Thoughts about Social Media and Healthcare from SXSW

The Npress and Practice Marketing Revolution team had the pleasure of attending South by Southwest in Austin, TX. We participated in a variety of great workshops and presentations on social media and health care with speakers like Livestrong’s CEO Doug Ulman, MD Anderson, Humana, and the University of Maryland’s Hospital.

We’d like to share some social media FAQs that we discussed with our colleagues in hopes of helping you with your practices' strategy.

Why is connecting with patients online important for shaping the way our practices work?

We need to be closer to patients to understand their experience and their needs. An online experience allows patients to open up and share in a more personal and frank way. The whole point is to demonstrate that you care and you respond. Your response tells story about your practice’s character.

Our patients want to get to the computer and Google immediately when given a diagnosis. How can doctors stay relevant as health information providers?

Instead of letting patients hit the web blindly and read every site they can find about their condition, doctors and practices need to be a part of the conversation. An easy thing to do is to send patients to recommended resources. It’s like a prescription for information and can help their patients to find credible sources and understand health literacy online.

How can we set the stage for using social media in our practice?

Here is a step by step breakdown:

* Create business case (why important for the practice)
* Gain senior leadership support (need but in from doctors)
* Define processes
* Listen online (what are other companies doing and what are your patients saying about you?)
* Connect with other initiatives (what else are you doing for patient service and marketing?)
* Establish a personality
* Interact – don’t broadcast

We'll be discussing these and other ideas in subsequent posts. If you have questions, please don't hesitate to send an email to sarah@npressnewsletter.com. If you have something you'd like to add, please leave a comment!

Npress introduces a new social media program

Npress is pleased to introduce our new Practice Marketing Revolution program. Over the years, many Npress newsletter clients and fans have asked us for help with social media, and we’re very grateful for that. With our new Practice Marketing Revolution Program, we now have the ability to meet your social media content strategy and execution needs.

Here’s How It Works:

1. Join our program and get a customized social media marketing strategy for your practice by sending an email to sarah@npressnewsletter.com

2. We’ll meet with you to determine your goals and needs and begin structuring your social media presence.

3. Build a content strategy. We’ll work with you to discover the best type of content for engaging your patients.

4. Get connected. Once we’ve figured out what you want to accomplish with social media, we will help you build a network to serve your existing patients and attract new ones.

But wait, there’s more!

To kick off this exciting program and say thanks to our clients, we’re holding a contest. Join the Practice Marketing Revolution before March 31, 2010 and you’ll automatically be entered into a drawing to win a $100 Amazon gift card. The winner will be announced in April.

We look forward to welcoming you as a Practice Marketing Revolution superstar!

Visit the Practice Marketing Revolution

What kind of status message does your practice create?

Whether your practice is proactively engaged in social media or just loosely experimenting, you have to consider the impact social media can have on your practice and "brand".

Increased social media access via Mobile devices is helping to drive the use and access of social media wherever we go. Facebook recently indicated that 25 percent of its users (or roughly 100 million) primarily access Facebook via mobile methods. That means, when patients are in your practice, they are likely logging on to one or more of their social networks.

Ask yourself:

Are you delivering an experience worth "posting a status message" about?
How can you create an experience that your patients want to share with their friends through social media?
Are you meeting where they are and engaging in social media too?

Your Patient's Pet Peeves

Last month, we conducted a survey of patients in medical practices to find out what they would like out of their relationships with their providers and what really irked them. Here are our findings:

Appointment wait time is still the number one cause for complaint for patients in health care practices. The study, conducted by Npress, aimed to discover current trends in patient satisfaction. Participants were asked to name their number one pet peeve when seeking the care of a health care provider. They were also asked to specify which types of practices they frequent.

The survey found that excessive wait time at an office prior to an appointment was the primary criticism of 72 percent of the 500- person sample.  Respondents suggested numerous remedies including: “an advanced courtesy call if the wait can be anticipated”, “check in to let me know what is going on,” or “offer me a drink after I’ve been waiting fifteen minutes.”

Additional findings from the survey:

• Frustration with the lack of upfront information about the full cost of care was expressed by 41% of patients with insurance.
• 19% of respondents who frequent specialty practices mentioned that they would like to feel remembered by the staff. As one respondent put it, “how does the receptionist not know my name with more than 10 visits in a 6-month period?”
• More than a quarter of survey respondents would like to be able to reach their doctor after hours or have a reliable message service available.
• What would be nice? Several respondents mentioned they would like to receive a printout of the day’s visit with stats like blood pressure, weight, etc, as well as what was discussed, and suggested actions.

One overarching conclusion from the survey is that if doctors want to differentiate themselves and provide an exceptional patient experience, they should provide outward signs that they are doing something patient complaints, specifically regarding appointment wait times.

Develop Your Annual Practice Marketing Plan

Your annual marketing plan will assist you in growing your practice and figuring out what it is that you need to do, how to do it, and when to do it. We have a new 6 day marketing course we will revisit your marketing goals and determine what it is that you hope to achieve in the upcoming year with your marketing efforts.

How it works:

Over the next six days I will walk you through the steps of creating a solid marketing plan for your health care practice. At the end of our course you will have completed the following:

• Preparation of your mission statement and vision for the next few months.
• Discover and define your target patients.
• Develop and plan your marketing strategy.
• Develop your marketing mix.
• Create a marketing calendar that serves as your schedule of marketing activities and events for the upcoming year.

When you have finished the course you will have a strong marketing plan in your hand. This will become a tool that will help you market your practice while attending to patients and your other responsibilities.

Sound good? Ok, now it is time to get started… 

Send an email to sarah@npressnewsletter.com with “Marketing Plan” in the subject line. Each day you will receive a new lesson and assignment to complete. I will be available to coach you through the 6 days and by the time you have completed the 6th day you will have created your annual marketing plan.

NEW Product! 10 Secrets to More Referrals E-Book

Ask professional practice owners from Boston to Seattle to name their number one goal, and they’ll tell you they’d like to increase sales and get more referred business. Referrals are often the best kind of new patients as they come primed to like you and ready to do accept treatment.

The Practice Marketing Revolution is a professional practice owner’s guide to marketing success on a budget. The products and coaching program focus on a host of new tactics plus the latest updates on tried-and-true low cost marketing methods that are essential for any growing practice.

After using our tools you’ll be ready to seamlessly implement a year round marketing program for your professional practice that will keep your practice filled with happy patients.

Start getting more referrals today with our FREE e-book. Simply email me, sarah@npressnewsletter.com with 'Referrals' in the subject line.

Change

Change is inevitable. Your practice grows, you bring in new products, you offer new services. If you want to develop changes that your patients will like, you need to keep gathering information about them. I probably sound like a broken record but you have to create systems to measure your marketing. Your practice marketing systems need to include quantification. As soon as you can, make sure your systems capture the following information:

• Demographic information for every new patient. Make it automatic. Every patient. Every time. Do it at your new patient intake call.  Where are they coming from? If you know this, you can use more of your marketing resources to connect with them. With the capabilities of computer systems these days, there is no excuse for not collecting this information.

• Dollars spent on marketing and lead generation activities.

• Number of new patient phone calls each week/ each month.

• Number of new patient phone calls converted into new patient visits.

• Total dollars generated from new patients.

The more information you get from it will help you make better management decisions about where to direct your marketing dollars.

- Sarah Nelson

Sarah is the Founder of Npress and has been helping doctors and dentists get new patients and keep them since 2007. Success has seen Sarah and Npress profiled in such publications as The Portland Press Herald, The Maine Switch, Advance for Healthy Aging, the Coast 93.1, and The Forecaster. She has recently been named one of the “20 Most Outstanding Women in Portland that you should know!”