NHC UPDATE
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NHC Announces WebMD Chronic Disease & Disability Exchange -March 2010
The National Health Council (NHC) has announced the launch of a new online community with a unique digital access, distribution, and multimedia approach to serve the more than 133 million Americans living with chronic diseases and disabilities.
The WebMD Chronic Disease and Disability Exchange is a social networking community within the WebMD Health Network of more than 60 million health-informed patients and consumers. The Exchange is designed to bring trusted experts together with the WebMD audience to freely share information in both public forums and private, invitation-only settings.
The Exchange was launched the first week of March and provides exciting new opportunities for increased visibility for the NHC and member patient advocacy organizations as WebMD averages one million unique visitors per month.
The newly-designated WebMD Expert for the Exchange is nationally recognized patient advocate Richard M. Cohen, a former news anchor, New York Times bestselling author, and public speaker on the doctor-patient relationship. He is also a cancer survivor living with multiple sclerosis. The universal and moving topics Cohen will delve into include self esteem, intimacy, career, and family. He will also be providing videos and radiocasts of patient interviews.
NHC member organizations can participate by
- Suggesting Guest Experts for the Chronic Disease & Disabilities Exchange by e-mailing nhughes@nhcouncil.org. These individuals will be asked to prepare a short discussion piece (approximately 300 words) to be posted on the Exchange and respond to replies to the discussion piece. Guest Experts will have short bios and their pictures posted on the website.
- Establishing their own Exchanges to raise awareness. Each organization and participating affiliate will be listed in the WebMD Health Exchange directory, enabling people with a specific chronic condition who visit WebMD to easily find the resources they need.
- Posting comments to the Exchange. Discussion topics will change each week.
For more information about this project, please email Nancy Hughes at nhughes@nhcouncil.org.
Staff Contact: Nancy Hughes, Assistant Vice President, Communications and Marketing
