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A MONTHLY BRIEFING ABOUT WEB TECHNOLOGY AND INTERNET-BASED BUSINESS TRENDS September 2009

What Can Be 'New' On Your Web Site?

CLICK is the latest in a series of popular e-newsletters from VisionMonday. Every month, CLICK provides ECPs and optical retailers with the tools they need to build their presence online and grow connections with patients. It's a monthly briefing designed specifically to provide practical insights and ideas about the latest Web site features, tools and Web-based applications.

CLICK will feature a variety of topics including innovative ideas in Web site development and examples of cutting-edge initiatives. We hope you use it to discover current Web technologies and learn how online initiatives can help benefit your business. Tried something new on your Web site? Have a comment about CLICK? Tell us about it and we'll consider it for an upcoming feature in CLICK.
—The Editors

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in focus
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LUMA Debuts as 'New Generation'
Platform of Eyemaginations

BALTIMORE, Md.— Eyemaginations, Inc. is putting the spotlight on LUMA, the new generation of patient education and practice enhancement software for ECPs, designed, like its predecessor, 3D-Eye Office, to help deliver the doctor’s message throughout the entire practice from waiting room to the exam lanes to the optical area.

LUMA’s many new features enable doctors to educate, explain conditions and offer solutions, clearly and persuasively to patients. It also makes full use of Eyemaginations’ compelling and detailed graphics, animations and images of the eye and eye conditions. It is a new Internet-based “user interface” that enables offices to more simply customize, download and determine which segments and tools to use for their own Web sites and other practice-management uses.

The Exam Advisor allows a doctor to show graphically to patients the progression of conditions and pathologies so that patients can understand what can happen if the condition becomes more severe. By use of the “point of view” tool, the patient will get a true sense of how their vision will be affected by the condition. The doctor can also draw over the images.

A Scheduler tool enables the practice to turn the waiting room into a revenue driver by delivering customized presentations that focus idle patients on the most profitable products and procedures. The doctor’s staff can use the Scheduler to slot specific topics into a weekly calendar to target certain groups of patients. Also new to LUMA is the Optical Advisor, which gives patients the understanding they need to consider premium lens products and add-ons. By seeing the benefit of premium lens options using compelling visual simulations including the “good, better, best” comparison, patients are better equipped to make the right purchasing decision.

Eyemaginations’ president and CEO, Jeff Peres, stated, “We have spent the last 10 years refining the patient experience by listening to our customers. The result is LUMA, which has been designed with both the eyecare practice and the patient in mind. It is easier to use, more intuitive, more practice-friendly and graphically more powerful than any other tool.”

The predecessor to LUMA is 3DEye-Office and, Peres said, “We’re not doing away with that or plan to stop supporting that. We’ll continue to update it but we would like to convert or elevate some of these many users to LUMA.”

Peres added, “LUMA makes patient education engaging, simple, compelling and clear. It’s what patients demand today.”

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solutions

VSP’s New Social Networking Site Plans to Help Patients SeeMuchMore

RANCHO CORDOBA, Calif.—VSP has kicked off a new campaign to educate patients about the value of vision and vision care with the launch of SeeMuchMore.com,
a lively graphic and info-packed Web site and that points
out little-known facts about eyes and sight during the open enrollment season for vision care.

The new interactive sight uses social media and community features to link to its blog, Twitter and Facebook pages and other resources for finding VSP ECPs.

The site is the first step in a multi-faceted campaign that will add new elements on a monthly basis through Thanksgiving, a VSP spokesman told CLICK. “Other multimedia aspects will roll out over the next couple of months, including more interactive elements,” he said.

Explained Kate Renwick-Espinosa, VSP’s vice president of marketing, “Our goal through this campaign is to remind members and potential members how valuable their vision is in all aspects of their lives—personally, professionally and physically.”

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cool tools

MYEMMA.com

“What Do You Think About...?”

My Emma is a very easy-to-use e-mail marketing survey tool, which can help you connect to patients and develop simple e-news messages from your practice on topics, questions and concerns important to them—and to you. My Emma makes it easy to create, send and track stylish email campaigns and newsletters. The site offers “affordable setup and monthly pricing that's tiered based on company and list size.” Emma's premium services are designed to fit many budgets. A simple sign up gets a free tour.

TINY.CC

Make a TINY url

Ever see a Web link in a story that’s interminably long with enough back slashes and hash marks to make your hair stand on end? Your life will be changed by Tiny.cc, a Web site that immediately lets you create a Tiny URL from a really long one in an instant. Tiny.cc is a Web service that provides short aliases into smaller links for redirection of long links. The shorter URLs are easier to write down, remember or pass around and work where space is at a premium—like in a blog or a Twitter 140-character post.

sites to see

Web MD is one of the largest “go-to” healthcare information sources on the Internet, and its sections of easy-to-understand information about vision care is very thorough, housing most of its resources under Web MD/Eye Health. The “Eye Health Center” page offers a way for patients to compare symptoms, to learn about eye conditions and “experience” what it calls Bad Vision, giving graphic examples of what they really mean. A very big, resource-rich source and interesting to explore in general for how various themes and sections are presented—not to mention the forums and boards of patient questions.