NHC UPDATE
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Campaign to Put Patients First -September 2009
Nancy from California wrote on the National Health Council’s Facebook page in June, “Since I was 40 (I'm now 64), I've had Sjogren's Syndrome, a little-known autoimmune disorder. I've been lucky to always have a job with a public agency, where access to health insurance has not been a problem. Expensive yes, but available.”
Nina responded to Nancy’s post, “I, too, suffer from this syndrome. Health care is a vital part of my life. I have signed the petition and forwarded to several friends.”
Judith commented, “I was diagnosed with Sjogren's Syndrome in 1982 and in the last two years the disease has progressed to a systemic issue. My lung, kidneys, and heart are all involved, and I have no immune system. I am in the process of writing my story but my energy is extremely limited so it is taking me a while.”
These are just a few of the many stories being shared through the NHC’s new Facebook page along with the many stories submitted by people who visited the Campaign to Put Patients First website in June and July 2009. They join the
- More than 4,200 people who have signed the NHC’s Petition for Health Care Change
- 4,633 unique visitors who went to the Campaign pages in those two months
- 1,175 followers on Twitter, including several media sites
- 195 people who joined the Facebook Putting Patients First Cause
These numbers are the result of the efforts of all NHC member organizations and staff to spread the word about the Campaign and various Campaign activities in recent months. Going into the Fourth of July holiday weekend, special emphasis was placed on encouraging individual patients to attend a congressional town hall meeting in their home district or talk with their members of Congress at public events about the need for health care reform.
The NHC also ran three advertisements in August appearing in Roll Call, Politico, and the Washington Post demonstrating the NHCs commitment to reducing out-of-pocket costs.
As lawmakers prepared to return home for the August recess, the NHC launched its first ever Call on Congress. In total there were nearly 800 calls made to elected officials advocating for the NHC’s 5 Principles for Putting Patients First.
In response to the more than 8,000 alerts sent to individual patient advocates during this period, the Campaign website received more than 2,500 unique views to the advocacy side of website.
The NHC website received more than 5,000 unique views for the entire site and saw a 20% increase in direct visits to the home page.
NHC recently began running on the Campaign site rotating logos of member patient advocacy organizations that support the 5 Principles to bring greater visibility to their involvement in the initiative.
To demonstrate to members of Congress and their staff that the greater health care community is united behind the Five Principles of Health Care Reform, CEOs of all NHC members were asked to sign on in support of the 5 Principles of Putting Patients First.
The NHC tracks how visitors arrive at the main Campaign pages as part of its routine monitoring of the website. In July and part of August, visitors used links from the following sites to come to the Campaign:
- The ALS Association
- American Kidney Foundation
- American Mental Health Counselors Association
- Association of American Medical Colleges
- Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America
- National Alopecia Areata Foundation
- National Eczema Association for Science & Education
- Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation
- Us TOO International, Inc.
The NHC would like to say a special thank you to the Sjogren’s Sydrome Foundation for directing people to the National Health Council’s Campaign to Put Patients First web pages and for collecting signatures from more than 50 people on the Petition for Change in Health Care at one of their local events.
Staff Contact: Nancy Hughes, Director, Communications and Marketing
