Increase Patient Volume by Remembering This Phrase
This simple phrase should dictate your every move. To increase patient volume, you need to use social media VERY CAREFULLY. Why? Because social media directly impacts your reputation, which ultimately affects your patient volume.
Since we live in a world with little privacy, you have to control the content you put out there. Think of this phrase next time you draft content, publish blog posts or tweet an update. If EVERYONE is listening, who might that entail?… Your patients? Your boss? Your students? Your spouse? Scary, huh?
I enjoyed this article regarding the “6 Things I Never Talk About on Twitter.” The entry explains that even though ‘transparency is king,’ there are particular topics that shouldn’t be discussed.
Think twice before you use social media to address:
Personal activities: If you can’t justify it in 140 characters, you should assume your personal activities could be misinterpreted (i.e. meeting friends for a drink).
Your family: Your family deserves praise, but it also deserves privacy. Before you post information about your spouse or kids, consider the fact that anyone can access it.
Patients. While they’re likely a major part of your life, anything that could violate your patients’ trust or have legal ramifications is off-limits.
Venting. We all have complaints, but deal with those matters off-line. A heated moment of negativity could result in the loss of a job. I’ve known people who have learned this the hard way.
Bad language. Social media requires short and to-the-point contributions, so why waste your space (or 140 character limit) with empty words.
Customer complaints. Negative feedback from your audience should never instigate reactive responses. While you may be offended, think before you use social media as a channel to retaliate.
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Social Media Stats Which Will Help You Increase Patient Volume
It is obvious to say that social media is changing the way we communicate. Understanding the trends will help you effectively plug in and increase your patient volume.
This is a great video which highlights these changes.
A few of the highlights include:
- More than half of the world’s population is under 30.
- Facebook tops Google for weekly U.S. Internet traffic.
- Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears have more Twitter followers than the populations of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway and Panama.
- 50% of mobile Internet traffic in the UK is on Facebook.
- During the 4+ minutes it takes to watch the video, more than 100 hours’ worth of video will be uploaded to YouTube.
- Amazon sold more electronic books for the Kindle than physical books on Christmas.
- If you were paid $1 for each posted Wikipedia article, you’d make $1,712.32 per hour.
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Embracing Medical Apps to Increase Patient Volume
According to recent news, texts and apps can improve the health of your patients. With readily-available apps ranging from fitness routines to weightloss programs, there are undoubtedly questions about what this means to hospitals and physicians in relation to patient health. But, the lesson to be learned is that patient care and internal operations can be improved by embracing medical apps. Adaptations are what make it possible to increase your patient volume.
So, if you’re ready to jump in head first, it’s time for a crash-course in medical apps healthcare professionals need to know. These tools can improve your healthcare system and build better relationships with patients to ultimately increase patient volume.
Epocrates ($0-$299): Epocrates is a suite of apps that enable users to check medication dosing, interactions, whether the drug is covered by the patient’s health plan, and more.
AirStrip OB (Free): Lets obstetricians monitor patients’ statuses, such as baby’s heartbeat, remotely. Requires the AirStrip fetal software suite to be installed at the hospital.
Dr. Rounds ($24.99): By keeping track of patients–when and why they were seen–this app assures that any daily visit, consult, or procedure charge is accounted.
Care360 Mobile (Free): Physicians can e-prescribe as well as view patient allergies, lab results, medication history and potential drug interactions directly from the iPhone or iPod touch.
Allscripts Remote (Free): Doctors can review a patient’s summary while speaking with the patient on the iPhone, quickly access prescription details and send up-to-date patient summary information directly to emergency rooms.
Full Code and Full Code Pro ($.99-$1.99): Allows EMS personnel to record the critical interventions during a cardiac arrest.
For more detailed information on how professionals rate these programs, check out this article on Fast Company.
Sign up for one of our free webinars and learn more about the benefits a social media program would bring to your marketing department.
