedness, nutrition, and drug abuse assistance—the list goes on!

Here’s what happens next.

Continue to submit your ideas. Very soon, we’ll be asking you to vote on those ideas. The most popular will rise to the top and we’ll begin to take action. [And if you haven’t already—submit your idea.]

What would you like to see in a Web supermarket? Tell us your experience and suggest a topic you would like consolidated on a single website.

Trending Illnesses in Social Media

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:18:27 +0000

Site Tags:

Nicole Lurie, M.D., M.S.P.H., Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, Department of Health and Human Services

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Studies of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the Haiti cholera outbreak demonstrated that social media trends can indicate disease outbreak more quickly than traditional surveillance methods. Early identification of an outbreak allows health officials to respond quickly to protect communities.

Challenge Winner www.MappyHealth.com

Local health departments asked my office, HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (www.phe.gov) for help in using social media to better understand health trends in their communities. So we decided to harness the innovation of the public and put out a challenge to developers to create a user-friendly web-based tool that uses open source Twitter data to automatically deliver a list of the top five trending illnesses from a specified region in a 24-hour time period. The goal is for health agencies to be able to better determine emerging public health threats by cross-referencing this data with conventional surveillance systems and identifying baseline trends.

The entries were impressive and showed a lot of imagination and diverse approaches. The winning entry, www.mappyhealth.com , tracks 25 health conditions using over 200 associated health terms. Taking real-time data from the Twitter API, MappyHealth analyzes tweets to determine which condition they may fall under and then applies qualifiers to further verify the data. Visitors to the site can visualize data in a number of ways including by condition, location and through time-frame trend graphs spanning two, four, 24 and 48 hours. MappyHealth also links to MedlinePlus (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/) where people can get further information about conditions they see on the site.

The MappyHealth team actually formed through Twitter when Brian Norris reached out looking for teammates via the challenge hashtag, #nowtrending2012, and found Mark Silverberg and Charles Boicey. The team wins a $21,000 prize for the application, which team members will present during an HHS-sponsored public forum discussing citizen-generated data.

We are just at the beginning of learning about what this kind of data means for situational awareness, research, and individual and community empowerment. Reliable and publicly available real-time information has the potential to modernize our public health system and better protect communities. We’re excited to see such creativity and hope this stimulates even more innovation.

New Media Collaboration

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 21:54:34 +0000

Site Tags:

Public Engagement, Social Media

HHS is huge. We have more than 300 social media accounts scattered across the Department, so it can be a challenge to produce unified campaigns and messages.

The HHS Center for New Media is a growing community that connects people, shares best practices, and works together on those social media projects.

The Center for New Media maintains a social media database of all HHS social media accounts, holds monthly calls, publishes a blog, and provides guidance on using social media.

Last year, they began a webinar series to address interest in specific tools and practices. The center brought together several HHS individuals on a topic to present on best practices and share resources with the entire HHS community. The HHS New Media Webinar Series, available on demand, has covered ideation tools, innovations, Twitter chats, and challenges to name a few.

How can HHS better engage the public using social media?

Building Public Engagement Using “Twitter Townhalls”

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 16:22:48 +0000

Site Tags:

Deborah A. Temkin, Ph.D., Bullying Prevention Coordinator, U.S. Department of Education

Thursday, October 4, 2012

StopBullying.gov Twitter Townhall

One of the challenges with social media in the federal government is how to interact directly with followers. Often, we have limited capacity to reply to direct questions. Holding events such as a twitter townhall, however, allows a set timeframe for followers to directly interact with government representatives.

On March 20, 2012 @StopBullyingGov participated in its first Twitter Townhall hosted by the CDC and was joined in addition by the Anti-Defamation League. The “#VetoViolence” townhall on bullying was one of a series held by CDC on topic relating to youth violence. Widely promoted during the weeks prior, the chat attracted many users asking questions about bullying and attracted 207 visits to StopBullying.gov using dedicated campaign links.

During the chat, the dedicated hashtag was seen trending worldwide. Engagement was high, with users asking questions using the hashtag, as well as users joining in on answering questions asked. In the preparations and throughout the chat itself, several best practices emerged in holding a Twitter Townhall:

Having both Federal and Non-Federal official participants is useful to be responsive to questions that may be beyond the government’s purview to respond.
Pre-preparing tweets is essential to responding quickly and accurately to inquiries. Using campaign tagged links to information on federal websites is especially helpful to understand the impact of the tweets.
When having multiple handles respond, it is critical to delineate topic responsibility and have as many of the tweeters gathered together in a central location or on a conference call to determine who will respond to what questions.
Allowing room for users to retweet is an important consideration in quickly crafting tweets
Not every question will be answered. Having multiple people viewing the twitter chat to help identify questions is especially useful with high levels of engagement.

We hope to repeat such engagement on our next Twitter Townhall, hosted by the Washington DC Office of Human Rights on October 5 at 3pm EST. That event, using hastag #BullyFreeDC , will have @StopBullyingGov , @GLSEN, @PACERCenter, @TrevorProject, and @SafeSchoolsNow as official participants in the chat.

For more information on how HHS is coordinating social media projects and public engagement, visit the Working Better and People First sections of this site.

Here's to Your Health

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 22:27:46 +0000

Site Tags:

U.S. News Best Health Insurance Plans

HHS has collected more than 284 datasets at healthdata.gov and the inventory is currently growing by almost 100 per year. Thirty-three of these databases are already API enabled. One of the largest is the HealthCare Finder API, which opens multiple data collections covering public and private health insurance plans.

U.S. News & World Report uses the HHS HealthCare Finder API to create a tool to help consumers find the Best Health Insurance Plans for their specific needs. Their web-based Best Health Insurance Plans rates plans based on coverage and costs (both monthly and out-of-pocket), and makes it easy for users to find plans top-rated plans available to them. “We at U.S. News are thrilled to have access to the HealthCare Finder API and the important health insurance data it makes publicly available,” said Ben Harder, General Manager of Health Rankings at U.S. News. “Using the API, U.S. News has rated thousands of health plans across America, making it easier for individuals and families to compare their options and make better insurance-purchasing decisions.”

Other APIs provide access to information on the quality of provider care, the quality of hospital and nursing home care, a directory of federally qualified health centers, National Library of Medicine and Medline Plus resources, cancer incidence, FDA recalls, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s TOXMAP (Healthdata.gov includes datasets from across the U.S. Government).

‘Reducing Cancer among Women of Color’ App Challenge

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 20:48:03 +0000

Site Tags:

Minority Health, Mobile Apps, Public Engagement, Womens Health

J. Nadine Gracia, MD, MSCE, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Minority Health (Acting), Office of Minority Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Calling all software developers, entrepreneurs, and innovators—the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) seeks your help in empowering women in minority and underserved communities to fight and prevent cancer.

Each year, more than 300,000 new cases of breast, cervical, uterine, and ovarian cancer are diagnosed in the United States. While these diseases touch every community, disparities in education, prevention, early treatment, quality of care, and access to support mean that minority and underserved women bear a disproportionate burden.

In the face of these disparities, HHS has launched a new challenge to help turn the tide: the “Reducing Cancer among Women of Color” App Challenge. The challenge invites developers to create an application (app) for mobile devices that can help improve the prevention and treatment of breast, cervical, uterine, and ovarian cancer. Up to $100,000 will be awarded for apps that provide high-quality health information to women and community health workers, interface securely with patient health records, and strengthen communication across provider care teams.

This month, as we reaffirm our commitment to promoting prevention and fighting cancer in recognition of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we are turning to new platforms and new approaches in our effort to address cancer disparities. We are reaching consumers where they are—recognizing that minorities rely heavily on mobile devices for accessing information. We are turning to new technology, and sourcing solutions directly from those who understand it best. And we are raising awareness about health equity among new audiences—including those who are already dedicated to thinking innovatively about solutions for tough challenges.

The ‘Reducing Cancer among Women of Color’ App Challenge is a partnership between the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and HHS’s Office of Minority Health. To learn more, visit Challenge.gov.

Glad You Asked: Open Data Questions

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 16:57:08 +0000

Site Tags:

Glad You Asked

Richard Stapleton, Deputy Director, Web Communications and New Media Division

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

So we are liberating our data. So what? Tell me why this is good, one person writes. Tell me this is not bad, writes another.

Comment:

This is good news for techies but would love for you to expand on how this benefits the average Joe (because no doubt it does!). 'Liberating data' is good pr but explaining how it can and will change lives by getting more people (public and NOW private sector) individuals using accurate data/ content sets to produce products to make our lives better, safer, and more healthy seems like a more important message. Maybe less catchy but more clear, I think anyway

Response:

We just happen to have a perfect example. U.S. News & World Report today (10/3) unveiled a web-based tool to help consumers find the best health insurance plans for their specific needs. Their Best Health Insurance Plans rates plans based on coverage and costs (both monthly and out-of-pocket), and makes it easy for users to find top-rated plans available to them based on where they live. The U.S. News tool pulls its information using the HHS HealthCare Finder API. It’s a textbook example of what the private sector can do with “liberated” government data. Read more about Open Data at HHS.

Comment:

What other information do these 'warehouses' hold? Does HHS have my personal data? Creepy.

Response:

The ‘warehouses’ hold lots of data about people but none of it is personal, in the sense that someone could plug your name in and find information about you. The law closely protects what’s called “personally identifiable information.” So while people can look up the number of heart attacks in a year and can break that number down by age and gender and even locality, they cannot look up whether or not you personally have suffered an illness. Your privacy is protected.

Glad You Asked: Audience-based Websites

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:59:29 +0000

Site Tags:

Glad You Asked, Public Focus

Richard Stapleton, Deputy Director, Web Communications and New Media Division

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Our commitment to consolidating web content into topic-based websites has generated much interest. One commenter asks about alternate models:

Comment:

I like the direction - just curious, why content by topic vs. by audience type a la girlshealth.gov, etc.? I know some of these exist but am wondering what HHS folks think about content by issue vs. content by audience? Or, does your strategy have room for multiple content types? What have users wanted/preferred in testing?

Response:

Actually, we organize content both by topic and by audience, depending on its nature. If content is unique to an audience, of interest only to women, for instance, we organize it that way. Our website WomensHealth.gov is an example. Sometimes, we’ll organize a subset of content by audience within a topic-based site. For example, our flu website includes a section dealing with audiences at special risk.

But most content is of interest to many, if not all, audiences. When we started developing audience sites, we realized that we were duplicating content on page after page, site after site. Quitting smoking, for instance, is equally a concern for men and women from youth to senior citizen. Even not so obvious topics such as breast cancer turn out to affect as well as impact both women and men. Thus topic-based has become our default for content organization.

Medicare.gov Responsive Redesign

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:50:34 +0000

Site Tags:

Medicare, Milestones, Responsive Design

Medicare.gov is the consumer website for Medicare beneficiaries, caregivers, and advocates. The site was originally going to be improved to implement a new content management system. Instead, we refined the plan after seeing an opportunity to rebuild Medicare.gov with responsive design.

Why We Did It

Our new goal for Medicare.gov was to ensure the site would work not only on desktop PCs but also on any smartphone or tablet. The idea was to anticipate the influx of increased mobile traffic based on the growing mobile adoption rates in the country and align to the Digital Government Strategy.

The new Medicare.gov for tablets

We determined that responsive design was the best solution instead of building apps for different mobile devices. It allowed us to build a single HTML5/CSS3 page template framework that would simplify overall maintenance as well as improve user experience.

What We Did

We developed a responsive framework using open source frameworks. For the base of our responsive framework, we chose Bootstrap because of its simple and flexible use of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The templates were built on top of Bootstrap with custom media queries based on the different resolutions that we wanted to support.

Media queries detect the screen resolution and display different views based on browser resolution. The style sheet that was developed supports four different resolutions:

980 pixels and up for desktop and tablets
768 pixels for tablets in portrait mode
480 pixels for smartphones
320 pixels for smartphones

The new Medicare.gov for smartphones

These different breakpoints were chosen because they are among the most common for tablet and mobile use. For the desktop view, we chose 980 pixels to support because of existing web applications that were unable to become responsive within the timeframe. These applications will be upgraded to responsive layouts at a future date.

We also coded the site with 508 compliance in mind. By using iterative 508 testing and development, we ensured that the site would work on any device and would also be accessible to people with disabilities.

Responsive design inherently poses problems with Internet Explorer 7 and 8 compatibility because of the lack of CSS3 support. While there are workarounds for this issue, like respond.js, the costs of responsive support for IE7 and IE8 outweighed the benefits. Since no mobile devices use IE7 or IE8, we decided to drop responsive support for those browsers. But you will still be able to view the website using Internet Explorer on a desktop PC.

How It Worked

The redesigned site will improve consumer’s access to the information they want about Medicare. The redesigned site and web content management system allow the content managers to easily add, remove or update content without having to worry about coding or testing.

What We Learned

Mobile first isn’t the only way to design a site. It’s possible to take the full version and scale down, removing components that may be redundant or cumbersome on smaller displays while maintaining full functionality.
While this resulted in more iterations of design mock-ups, it allowed us to take the most common tasks that people wanted on the full homepage and scale them down to be convenient and accessible on all devices.
Sites can be designed to be responsive while maintaining Section 508 compliance if tested and developed with those factors in mind.

What's Next

We are next planning on redesigning our existing applications to be responsive. This will allow all the tools across the site to be accessible for all users.

See a full list of HHS Mobile Sites

See a full list of HHS Mobile Apps

Help us field test our site. Visit Medicare.gov on a smartphone or tablet and let us know what you think! What do you like and what can we work to improve?

Responsive Design and the New Medicare.gov

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 13:32:17 +0000

Site Tags:

Medicare, Responsive Design

Jon Booth Director, Website & New Media Group, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

Monday, September 24, 2012

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a major redesign of the Medicare.gov website making content more accessible and easier for beneficiaries, their families, and caregivers to understand.

This redesign represents three major milestones:

Mobile: The redesign of Medicare.gov is our first full dive into mobile-friendly web design. We are using "responsive design" which is a new approach to web design that allows us to provide an optimal viewing experience on any device. This allows us to support traditional desktop PCs, tablets, and smartphones all from one URL and code base. That is, there is not a separate mobile or M-Dot website, but Medicare.gov itself is fully optimized when viewed on a mobile device.
Working Better: The migration of Medicare.gov to the Percussion content management system means that for the first time, all of CMS' public websites are managed using the same system. This greatly increases efficiencies and allows us to reuse the same management processes across all of our websites.
People First: This redesign fully embraced the principles of good web management and governance. It is the result of more than two years of research, design, and development work by CMS. Using call center questions, website analytics, and online survey results, CMS identified top user tasks including finding out what Medicare covers, cost and coordination of benefits information, and finding Medicare drug and health plans.

These changes take us strongly in the direction laid out in the Federal CIO's Digital Government Strategy. And the Digital Strategy will be a key driver of all of our web initiatives over the next 12-18 months.

Help us field test our site. Visit Medicare.gov on a smartphone or tablet and let us know what you think! What do you like and what can we work to improve?

Glad You Asked: Calls To Action

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:20:50 +0000

Site Tags:

Glad You Asked, Public Engagement

Richard Stapleton, Deputy Director, Web Communications and New Media Division

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

We’re getting lots of comments, as you can see; some critical; some complimentary, some questioning. One question jumped out as a great way to explain just what “interaction” means here, and how we hope to benefit from the conversation:

Visitor: 15 comments over the past week, but I don't see any engagement with the host. It isn't engagement if people post and never hear back. Do you take the comments back to a secret committee? Does an underling approve stuff that does not have curse words? Is there a report to leadership? How does this "engagement" impact the decisions of HHS? Or NIH? Or the government? Some good and interesting ideas on this post. But then they are just sitting here. Kinda lonely.

Comment submitted on the blog post Putting People First

No, no secret committees. Though we do screen for appropriateness (and so far have been able to post every comment we’ve gotten). Ironically, as you were sending this comment, we were posting our first response to comments (see “Continuing the Conversation”). We aggregate comments weekly and those reports go to senior managers. And they are right there for everyone to see.

The ideas submitted to our “Calls to Action” are likewise aggregated and will help to inform web decisions moving forward. “Call to Action” ideas have not been posted yet (a site-design issue) but will be shortly and we will be looking for “crowd wisdom” in determining which suggestions most warrant action. We don’t want them to feel lonely!

Visitor: I don't like supermarkets. I prefer to order things online and have them delivered to me.

Comment submitted on the People First page.

Touché. But how about an online supermarket (think large South American river)? And no waiting for delivery! That’s our goal for topical websites.

Thanks for your comments. Keep them coming. And watch here for response and reaction.

Social Media Used To Create Lifelines

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 17:42:39 +0000

Site Tags:

Mobile Apps, Social Media

Kathryn Hambleton, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Friday, September 7, 2012

When a hurricane, earthquake, flood, or fire happens, we often see a tremendous number of people use Facebook and other social media to share information with friends and family to let each other know they are ok or seek help when they do not fare as well.

The Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) sought to leverage these social connections on Facebook to enhance community and individual resilience in an emergency by connecting people with “Lifelines” before disaster strikes. Lifelines are friends you can count on and who agree to check on you in an emergency, supply you with shelter, food, or other necessities, or provide your social network with an update about your wellbeing if you can’t do it yourself.

After a thorough search of Facebook revealed a lack of personal preparedness apps, ASPR issued the Facebook Lifeline Application Challenge to bridge the gap. The goal of this challenge was to create emergency apps that would refine and better support this phenomenon, by providing emotional support to people’s networks and helping to keep traditional channels of communication open that are frequently overwhelmed during disasters and emergencies.

The contest produced two winning apps, called bReddi and Project: Lifeline which do more than allow users to identify lifelines. They also let users create and share personal preparedness plans, track the status of their Facebook friends in disaster-affected areas, and print cards with a snapshots of their preparedness plans to carry in their wallets.

Read more about these emergency kit mobile apps on PHE.gov.

First-Time Public Voting for Top Health Innovations at HHS.

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Site Tags:

Click here to view the submissions and cast your vote.

Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

UPDATE: Voting is now closed

Typically when you think of government, the word “innovation” isn’t the first word that comes to mind. Well it’s time to change that! The U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is proud to announce that for the first time ever, the public will have the opportunity to vote on the finalists of the HHSinnovates Program. That means, your vote will help determine which project will be selected as the winner of the “People’s Choice”.

Now in its fifth round, the HHSinnovates Program seeks not only to recognize and reward good ideas but also to facilitate the exchange of innovative ideas throughout the Department and beyond. These new approaches are created to help carry out the Department’s mission: to enhance the health and well-being of Americans by providing for effective health and human services and by fostering strong, sustained advances in the sciences, underlying medicine, public health, and social services. Employees use the innovation-conducive environment to create new solutions to solve critical problems in these areas.

With over 450 great projects submitted over five rounds since the HHSinnovates Program launched in 2010, the establishment of the “People’s Choice” will give the public a view of the innovative projects being adopted in government and health care, and also a say in what project best embodies innovative spirit, is scalable and replicable.

From an initial 60 projects submitted this round, we have chosen the top six. But now we need your help in deciding which project you feel has the ability to be the most innovative and impactful – in other words, to be the “People’s Choice”.

Public voting is open until September 14, 2012. See two projects that are worthy of your vote? Feel like you just can’t decide which project is the best? Let us know by voting.

The awards ceremony will be held on September 24th from 11 – 11:30 AM and will be telecast on http://www.hhs.gov/live

For more information on the HHSinnovates Program, visit: HHSinnovates.

Glad You Asked: Continuing the Conversation

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 20:20:46 +0000

Site Tags:

Glad You Asked, Public Engagement

Prudence Goforth, Director, Web Communications and New Media Division

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Thanks to everyone who has commented and do keep your comments coming. We have received thoughtful, good ideas on what you want to see. Many encourage the use of mobile so that access is immediate when and where health information or services are needed. I want to answer some of the comments here and will continue do so from time to time.

Comment: A desire to incorporate visuals on mobile sites.

Agreed! A good visual can be worth more than a thousand words if it provides context and directly supports the information needed. Learning and understanding becomes much easier when visuals support the words. When designing content for mobile use, these visual benefits have to be tempered by the fact that graphics often make the loading of the mobile information much slower. Sometimes the visual is too much for some phones to support. That will change one day, but for now, we must balance using more visuals with insuring that critical information can be easily accessed on mobile and tablet devices. We are learning more each day about building better mobile sites (and soon, this site will use responsive design so it can be viewed on any device). We value your input in reminding and urging us to use more visuals. We welcome advice on how best to do mobile sites so they are inviting and so information sought can be quickly accessed.

Comment: What kind of research do you conduct to determine when it would be good to build a one-stop, topic site?

HHS believes strongly in the consolidation of content on a specific topic. Gathering information from the many parts of HHS in one place makes it easier for you to find the information you need. But this is a very large job. Any one office may only have one piece of the total picture. Here are some of the steps we go through before undertaking a topic site: (1) we conduct a complete inventory of all the web pages that exist on the topic; (2) we use metrics for existing sites to tell us about traffic and where people are going; (3) we look for duplication of information and whether it is current; and (4) we consider the timeliness and need for the information (examples—bullying prevention, food safety). Our greatest challenge is that there is so much valuable content that needs to be organized and consolidated into topic sites!

Most of our consolidated sites are managed by a cross-department or government Editorial Board with subject matter experts and web and communications staff that approve content and maintain the site to add new or update information as needed. Cross-department/government sites need a strong leadership and governance that establishes how people will work together and fund and maintain the site.

What do you think? How can we make information more available? We’ve suggested some ways we are exploring. We are sure there are other—perhaps better—ways we have not thought of. So please share your ideas and suggestions. Thanks.

Participation, Collaboration, and Transparency

Thu, 30 Aug 2012 18:57:45 +0000

Site Tags:

Andrew Wilson, SAMHSA Office of Communications

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Public participation and collaboration are central to making the Digital Strategy work. At the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), they are central to our work to improve the organization and presentation of SAMHSA’s website.

As part of our initial efforts, SAMHSA has been using an online exercise (cardsorting) that allows anyone interested to provide input on how to better organize and categorize the information on the website. In just one week, more than a thousand people provided direct, concrete feedback about what works and what doesn’t on our site. The effort to improve the website has become a true collaboration between those managing the website and those who use it.

We believe that transparency has benefits for everyone. Stakeholders can see how information is collected and used and, with respect to the Federal Digital Strategy, transparency helps agencies learn from each other. The result is a win-win situation where the public gets a better product and agencies get faster and smarter.

With this in mind, we not only produced a short video to help explain the cardsorting exercise , we have also posted the raw data for each of the key audiences that participated in the exercise. You can learn more about card sorting at Usability.gov.

To learn more about SAMHSA’s efforts to improve our website, visit the SAMHSA blog. Are there other tools and techniques we should consider? Are there other ways we could use card sorting? Drop a comment below and let us know!

Creating a Virtual Summit to Promote Bullying Prevention

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:58:36 +0000

Site Tags:

Katie Gorscak, Digital Communications Division, ASPA/HHS

Monday, August 27, 2012

Earlier this month, the Federal Partners in Bullying Prevention held its third annual summit on August 6-7th. The event drew a variety of participants, including government and non-profit leaders, as well as parents, researchers and students engaged in anti-bullying work. Since the Summit in Washington, DC, wasn’t open to everyone, we felt it was important to bring the event to homes, offices, and community centers across the country via our website and social media channels. So for the first time, we did a livestream of the two-day summit, and promoted it extensively through Twitter and Facebook.

During the summit, we introduced several new initiatives that were launched on the StopBullying.gov website over the past months, including a rev-vamped kids section, a blog, and community training materials. We extensively used our Twitter handle and Facebook page to promote what was happening at the Summit and to drive people to our website.

In order to highlight the summit and the new materials, we created a hashtag for the event (#BullyingSummit) and created campaign URLs for some of these specific initiatives. We saw great results in our efforts on Twitter, including 1,143 new followers and 724 retweets between August 5th and 9th. Our campaign tagged URLs drew 819 visits to the site, a large portion of which went straight to our livestream. We actively engaged our Twitter and Facebook audiences by taking their questions for the panel through #BullyingSummit and tweeting throughout the summit.

Despite this increase in traffic to the site, one lesson learned is that while regular tweeting was embraced by the virtual audience, careful consideration should be taken into being more selective in the frequency and content of Facebook posts. Even though the increase in the number of Facebook “unlikes” was small, it is something to consider when developing a social media plan for any type of event.

Overall, our social media efforts have kept traffic high on our site. The increase we saw in visitors to StopBullying.gov during the Summit week has maintained into the following week with only a slight drop in site traffic. It is our hope that this momentum will continue as we continue to use social media as a driving force in our outreach efforts.

Cancer Information Goes Mobile

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Site Tags:

Mobile Strategy

Lakshmi Grama, Senior Digital Content Strategist, NCI Office of Communications and Education (NIH)

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Who seeks cancer information on a mobile phone? What information would they be looking for? These were some of the questions that my colleagues and I faced as we planned our strategy to help people access NIH’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) resources anywhere, anytime, on any device.

Data from national surveys had already shown us that 40% of adults in the U.S. used mobile phones for Web access, email, and instant messaging and that African Americans and Latinos were even more likely to depend on mobile phones for Internet access.

User research made it clear that we needed to “mobilize” our patient-oriented content. Patients and their caregivers said they needed easily understandable information about cancer diagnosis, treatment, and coping with the side effects of cancer and its treatment.

Looking at our Web analytics, it was clear that users were already coming in droves to this content using mobile phones—we went from 200,000 page views from mobile devices on our desktop site in May 2011 to more than a million page views in December 2011!

Then came the inevitable question—mobile app or mobile website? The answer was really dependent on the context in which our users would find and use our content. People dealing with a health crisis are most likely to go to a search engine to find information and not to an app store. So a mobile website was the way to go!

But we had so much content for patients and their caregivers! And we knew that in the mobile context, it was even more important that we get people to the best information in the least amount of time. We had to put our content on a “diet”—carefully selecting the content that would work best in the mobile context.

With our strategy set, our cross-functional team of content managers, information architects, developers, and usability experts used an agile approach to build the mobile site that launched in February 2012. Check us out at http://m.cancer.gov!

Opening Up Our Data

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Site Tags:

Bryan Sivak, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Earlier this summer, the U.S. Chief Information Officer, Steven VanRoekel released the federal government’s new digital strategy which aims to shift the way government information is accessed and consumed. Instead of focusing on producing a final product, which has been common practice for years, the government will now be making content more accurate, available and secure. One major tool in the information technology tool box being used to achieve this goal is the use of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

An API is a set of tools for building software applications. But more importantly, an API makes information more accessible. This is important for two reasons.

First, the use of APIs makes it easier to replicate government information across more places than ever before. APIs enable automatic updates of information when content is syndicated on other websites, while reducing actual person hours currently spent manually updating content.

Second, APIs make information and data easily available to developers, who can create Web and mobile applications that make information increasingly more useful to the public. We have already seen the benefits of liberating vast amounts of data through the Department of Health and Human Service’s Open Government Health Data Initiative, hundreds of applications like My Cancer Genome, HealthGrades, Archimedes’ IndiGO, and the Healthy Communities Network which have been developed for individuals, communities and service providers. HHS has been liberating vast amounts of its data, many of which have APIs and are on HealthData.gov.

As the government changes the way it does business—making content and Web APIs the new default—government information and data will be more open, accessible and useful for the public. This strategy will open doors for communication and give everyone the opportunity to use government information in a more meaningful way.

Putting People First

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:00:00 +0000

Site Tags:

Public Focus

Prudence Goforth, Director, Web Communications and New Media Division

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Digital Strategy. The new buzzword. A fancy way (in government-speak) of saying we’re going to manage the Web strategically; cut loose our content, work better and put people first. We have a start, but we have miles to go, and we need you to help guide the way.

The concept rocks! But it demands serious change. We need your ideas. We need to ask your opinion. And we will listen.

HHS is fortunate. We are a leader in much of what the new Digital Strategy embraces. Click the four tabs above to see some of our initial efforts. From making cancer information available on smartphones to creating APIs that let people learn about influences on health in their communities; from creating one-stop shopping for critical information to opening our content to persons with disabilities, we are putting people first.

Beneath each tab, we ask you to tell us what you think, and to suggest next steps. Our goal is to provide public health information—any time, any place and on any device—so it’s available whenever and wherever you need it.

Your comments will be posted. People will be invited to post thoughts and ideas and you are encouraged to respond to others' comments. We want and need a dialogue. And then we’ll close the loop, explaining how your collective comments—along with the metrics we collect on user experience—have impacted and influenced our work.

Much more to come. Please return often and engage with us! We have a rare opportunity to create a new web paradigm—one that draws people in, even as we let our content out. Please let me know what you think as we expand this new way of doing our digital business.

Creating Supermarkets on the Web

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:41:50 +0000

Site Tags:

Public Focus

Search HHS.gov for any disease and prepare to be astounded. You will find: 556,000 results on Diabetes; 206,000 results on Breast Cancer; 474,000 results on Alcoholism; and 302,000 results on Dieting. What are the chances you’ll find the specific information you need in even, let’s say, the first ten sites you visit?

There’s a reason people shop in supermarkets. They get almost everything they need in one stop. Often, plus a few things they didn’t need. Supermarkets are fast, efficient, and effective. By comparison, our Web is like a street fair.

But we’re changing. We’re starting to build content supermarkets on the Web. We call them topic-based consumer sites. They bring the best of our related content together in one place. We’re even working with other Departments to build cross-federal Web supermarkets.

StopBullying.gov provides information from various federal agencies on what bullying is, what cyberbullying is, who is at risk, and how people can prevent, and respond to bullying. Content for this website is developed by an interagency effort led by the Department of Education and HHS.

FoodSafety.gov is the gateway to federal food safety information. The site delivers food safety updates, including recall information. It also provides safe food handling information. Federal agencies with a role in this initiative include the Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Flu.gov is the central source for information on seasonal flu, emerging flu viruses, and pandemic flu preparation. Launched in 2005, it was the first ever cross-federal site. It’s unusual in that while its primary purpose is to provide consumer information, it’s also central to planning for potential flu pandemics, providing guidance, tools and information for health care providers, state and local governments, schools and businesses, as well as individuals. Primary information providers are HHS and the Departments of Education, Commerce, Agriculture, and the Interior.

What would you like to see in a Web supermarket? Tell us your experience and suggest a topic you would like consolidated on a single website.

Serving People with Disabilities

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:51:54 +0000

Site Tags:

Accessibility

Build once, use many times: HHS is working together, sharing resources, and delivering better services at a lower cost. We are identifying common tools and best practices to manage our web-based outreach, address security challenges, and establish an effective Web governance structure.

HHS is deeply committed to making all of our information accessible to people with disabilities. In addition to being required by law (commonly referred to as Section 508), this is central to the HHS mission.

We use an enterprise-wide tool to crawl every page of every website at least once a month. This tool checks for barriers to access. We report our findings to content owners every month and they can drill down to individual webpages to learn where there are accessibility problems.

We have created training programs and guidance documents to help writers and developers create accessible content, websites, and applications. In the spirit of “build once, use many times,” we make these materials available on the Web so others in both government and the private sector can leverage our work.

Are you having trouble accessing an HHS website because you have a disability? Please send us the URL and explain the problem you are having.

Pulse of a Community

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:51:16 +0000

Site Tags: