Showing posts with label Website Update. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Website Update. Show all posts
Saturday, 4 October 2008
Sunday, 29 June 2008
A new webpage has been posted describing the various causes of ear pain NOT due to ear infections. Indeed, many patients and even physicians do not realize that there are MANY different problems in the head and neck that may lead to ear pain as a patient's only complaint. The reasons can be as simple as tonsillitis (ear pain referred by cranial nerve 9) to as dangerous as throat cancer (ear pain referred by cranial nerve 9 or 10).
Click here to read more about this topic.
Monday, 5 November 2007
A couple videos have been produced by our office showing how a trans-nasal endoscopic exam is performed and what one would see from this type of exam. Instead of publishing these videos on our website, they have been added to our YouTube homepage. The videos can be found here or viewed below in the embedded player.
Saturday, 3 November 2007
OR, stated another way, "How much did our physician website cost?" So, there have been a few requests over the years on how our website was created which prompted me to write this particular blog where I will go into the details and costs.
•• Summary of Costs ••
Before I go into details, it is important to make sure the costs of running a website is reasonable. After all, if the costs do not justify the expense, no point having a website. A recent blog describing the current costs of setting up a website can be found here.
In any case, here is an overall summary of how much it costs me (one of the physicians in the practice) to develop and maintain our practice's website excluding costs related to time spent. It does help that I as a physician know how to make websites that helps keep costs down.
Expenses
Our domain name "www.FauquierENT.net" purchased at GoDaddy.
• $9.99 per year
Hosting on a Godaddy server the website:
• $50.88 per year
A 128-bit secure SSL for online prescription requests, website email form, appointment requests, etc purchased at Wufoo. Obviously, this is an optional expense. One could just as easily create a webpage stating to call our office for prescription refills or make a form that a patient would have to print out and than fax.
• $24 a month ($288 per year)
Profits
Google Adsense from targeted online advertisement
• About $25 a month ($300 per year)
The wufoo account for online prescriptions, website email, appointments, etc is actually kept as an office expense. The profits I keep to help defray the costs of my expenses maintaining the website.
Keep in mind that our website contains >200 webpages since most web development companies charge for each additional webpage created and maintained.
•• Creating the Website ••
To put it bluntly, one must have some knowledge of how to program in HTML if one wants to have a reasonable appearing website. The creation and maintenance of the website is all performed on my Macintosh MacBook Pro laptop where I have the entire website mirrored on my hard drive. Changes are made on this mirrored website on my computer's hard drive, checked for errors, and than uploaded onto the internet. Given this background, I use the following programs:
Adobe Dreamweaver
My true workhorse program for creating all the different content, images, video, audio, links, etc on the website. Think of it as the Microsoft Word for text documents.
Adobe Photoshop
Powerful graphics program I use to optimize images for web production.
iMovie HD
Free program for owners of Mac computers, I use this program to perform all video editing for web production. This program was heavily used for all the audio-visual effects of the hoarse voice section of our website. The videos themselves were produced on a KayPentax digital system using a chip-on-tip flexible scope.
Adobe Flash
Program used to create the interactive elements of the website. It is used in conjunction with Adobe Dreamweaver. This program is what allows for color changes when a cursor passes over a link or simple animation like a photo slideshow.
DreamsTime
Purchase royalty-free clip art to add to your website for a very low price (less than one dollar). Important as you can't just use random artwork in other websites due to copyright infringement concerns.
Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat
These two programs were used to create all forms and documents for patients to download and print at home. Adobe acrobat is the program used to create pdf files which can be opened on any computer whether it be a Windows PC, Mac, Linux, etc.
That's pretty much all that is needed to create and maintain a website!
•• Miscellaneous Website Enhancements ••
So there are various features I have added to the website to make it more useful for visitors such as a google search engine, real-time allergy report, interactive map of our office location, etc. The key thing here is that all these various features are FREE as again, my main motivation is to make the website better without adding cost.
Google Account
This is by far the most important free account to have as Google provides so many free services that many other companies would charge for. Through this account, you can:
• Obtain infinite number of free email accounts with your domain name for everybody in your office (ie, userid@FauquierENT.net). Some knowledge of server protocols is needed, but google does provide a step-by-step instruction.
• Create/Edit your listing under Google's yellow pages.
• Create a Blog (this one!).
• YouTube account for videos.
• Webmaster services to optimize the website for being found by google's search engine.
• Adsense account to insert targeted advertisement within the webpages for which you can get paid
• Get a google search engine for your website.
Google Maps
Add a google map to your website for free pinpointing your office's location. Some programming knowledge is needed.
FeedBurner
A google owned website where you can link info within a blog to your website automatically. You can see this in action on our practice's website (the rotating headlines towards the bottom). This services also provides free enhancement utilities to improve your blog.
Statcounter
Free service which will inform you about your website visitors: how many, which webpages, how long were they on each webpage, what webpages a given visitor saw and in what order, at what time, from where in the world, etc. This is EXTREMELY important information that allows you to figure out how to improve your website from a visitor's perspective.
Pollen Report
Free pollen count report can be added to your website for free. Some programming knowledge required.
Free Web-Based Surveys
Surveys are wonderful tools to determine what patients think of your practice. In the case of a website, it allows you to tap into their thoughts should they volunteer to answer questions you pose to them. SurveyMonkey as well as Wufoo both provide free web-based surveys as well as a more sophisticated format that costs money. I think that for most practices, the free version provides everything you would need. The survey we currently have on our website is located here.
www.LinkTiger.com
This free web-service checks your website weekly for any broken links. That way you can immediately make changes to keep all links functioning because nothing is more aggravating to a website visitor than a website full of broken links.
•• Time Factor ••
People have asked me how much time have I spent creating and maintaining the website. The answer is continuously. Although there may not be any changes needed, I'm constantly thinking of ways to make it better. Questions I keep asking myself are:
• What can I do to make this webpage look better?
• Can I add a piece of relevant artwork without making the webpage too long?
• Why do visitors spend only 5 seconds on this webpage, but 10 minutes on another?
• Are there any new webpages I can add to increase visits to the website?
• Etc
I honestly can't say that our practice's website will ever be completed. Though I don't spend hours and hours every week on it, I do spend a few minutes making minor changes several times a week. Making minor changes on a website takes no longer than making minor changes in a MS Word document, but instead of "saving" the changes, one "uploads" onto the internet any changes.
•• Summary ••
I hope this info is helpful for other medical practices thinking of adding a practice website without the costs from hiring a Web Development Company. I do feel that having a website is imperative in this day and age and I absolutely believe that it has enhanced our practice both in attracting new patients who may have gone elsewhere as well as retaining current ones.
•• Summary of Costs ••
Before I go into details, it is important to make sure the costs of running a website is reasonable. After all, if the costs do not justify the expense, no point having a website. A recent blog describing the current costs of setting up a website can be found here.
In any case, here is an overall summary of how much it costs me (one of the physicians in the practice) to develop and maintain our practice's website excluding costs related to time spent. It does help that I as a physician know how to make websites that helps keep costs down.
Expenses
Our domain name "www.FauquierENT.net" purchased at GoDaddy.
• $9.99 per year
Hosting on a Godaddy server the website:
• $50.88 per year
A 128-bit secure SSL for online prescription requests, website email form, appointment requests, etc purchased at Wufoo. Obviously, this is an optional expense. One could just as easily create a webpage stating to call our office for prescription refills or make a form that a patient would have to print out and than fax.
• $24 a month ($288 per year)
Profits
Google Adsense from targeted online advertisement
• About $25 a month ($300 per year)
The wufoo account for online prescriptions, website email, appointments, etc is actually kept as an office expense. The profits I keep to help defray the costs of my expenses maintaining the website.
Keep in mind that our website contains >200 webpages since most web development companies charge for each additional webpage created and maintained.
•• Creating the Website ••
To put it bluntly, one must have some knowledge of how to program in HTML if one wants to have a reasonable appearing website. The creation and maintenance of the website is all performed on my Macintosh MacBook Pro laptop where I have the entire website mirrored on my hard drive. Changes are made on this mirrored website on my computer's hard drive, checked for errors, and than uploaded onto the internet. Given this background, I use the following programs:
Adobe Dreamweaver
My true workhorse program for creating all the different content, images, video, audio, links, etc on the website. Think of it as the Microsoft Word for text documents.
Adobe Photoshop
Powerful graphics program I use to optimize images for web production.
iMovie HD
Free program for owners of Mac computers, I use this program to perform all video editing for web production. This program was heavily used for all the audio-visual effects of the hoarse voice section of our website. The videos themselves were produced on a KayPentax digital system using a chip-on-tip flexible scope.
Adobe Flash
Program used to create the interactive elements of the website. It is used in conjunction with Adobe Dreamweaver. This program is what allows for color changes when a cursor passes over a link or simple animation like a photo slideshow.
DreamsTime
Purchase royalty-free clip art to add to your website for a very low price (less than one dollar). Important as you can't just use random artwork in other websites due to copyright infringement concerns.
Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat
These two programs were used to create all forms and documents for patients to download and print at home. Adobe acrobat is the program used to create pdf files which can be opened on any computer whether it be a Windows PC, Mac, Linux, etc.
That's pretty much all that is needed to create and maintain a website!
•• Miscellaneous Website Enhancements ••
So there are various features I have added to the website to make it more useful for visitors such as a google search engine, real-time allergy report, interactive map of our office location, etc. The key thing here is that all these various features are FREE as again, my main motivation is to make the website better without adding cost.
Google Account
This is by far the most important free account to have as Google provides so many free services that many other companies would charge for. Through this account, you can:
• Obtain infinite number of free email accounts with your domain name for everybody in your office (ie, userid@FauquierENT.net). Some knowledge of server protocols is needed, but google does provide a step-by-step instruction.
• Create/Edit your listing under Google's yellow pages.
• Create a Blog (this one!).
• YouTube account for videos.
• Webmaster services to optimize the website for being found by google's search engine.
• Adsense account to insert targeted advertisement within the webpages for which you can get paid
• Get a google search engine for your website.
Google Maps
Add a google map to your website for free pinpointing your office's location. Some programming knowledge is needed.
FeedBurner
A google owned website where you can link info within a blog to your website automatically. You can see this in action on our practice's website (the rotating headlines towards the bottom). This services also provides free enhancement utilities to improve your blog.
Statcounter
Free service which will inform you about your website visitors: how many, which webpages, how long were they on each webpage, what webpages a given visitor saw and in what order, at what time, from where in the world, etc. This is EXTREMELY important information that allows you to figure out how to improve your website from a visitor's perspective.
Pollen Report
Free pollen count report can be added to your website for free. Some programming knowledge required.
Free Web-Based Surveys
Surveys are wonderful tools to determine what patients think of your practice. In the case of a website, it allows you to tap into their thoughts should they volunteer to answer questions you pose to them. SurveyMonkey as well as Wufoo both provide free web-based surveys as well as a more sophisticated format that costs money. I think that for most practices, the free version provides everything you would need. The survey we currently have on our website is located here.
www.LinkTiger.com
This free web-service checks your website weekly for any broken links. That way you can immediately make changes to keep all links functioning because nothing is more aggravating to a website visitor than a website full of broken links.
•• Time Factor ••
People have asked me how much time have I spent creating and maintaining the website. The answer is continuously. Although there may not be any changes needed, I'm constantly thinking of ways to make it better. Questions I keep asking myself are:
• What can I do to make this webpage look better?
• Can I add a piece of relevant artwork without making the webpage too long?
• Why do visitors spend only 5 seconds on this webpage, but 10 minutes on another?
• Are there any new webpages I can add to increase visits to the website?
• Etc
I honestly can't say that our practice's website will ever be completed. Though I don't spend hours and hours every week on it, I do spend a few minutes making minor changes several times a week. Making minor changes on a website takes no longer than making minor changes in a MS Word document, but instead of "saving" the changes, one "uploads" onto the internet any changes.
•• Summary ••
I hope this info is helpful for other medical practices thinking of adding a practice website without the costs from hiring a Web Development Company. I do feel that having a website is imperative in this day and age and I absolutely believe that it has enhanced our practice both in attracting new patients who may have gone elsewhere as well as retaining current ones.
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Audio clips of patients with muscle tension dysphonia before, during, and after speech therapy has been added to our webpage describing this disorder. Note that speech therapy is a dynamic interaction between the therapist and patient in which the patient's responses leads the therapy as opposed to the therapist dictating when and how the therapy proceeds. Click here to listen.
Friday, 12 October 2007
New video exam of a child with hyper-nasal speech has been posted here. The cause of this child's hyper-nasal speech was due to a right lateral velopharyngeal insufficiency due to a slight right soft palate paresis. In this particular case, the child and parents also noticed that food and liquids kept coming out the nose whenever she swallowed. This deficit spontaneously resolved after about 1 month.
For more examples of causes of nasal speech, click here.
Sunday, 16 September 2007
Dr. Chang now offers botox injections for migraine headaches! Given that most insurance companies do not cover this therapeutic procedure for headaches in spite of its documented effectiveness in the literature, most patients will have to fail or respond poorly to medications before considering this option. Click here for more informtion.
HOWEVER, if neck spasms occur which trigger headaches, botox injection for the neck spasms (and not necessarily for the headaches) may be covered by insurance.
Botox injections are performed every Friday afternoon by Dr. Chang. Other disorders that Dr. Chang treats with botox injections include spasmodic dysphonia, TMJ, cricopharyngeal spasms, vocal cord dysfunction, chronic cough, and head & neck muscle spasms/twitches. We do NOT provide botox injections for cosmetic reasons (ie, wrinkles). For that service, please contact your local plastic surgeon or dermatologist.
HOWEVER, if neck spasms occur which trigger headaches, botox injection for the neck spasms (and not necessarily for the headaches) may be covered by insurance.
Botox injections are performed every Friday afternoon by Dr. Chang. Other disorders that Dr. Chang treats with botox injections include spasmodic dysphonia, TMJ, cricopharyngeal spasms, vocal cord dysfunction, chronic cough, and head & neck muscle spasms/twitches. We do NOT provide botox injections for cosmetic reasons (ie, wrinkles). For that service, please contact your local plastic surgeon or dermatologist.
Wednesday, 12 September 2007
A new webpage describing laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR) has been uploaded on our website. LPR is different from classic GERD in that although acid reflux from the stomach occurs, typically no heartburn is experienced. Rather, symptoms may include lump sensation in the throat, constant throat-clearing, sore throat, ear pain, cough, etc. Read more about it here.
Some over-the-counter medications used to treat relux are listed below:
Some over-the-counter medications used to treat relux are listed below:
Thursday, 2 August 2007
Fauquier ENT has been offering allergy treatment with shots or drops for patients with allergies for quite some time. Our office also offers a type of allergy treatment known as pre-seasonal rush therapy which is geared towards patients with severe allergy symptoms to only ONE specific seasonal pollen (ie, grass, tree, or weed). Benefits include allergy immunotherapy ONLY once per year for a few months each year instead of allergy injections or allergy drops all year round for many years. And of course, there is the benefit of decreased allergy symptoms as well. This treatment can also be used in conjunction with a patient's regular allergy shot or drop treatment if multiple mild allergies are present, with only one highly allergic seasonal pollen. Click here for more information.
Monday, 16 July 2007
Monday, 9 July 2007
Pictures of a Zenker's Diverticulum after barium swallow has been posted here. Zenker's Diverticulum is an abnormal pouch (or diverticulum) that forms in the throat that leads to swallowing problems. It is treated endoscopically via a procedure known as endoscopic staple diverticulostomy (ESD).
Dr. Chang has published extensively on the use of ESD to treat Zenker's Diverticulum and is able to provide this service in Northern Virginia.
Wednesday, 13 June 2007
A new video of bilateral thyroarytenoid paralysis (partial vocal cord paralysis) via fiberoptic stroboscopy of the voicebox is shown here. Note the harsh and breathy quality to the patient's voice. It was felt that his condition was brought on by a viral upper respiratory infection. After a prednisone burst and taper along with limited voice use, his voice returned to normal in 2 weeks.
An example of complete unilateral vocal cord paralysis is shown here.
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