I had a revelation at the PRSA Health Academy conference in Chicago: the overarching theme of my career is “It’s prevention, stupid.”
With full apologies to the Clinton campaign that made the original phrase famous, it struck me that it’s really that obvious and that simple. My technology and security background? Preventing threats/malicious code/software errors before they affect operations. My healthcare background? Preventing long-term disease through wellness/telemedicine/early intervention. The wellness of your network, the wellness of your software, the wellness of you all comes down to prevention.
Have I always known this subconsciously? Is it a coincidence that more than half of my clients have offered products or services that focus on proactive measures of prevention rather than reactive techniques for repair? Or have I been slowly positioning myself to focus on this?
The one thing I know for sure is that as healthcare reform transforms from theory to reality, prevention will become increasingly important. An increasing number of consumers will be seeking health, wellness and prevention information from websites, blogs and social media, and someone needs to create the content that they’re looking for. Through good planning or good fortune, I find myself positioned right in the thick of things for the foreseeable future.