As healthcare continues its rapid evolution into a far more
accountable, cost effective, quality outcome and consumer driven model, it begs
the question, is engagement now an all of the time a new reality? Secondary to
that question is are healthcare providers prepared for that new marketing
realty?
Like anything in life and business, some are but the majority
is not. But be that as it may, it would
seem that healthcare consumer or patient engagement is not a part time or some
of the time activity anymore of hit or miss activities. On Facebook one day then gone for weeks at a
time. Sporadic outreach and touch someone emails, calls, or even any
changed content on the web site. No integrated marketing communications across
multiple channels and platforms to drive engagement.
What engagement should be viewed as is the opportunity to
create, foster, and nourish a one-on-one relationship that is enduring with
those individuals and families.
What I would really like to know, is that if providers are
not effectively engaging with the healthcare consumer or patient for that
matter, how do you even think any population health initiative will be
successful? Talk all you want about populations
and managing the same, the bottom line is it still comes down to the
individual. And if the individual is not engaged, it all falls apart.
That is a scary proposition for some healthcare
organizations. It means being accountable and responsible to those you serve and
meeting their needs by delivering on the brand promises day in and day out. I would also suggest that this extends to
area employers as well. Otherwise you
will see more out-migration from your community for care because others can do
it better, faster and more cost effectively and have effectively engaged the
person.
After all, healthcare is a $2.8 trillion dollars business and
the competition from traditional and nontraditional providers will only get
more intense. The healthcare consumers will spend in excess of $350 billion
out-of-pocket for insurance premiums, co-pays and deductibles in 2015. Providers that can engage will become the go
to destinations for healthcare that will not only survive the storm, but
prosper as well.
Providers now live in a medical retail market. Though others will tell you that it’s all
about experience, that’s just cover for the old ways of doing business and
telling you what you want to hear. It’s
now about four dimensions- , price, outcomes, engagement and experience. Focusing only on experience with your
marketing communications and campaigns is a prescription for failure.
So what to do?
Here are nine engagement strategies you need to employ:
1. Integrate your engagement solutions. That means information is
delivered seamlessly so that the healthcare consumer can interact with you any
way they want, when they want too.
2. Marketing should be using both
push and pull messaging. Messaging needs
to be relevant to the audiences at the point in time it’s needed that is personalized,
customized, and aware of the cultural heritage and influences tailored to them.
3. Incentives and motivational techniques will be needed to keep
patient engaged. That doesn't mean cash. Look to the gaming industry for gaming
technology and gaming prediction, for ways to engage without cash. Be
creative. Look outside healthcare for
ideas, tools and techniques to engage.
4. Create a sense of community.
You have to compete and one needs to feed the beast. The hospital has not
yet tipped to being a cost center from a revenue center. That day will come but
not for a while yet. Get into the inner
circle of the audience and become the trusted advisor. It's not just about
loyalty. Shape the behaviors to the point where they will recommend unconditionally.
5. Know the audience and with whom one is speaking too. This is really
back-to-basics CRM understanding the gender, age, integration of risk
assessments, culture etc. One cannot
engage effectively unless there is intimate
knowledge about them, their needs and how to tailor the information they need
to engage them.
6. Test and measure. This is no time to be reactive in approaching and
engaging. The only way to can figure out
if it's working is to test and measure in a very methodical way.
7. Use technology. We live in a
world of technology and you need to run a multifaceted, highly integrated
campaign. With social media, smartphones, web, text messaging, mobile
messaging, etc., eighty percent of consumers want the option of interacting with
a healthcare provider via their smartphones. Forty-one percent of healthcare
consumers use social media to make provider choices. The
healthcare consumer and patient are inviting healthcare organizations to engage
them and engage them all the time.
8. Know the influence of culture on behavior to engage.
9. Time it right, and add value.
If you health messaging is not resonating with the healthcare consumer
or patient when they receive it, then one has lost them. Communicate relevant
messages to a committed patient right before healthcare decisions are made.
That means knowing the patient like have never before.
I do chuckle as a major health system that I have been going to for
over 20 years has been boasting of a great CRM system for several years now. I
for one, nor any family member have ever
been engaged by the system hospital in any meaningful way. I know you,
but you have no clue who I am. And I can choose to go elsewhere because
you know why, providers at the local level all the same.
That's why you engage all of the time.