10 Ways For HealthCare Organizations to Build Trust and Increase Patient Volume

Posted by: on Mar 25, 2010 | 3 Comments

A panel of experts a the SXSW conference discusses the intersection between health and social media. Specifically looking at the topic of building trust for healthcare systems.

Building trust is a critical step in developing a relationship with your patients and therefore increasing your patient volumes.

The Panel featured:

The aim of the final session was to brainstorm ways that healthcare organizations could overcome the barriers and build more trust and credibility.

They settled on 10 Steps to Build Trust (and volume)!

  1. Listen to and implement ideas from the community.
  2. Have shared values on good health.
  3. Answer your patient’s or customer’s concerns directly.
  4. Aggregate or curate useful information.
  5. Serve as a resource or guide for the community.
  6. Set expectations on what you do and why.
  7. Focus on setting a clear mission for employees.
  8. Communicate results and outcomes.
  9. Recognize both sides of the issue or data.
  10. Build trusted long-term relationships.

An Effective Digital Strategy Builds Patient Volume No Matter What Tools You Use

Posted by: on Mar 23, 2010 | 4 Comments

Creating and implementing an effective digital strategy which allows you to communicate your benefits to a target audience will build relationships and increase patient volume no matter what social media tools you use.

BrandWeek’s article on”The Tweet Hereafter” examines the effectiveness and viability of Twitter in the future. I say let’s not worry about the future, Twitter is a valuable resource today for those who can use it effectively. Twitter may not be here in 5 years, but with an effective digital strategy you will be able to take advantage of the 6.2 million users per month (down from 7.8 million) and implement your strategy on the next new social media tool.

So why has Twitter become a wasteland for big brands?

  • Verizon spent more than $1 billion in 2009 and has only around 5,000 followers
  • Coca-Cola has 15,000 followers
  • Apple isn’t even on Twitter
  • Delta Airlines page¬†went 7 months without an update

It goes to show money can’t buy relevance. Large companies are too focused on:

  • ¬†Complex strategies and messages
  • Everything is focused on their product
  • Logo used throughout blog, Facebook and Twitter sites
  • Inconsistent content dissemination
  • All communications are about the brand, not about the benefits of the brand to your target

So why does Woot and Someecards have 1,642,744 and 1,619,856 followers respectively? The have implemented a strategy which abides by the 3 key principles of a social media strategy.

 

 

  • Connect with target audience and develop meaningful relationships
  • Become the¬†#1 resource for your target audience
  • Utilize all social marketing platforms, not just Facebook or Twitter

By following these three principles to an effective social marketing strategy, you will be able to flow with the changes in the social media landscape (one thing is for sure-things will be changing) and increase your patient volumes.

 

 

The Fastest Way To Increase Patient Volumes- Capitalize On The Co-Risks

Posted by: on Mar 11, 2010 | No Comments

Marketing to your existing patients is not only the fastest to increase patient volumes, but also the cheapest way. And Bonus: It is the kindest thing you can do to serve your patients.

We all have enough statistics to know that our patients are very likely to have one or more co-morbidity.

Recently we got a peek at a proprietary normative database. “Normative” means it is set up as a benchmark of what is “normal” statistically speaking.

There were some surprising learnings in there. Here are a small amount of practical examples:

  • Did you know that anyone that fails a simple CV risk assessment, whether or not they have an actual CV problem, have a 30% chance of needing an orthopedic procedure? Or a 10% chance of having cancer?
  • If they fail a cancer exam, the numbers are flipped: and 30% chance of a CV problem and 10% chance of a ortho problem
  • If they are a bariatric patient, they will fail a PVD screening 99% of the time and have over 30% chance of needing a joint replacement
  • If your hospital is like everyone else’s, then over 60% of your inpatients have a primary or secondary diagnose of diabetes. The list of likely co-morbidity issues is huge with diabetes- but those patients are rarely cross screened while being treated.

It is worth the hassle to ask your medical staff to allow patient cross-screenings for a co-morbidity. It is the right thing to do for the health of the patient and the right thing to do for the financial health of the hospital.