Personal Referral Research Articles

Digital Marketing in The Legal Profession: What’s Going On and Does It Matter?

Law firms are importing ‘digital marketing’ into their practices. ‘Digital marketing’ is using the internet and online technologies, such as computers, mobile phones, websites, social media and data tools to achieve marketing objectives. These objectives are usually to acquire customers, build customer preferences and loyalties, promote brands and increase sales. Digital marketing is being introduced (directly and indirectly) by legal marketers, who are selling their expertise as solutions to the current pressures faced by firms. This is new territory for a profession that has historically opposed advertising and explicit self-promotion. For some, digital marketing is simply a modern twist on the personal referral of medieval times. But there is little in the current legal literature that looks closely at digital marketing in law and what it means for legal professionalism. This article presents digital marketing as a new form of entrepreneurial and managerial practice, adding to others operating in law firms as they become ‘target audiences’ of new business disciplines. We examine what digital marketing entails, the ideas and technologies behind it, the trends in and types of digital marketing in law, and the implications for lawyers’ identities, expertise, and professional and legal obligations. Digital marketing is now unavoidable. Firms today must understand the technologies and underlying ‘market’ logic that underpin digital marketing and support its responsible use by their lawyers and marketing teams.

'Getting the vaccine makes me a champion of it': Exploring perceptions towards peer-to-peer communication about the COVID-19 vaccines amongst Australian adults.

Peer-to-peer communication approaches have been previously described as the 'power of personal referral'. Rather than relying on official channels of information, peer-to-peer communication may have a role in supporting changes in understanding and possibly behaviours. However, in emergency or pandemic situations, there is currently limited understanding of whether community members feel comfortable speaking about their vaccine experiences or advocating to others. This study explored the perceptions of COVID-19 vaccinated and unvaccinated Australian adults regarding their preferences and opinions about peer-peer communication and other vaccine communication strategies. Qualitative interview research. In-depth interviews were conducted in September 2021 with 41 members of the Australian community. Thirty-three participants self-identified as being vaccinated against COVID-19, while the remainder were not vaccinated at the time or did not intend on receiving a COVID vaccine. Amongst those who were vaccinated, participants spoke about being willing to promote the vaccine and correct misinformation and felt empowered following their vaccination. They highlighted the importance of peer-to-peer communication and community messaging, expressing the need for both strategies in an immunisation promotional campaign, with a slight emphasis on the persuasive power of communication between family and friends. However,those who were unvaccinated tended to dismiss the role of community messaging, commenting on a desire not to be like one of the many who listened to the advice of others. During emergency situations, governments and other relevant community organisations should consider harnessing peer-to-peer communication amongst motivated individuals as a health communication intervention. However further work is needed to understand the support that this constituent-involving strategy requires. Participants were invited to participate through a series of online promotional pathways including emails and social media posts. Those who completed the expression of interest and met the study criteria were contacted and sent the full study participant information documentation. A time for a 30 min semi-structured interview was set and provided with a $50 gift voucher at the conclusion.

Patient-reported Outcomes After Surgery for Lumbar Disc Herniation, a Randomized Controlled Trial Comparing the Effects of Referral to Municipal Physical Rehabilitation Versus No Referral.

Randomized controlled trial. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of referring patients to municipal physical rehabilitation compared to no referral on patient-reported outcomes (PROs) after surgery for lumbar disc herniation. In surgical spine practice, lumbar discectomy is one of the most frequent interventions. Postoperatively, patients are typically referred to physical rehabilitation at the time of hospital discharge, and in Denmark all patients are legally entitled to a personal rehabilitation plan and referral for free rehabilitation at the municipal facilities. However, whether postoperative rehabilitation is effective in this group of patients remains controversial. This single-center single blinded study randomized subjects into 2 groups. Patients in the REHAB group received municipal rehabilitation starting 4 to 6 weeks postoperative, whereas patients in the HOME group were discharged after surgery without any planned rehabilitation course. Primary outcome was Oswestry Disability Index after 6 months, whereas secondary outcomes included EuroQoL-5D and Visual Analogue Scale for leg and back pain. All PROs were obtained before surgery and at 1, 3 to 6, 12, and 24 months postoperative. A total of 146 patients were enrolled in the study: 73 allocated to the REHAB-group and 73 to the HOME-group. The groups were similar at baseline and the follow-up rate at 12 and 24 months was 78%. PROs in both groups improved significantly after surgery, but no statistically significant differences were observed between the groups at any follow-up time point in either the intent-to-treat, as-treated, and per-protocol analyses. Revision surgeries during the follow-up period were equally divided between the groups. Surgery for lumbar disc herniation is effective in relieving pain, improving function, and quality of life. The postoperative outcome is not altered significantly by referring patients to municipal physical rehabilitation compared to no referral. 1.

Recruiting and Retaining Chinese Elders in a Longitudinal Study: Lessons Learned.

This article describes strategies for recruiting and retaining Chinese elders in a longitudinal research study related to hypertension management. Chinese participants were recruited for a pilot, longitudinal intervention study. The information presented represents observations on both the recruitment process and participant retention. Recruiting via convenience sampling, offering frequent incentives, and having culturally competent research staff were important in this study with Chinese elders as participants. Among the various approaches used, the highest recruitment rate (50% [11/22]) was obtained from personal referrals with a retention rate of 91% (20/22) over a 6-month intervention period. Personal referral is the best approach for recruiting Chinese elders in the study. In addition, frequent incentives and reminder calls are helpful in retaining participants.

Community Outreach and Engagement Strategies from the Wisconsin Study Center of the National Children's Study

The purpose of this methods article was to describe and evaluate outreach and engagement strategies designed to initially build county-wide awareness and support for the National Children's Study (NCS or the study) and subsequently to target the segment communities where recruitment for the study occurred. Selected principles from community outreach, social marketing, and health care system and personal referral formed the foundation for the strategies. The strategies included a celebration event, community advisory board, community needs assessment, building relationships with health care providers and systems, eliciting a network of study supporters, newsletters, appearances at local young family-oriented events (health fairs, parades), presentations to local community leaders, community forums, "branding" with assistance from a women-owned local marketing firm, and mailings including an oversized, second-touch postcard. Six months after study launch, approximately 4,600 study-eligible women were asked in a door-to-door survey if and how they became aware of the study. On average, 40% of eligible women reported being aware of the study. The most frequently cited strategy to cultivate their awareness was study-specific mailings. Awareness of the NCS increased by 7.5% among those receiving a second-touch postcard relative to controls (95% CIs [4.9, 10.7] z=5.347, p<0.0000, d=0.16). Community outreach and engagement strategies, in particular the oversized postcard as a second-touch effort, may be used effectively by researchers for participant recruitment and by public health nurses for delivery of important population-focused messages.

An ethics curriculum for short-term global health trainees

BackgroundInterest in short-term global health training and service programs continues to grow, yet they can be associated with a variety of ethical issues for which trainees or others with limited global health experience may not be prepared to address. Therefore, there is a clear need for educational interventions concerning these ethical issues.MethodsWe developed and evaluated an introductory curriculum, “Ethical Challenges in Short-term Global Health Training.” The curriculum was developed through solicitation of actual ethical issues experienced by trainees and program leaders; content drafting; and external content review. It was then evaluated from November 1, 2011, through July 1, 2012, by analyzing web usage data and by conducting user surveys. The survey included basic demographic data; prior experience in global health and global health ethics; and assessment of cases within the curriculum.ResultsThe ten case curriculum is freely available at http://ethicsandglobalhealth.org. An average of 238 unique visitors accessed the site each month (standard deviation, 19). Of users who had been abroad before for global health training or service, only 31% reported prior ethics training related to short-term work. Most users (62%) reported accessing the site via personal referral or their training program; however, a significant number (28%) reported finding the site via web search, and 8% discovered it via web links. Users represented different fields: medicine (46%), public health (15%), and nursing (11%) were most common. All cases in the curriculum were evaluated favorably.ConclusionsThe curriculum is meeting a critical need for an introduction to the ethical issues in short-term global health training. Future work will integrate this curriculum within more comprehensive curricula for global health and evaluate specific knowledge and behavioral effects, including at training sites abroad.

Church Marketing: Building and Sustaining Membership

This national study surveyed Protestant church leaders to determine the perceived effectiveness of their marketing efforts for building and sustaining membership. Findings show 24 very effective tools that are being used to retain members, attract attendees, and persuade them to become members. Tools for both retaining and attracting are the church Web site, along with children and youth/teen ministries. One attribute for both retaining and persuading is the age of the congregation. Tools for retaining only are social media, Internet search engines, service length, and college/young adult ministries; and those for attracting only are personal referral, number of services offered, projection screen, monthly newsletter, sermon content, physical environment, outreach worldwide, and Internet Webcast ministries. Ways to persuade attendees to become members include leadership roles for women, multisite churches, women ministries, church atmosphere, relationship building, membership of family, and pastor's publications. The financial strength of the church empowers leaders to achieve three goals—retain, attract, and persuade.

A management perspective on the current status of referral marketing in the property selling industry

Increasing role specialization and the partial disintegration of the traditional family structure, social groups, as well as community entities have led buyers (consumers and businesses alike) to search for expert advice on products and services that has been provided informally through local social networks, as family members and peers. Marketing practitioners and theorists also routinely cite the power of the personal referral on customer behaviour. However, relatively few businesses have tried to harness the power of word-of-mouth (WOM). The purpose of the article is to indicate what the current status is of the relationships which estate agencies in the Gauteng Province, South Africa have with their referral market, and to provide recommendations to the management of estate agencies in the province regarding the improved application of the principles of relationship marketing to this market. The target population for this study was 1025 estate agencies, of which 250 managers and/or owners participated through personal interviews in the completion of questionnaires. Data analysis was done by calculating averages and standard deviations, Cronbach α-values, p-values, the paired sample T-test, as well as standard marginal homogeneity test statistics. To strengthen their position in a highly competitive industry, estate agencies need to identify positive word-of-mouth referrers who can form part of their marketing strategy. Information pertaining to the products and services of the estate agency can be provided to these individuals to develop their value-added advantage to the marketing strategy of the business. Finally, estate agencies in Gauteng also need to provide customers with products (that is, property) and service delivery of a high quality. As a result, the estate agency can secure that the communication of their customers to the general public will ensure that the latter will purchase the products and services of the estate agency. Key words: Estate agency, referrer, referral market, referral market relationships.

Waiting Time to Lymph Node Biopsy is Dependent on Referral Method: Don't Write, Phone!

Patients with lymphadenopathy are commonly referred to general surgeons for diagnostic lymph node biopsy. We were concerned at potential long waits for this service in our hospital and thus wanted to compare the efficiency of written and telephone referral with a view to identifying the optimum care pathway for these patients. Sixty patients were included in a 2-year retrospective review (excluding referrals associated with breast lumps which were managed separately). Hospital Episode Statistics data were used to analyse notes for the source and method of referral, waiting time to biopsy, clinic attendance and diagnosis. Of referrals, 33% were from haematology and 28% from general practice. Overall, 47% of patients were referred by letter; of these, 64% were seen in clinic before biopsy. Personal referral between clinicians, by direct discussion, e-mail or fax led to a mean wait of 4 days, compared to 51 days when patients were referred by letter. Clinic attendance had no significant bearing on diagnostic accuracy or complication rate. Neoplasia accounted for 43% of diagnoses and infection (including four cases of tuberculosis) for 10%. Of biopsies, 33% showed benign changes, 8% were unrecorded and 5% were incorrect. In this study, 43% of biopsies revealed malignancy and we advise that lymph node biopsy requests should be managed on a fast-track pathway, expedited by direct personal request. Following this study, we have implemented a fast-track pathway for such patients.

Staffing an Academic Reference Desk with Librarians is not Cost-effective

Staffing an Academic Reference Desk with Librarians is not Cost-effective

The Savior

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article IntrospectionsFull AccessThe SaviorRichard G. Druss, M.D.Richard G. DrussSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:1 Dec 2004https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.12.2179AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail “He lifted me from the dung heaps,” said Ms. Brent (not her real name), referring to her former therapist. She said that she had grown up in a series of foster homes and that her life had been empty and meaningless until she began her 5-year psychotherapy with Dr. Moses Keviac (his name is disguised). She annunciated his name with adoration and reverence. “I would have stayed on with him forever.” He had helped her so much that at long last she was able to finish her schooling. But now she was stalled and had not used her degree to get a paying job. She was being supported by a small trust fund from her grandmother.Ms. Brent was an intelligent woman of 30. She told me that she had been in the process of looking for her first job when Dr. Keviac had suddenly announced that he would be relocating to the West Coast in 3 months.“I was devastated,” she said. “You are the fourth psychiatrist I have seen since he left; I have been trying to find a worthy successor to him.” At this point, she began to weep. “I’m not sure there is anyone who can fill those shoes.”I had met Dr. Keviac at psychoanalytic meetings, and he was indeed a most charismatic man. It was 1980, and I was a very junior member of the faculty.“I’m really desperate, and I worry that I will slip back to where I was without his sessions to energize me.”“They are big shoes to fill,” I told her, “but I’d like to give it a try,” and I set up a second appointment with her 1 week hence. She called the next day and said that although she thought I was very able, she would really like to give someone else a try. I wished her good luck, suddenly having a vision of Diogenes wandering about the streets of Athens with his lamp, looking for the one honest man.About a month later, I was at a meeting when Dr. John Weber, a senior psychiatrist, came over to me.“Hello, Dick. How are you? I have to say that I was next in line after Ms. Brent saw you.”“What did you think?” I asked.“I saw her just once also. Neither of us could re-create that idealizing transference that she had with Moses.”“What do you figure happened?”“That’s what I wanted to tell you: a follow-up,” he said. “I sent her my bill for the consultation. After a few weeks, I got a check from her. The envelope was postmarked from the West Coast. I’ll bet she moved out there to be with Moses.”“My gosh,” I said.This experience reinforced and consolidated a point of view that I feel even more strongly about today than I did then: Psychotherapy should never become a substitute for life. If it does, we are doing something very wrong. Insight psychotherapy or psychoanalysis should always be a running commentary on the patient’s life—a serious, very important commentary—but not a substitute for life. If it does become a substitute, you are carrying out the wrong treatment for the patient.Surely, Dr. Keviac should not have dropped this patient with such short notice. If a new position took him to the West Coast so suddenly, he should have spent enough time commuting bicoastally to wean his more needy and dependent patients. He should have arranged a personal referral for Ms. Brent with his blessing and perhaps had a few weeks of overlapping treatment.But most of all, he should have been helping her build other nonpsychiatric connections—to her work, to other people, to her church, and to her community. He allowed himself to become her savior and then left her, alone, to face the world. He permitted a situation to develop in which he was the only one who could feed her and then withdrew the breast before she had learned to feed herself.Our profession needs fewer saviors and more healers.Address reprint requests to Dr. Druss, 180 East End Ave., New York, NY 10128. FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited byNone Volume 161Issue 12 December 2004Pages 2179-2180 Metrics PDF download History Published online 1 December 2004 Published in print 1 December 2004

A screening system for Michigan's home- and community-based long-term care programs.

To develop a screening system for Michigan's MI Choice publicly funded home- and community-based services programs, to aid in identifying both individuals eligible for services and their most appropriate level of care (LOC). Identify assessment items from the Minimum Data Set for Home Care (MDS-HC) assessment instrument that are predictive of five LOCs determined by expert care managers: nursing home, home care, intermittent personal care, homemaker, and information and referral (without services). The algorithm based on approximately 30 client characteristics agrees with expert opinions substantially better (kappa =.62) than systems based on activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living only (kappa <.40). The screening algorithm can be used both over the telephone to identify clients who will not be fully assessed (as they are unlikely to receive services) and in person to recommend the appropriate LOC.

Social Networks of Drug Users in High-Risk Sites: Finding the Connections

Social network research increasingly expands our understanding of the social environment of drug users' health risks, particularly those associated with the transmission of HIV, hepatitis, and other sexually transmitted and bloodborne infectious diseases. Our study of the networks of drug users who use high-risk sites, where people gather to inject drugs and smoke crack cocaine, is designed to explore the relationships and interactions of drug users in settings in which potential risk occurs, and to assess the opportunity to create prevention linkages. This paper describes the ego-network characteristics and macro-network linkages among a sample of 293 drug users recruited through street outreach and personal drug-use network referral in Hartford, Connecticut. Characteristics of the largest connected component of the network are also described and analyzed. We discuss uses of network analyses as well as implications of network connections for peer-led AIDS prevention intervention conducted in high-risk drug-use sites.

The virtual physician office: patient use of an internet-based women’s health forum

Objective: To determine if women are using Internet-based medical resources to obtain personalized diagnostic and therapeutic advice rather than general information. Methods: Questions posted on a physician-moderated ob-gyn web forum were collected over a 3-year period and categorized as seeking either general information, a personal diagnosis or prognosis, individualized treatment recommendations, a personal referral, or a combination of personal diagnosis and treatment requests. The site was open to all Internet users without password restriction and no personal data were collected on the users. Results: A total of 913 unique medical questions were posted in the 3-year period, an average of 304 annually. Overall, 224 (25%) of the questions requested information of a general nature, whereas 689 (75%) were requests for personal diagnoses/prognoses, treatment recommendations or referrals. Individualized diagnoses or prognostic determinations were requested by 51% of the women, including situations involving potential ectopic pregnancies and breast carcinoma. Conclusions: The majority of women who post questions to an online women’s health forum may seek personalized advice and opinions, rather than answers to questions applicable to a broad range of women. Such forums may be intended as an extension of, or substitute for, in-person consultations with their own clinicians. Physicians who moderate such forums must balance their desire to provide detailed information against the potential for entering into a doctor–patient relationship in a ‘virtual office.‘

The influence of the mass media on the selection of physicians.

The purpose of this study was to examine now media sources influence an individual's reported choice of a physician as compared to personal referral sources and how consumers use the Yellow Pages to search for health care information. A random sample of 762 residents was systematically selected from the Charlotte, North Carolina White Pages and was asked to participate in a 20-item descriptive phone survey designed and tested by the investigator. Five hundred and seventy-eight individuals completed the survey, with a response rate of 75.9%. This study supports previous research suggesting that personal referrals are the most influential sources in selecting health care services. Therefore, satisfying and delighting the physician's/practice's existing client base may be one of the most potent advertising resources at hand. Mass media sources played a relatively minor role in influencing provider selection in this study. Nevertheless, it should not be dismissed in as much as the media may be an important way for physicians to promote "brand recognition," a problem not considered in this study. Finally, approximately 28% of the participants were "Yellow Pages users"; that is, individuals who tended to be heavy users of the Yellow Pages and used it for multiple information-seeking tasks. The findings related to the Yellow Pages suggest that while it may be useful to advertise in the Yellow Pages, a more modest financial allocation to this source may be considered.

Word of mouth: understanding and managing referral marketing

Marketing practitioners and theorists routinely cite the power of the personal referral on customer behaviour. However, relatively few companies have tried to harness the power of word of mouth (WOM). Scholars have been pondering WOM over 2400 years, although modern marketing research into WOM started only relatively recently, in the post-war 1940s. WOM can be characterized by valence, focus, timing, solicitation and degree of management intervention. Most recent WOM research has been conducted from a customer-to-customer perspective, even though WOM is found in other contexts such as influence, employee and recruitment markets. Marketing research into WOM has attempted to answer two questions. What are the antecedents of WOM? What are the consequences of WOM? This paper integrates that research into a contingency model and attempts to identify researchable gaps in our knowledge.

The Hidden Web

The difficulty of finding information on the World Wide Web by browsing hypertext documents has led to the development and deployment of various search engines and indexing techniques. However, many information-gathering tasks are better handled by finding a referral to a human expert rather than by simply interacting with online information sources. A personal referral allows a user to judge the quality of the information he or she is receiving as well as to potentially obtain information that is deliberately not made public. The process of finding an expert who is both reliable and likely to respond to the user can be viewed as a search through the net-work of social relationships between individuals as opposed to a search through the network of hypertext documents. The goal of the REFERRAL WEB Project is to create models of social networks by data mining the web and develop tools that use the models to assist in locating experts and related information search and evaluation tasks.

Developing a Mental Health Resource for Consumers

Little is known about how consumers select mental health providers. In the literature there is an absence of information to assist consumers and referral agencies including general practitioners, in making informed choices. This paper reports the research process undertaken to develop such a resource. Interviews were conducted with representatives from a variety of groups identified by consumers and providers as supplying mental health services, including: general practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, Relationships Australia (NSW), Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), postnatal depression self-help groups, Lifeline, the Gay and Lesbian Counselling Service of NSW, spiritual healers, and, consumer consultants. The interviews covered issues of cost, type of services provided, goals of management, limitations of therapy, consumer information about the process, sessions, therapist credentials, training, background and experience, professional and personal development, quality assurance, research, referral, access, and confidentiality. Indicators for ascertaining effectiveness of the therapist's work were also delineated. Although there was a great deal of similarity in views concerning the nature of therapy held by a range of providers of mental health services, differences of approach did emerge that need to be brought to the awareness of consumers. Comparing responses of mental health providers to the same questions allows other issues such as priorities and access to be gauged by comparing these responses. The strength of this approach is that it allows the presentation of information in a manner that allows consumers to make comparisons and choices based on information obtained in a context similar to the therapeutic situation.

The relative effect of price and personal referral cues on consumers' perception of dental services.

This paper reports on an experimental study that examines the relative effect of price and personal referral cues on the consumers perception of dental services. The results of the study show that price and personal referral do effect the perceived competence of the dentist as well as consumer purchase probability.

High-risk sexual behavior and condom use among gay and bisexual African-American men.

Little is known about the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) high-risk sexual practices of gay and bisexual African-American men. These data are needed so that better interventions can be developed and implemented in this population. The frequency and correlates of unprotected anal intercourse were examined among 250 gay and bisexual African-American men in the San Francisco Bay Area. The cohort was recruited in 1990 from bars, bathhouses, and erotic bookstores, and through African-American gay organizations, street outreach, advertisements in gay mainstream and African-American newspapers, health clinics, and personal referral from other participants. More than 50% of the men in our sample reported having unprotected anal intercourse in the past 6 months, a considerably higher percentage than that among gay White men in San Francisco through 1988 and 1989. Men who practiced unprotected anal intercourse were more likely to be poor, to have been paid for sex, or to have used injection drugs; to have a higher perceived risk of HIV infection; and to report less social support for concerns about risky sexual behavior. Condom norms, condom efficacy, and negative expectations about using condoms predicted these men's failure to use them. In the second decade of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome epidemic, risk reduction programs are still needed for gay and bisexual African-American men.