Healthcare is more competitive than ever before, with factors like an aging population, digital health, and the Affordable Care Act driving the industry to rethink their current systems.
Consumer demand for greater access to healthcare and a personalized approach to their health is finally starting to result in change. However, it still has a long way to go –1 out of every 5 dollars consumers spend is on healthcare, yet patient satisfaction ranks lowest among comparable industrialized nations for quality of care.
4 Steps to Becoming a Healthcare Innovator
The good news is that patients today are more empowered than ever before. They will gravitate towards your healthcare company if you are able to stand out from the masses. Below are 4 steps you can take to think like a healthcare innovator:
Get Personal with Patients
Health is deeply personal and impacts all aspects of patients’ daily lives. Consumer experiences from retail – such as on-demand service and personalization – foster similar expectation from the healthcare.
Engage patients on a personal level
In a world where patients are just as likely to switch healthcare providers as they are to try a new hotel if they aren’t happy, retention is vital. If you are healthcare provider, the Affordable Care Act, means that your reimbursements are aligned with patient satisfaction. Two-way dialogue helps to drive patient loyalty by letting them know that their voice is being heard. In turn, you can acquire insights you can use to continuously improve the care you offer.
Consider how you are using data
Data is more accessible than ever before on a micro, personal level (wearables and self-monitoring devices) as well as macro level (patient records).
The challenge lies in extracting knowledge from the numbers. What would happen if Electronic Medical Records (EMR) were integrated with data that a patient was generating on themselves 24/7? 49% of consumers have said they would currently use a wearable health-tracking device, and nearly one in two consumers said they were “very” or “somewhat” likely to buy one in the next year.
Meet Patients Where They Are
As marketers looking for new patients for your services or healthcare products, let the behavioural trends be your guide. Pew Research shows that healthcare consumers are avid researchers: 72% of internet users have looked up health information online in the past year.
The most commonly researched topics are specific diseases or conditions; treatments or procedures; and doctors or other health professionals.
Marketers need to reach patients in the moment they are seeking answers. By utilizing machine learning, they can simplify the process of connecting them with healthcare products and services that are the right fit. No one wants to be spammed – by using the same technology companies as Netflix and Amazon, you can add value to patients rather than being invasive.
Has all of the health engagement online meant the demise of offline channels? Definitely not. Segmentation should underline all of your marketing efforts. With the booming aging population, channels like TV, and direct mail still play an important role.
On-the-ground partnerships are also helping to meet consumer demands for accessibility. One example is how Passport Health ran a pilot with Uber to deliver flu shots on-demand to consumers across the country. Innovative healthcare companies will also continue to come up with new ways to reach consumers where they are.
Don’t Let New Technology Overwhelm You
If executed properly, digital patient engagement has the ability to increase the quality of care while reducing costs.
Before utilizing any new digital marketing programs or technology purchases, it’s important to determine your KPI. There’s no use innovating for the sake of doing things differently. In order to see real improvement, make sure your spending decisions are based on results. For example, if your end goal is customer acquisition, you should have a goal in mind for how much it would make sense for you to spend to acquire a single customer.
If you are tracking the impact of ongoing customer engagement methods, be sure to monitor the impact of medication adherence, hospital visits, readmissions, and other key metrics.
And remember, you don’t need to build systems from scratch. Partner with companies in technology and marketing who understand the need for a results-driven approach to patient engagement.
Be a Compliance & Transparency All-Star
Patients deserve utmost transparency in such a personal (and often emotional) area such as their health. While it’s important to reach healthcare consumers where they are (online, or on social media), the process of having patients ‘opt-in’ to receive contact from you needs to be private, secure and be fully TCPA and HIPPA compliant.
Consumer costs of healthcare are often filled with ambiguity. Over the past few years, healthcare insurances costs have stayed largely the same, but the consumer portion went up substantially.
Additionally, patients rarely know the real cost of their care until after they’re received it. Can you imagine if a retail business operated on these grounds?
The cost of healthcare can be an enormous burden – It’s the single most common cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S. A few companies have been upfront with consumers by information like costs and performance ratings online, or creating cost estimator calculators to be transparent on the true out-of-pocket cost.
We’re only at the tip of the iceberg in seeing the true impact of new technologies, policies and industry changes on consumer wellness. In regulated environments, there will likely be a rigorous adaptation process. If you are a provider of healthcare products, you may be able to adopt innovation more rapidly. While healthcare innovation may traditionally bring to mind new drugs and treatments, the transformation of the industry is consumer-centric like a business.