instantly health

  Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay It is an understatement to say that the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way patients search for and receive medical care. With many more care options for convenient and accessible medical care, driven by the digitization of healthcare delivery, patients will never go back to the way it was.  Patients realize their need for hospital services revolves around specific services such as emergency care, intensive care, complex acute medical conditions, PICU, or NICU. With the awareness and experience of alternatives for care, patients are more in control of the medical care buying journey with their physician. While a patient buying journey map pre-pandemic was a useful tool in understanding key decision points in patient choice, now is the time to start anew and create a new journey map. Though we are still in the darkest and deepest winter of the pandemic, it will come to an end.   The updated patient buyer's journey will...

COVID-19 and the innovation that continues to rapidly evolve in patients' access and comfort in using digital healthcare can be transformational for the hospital. For example, the pandemic has placed the patient in charge of when, where, and how hospital services are utilized.  Suppose for a moment that the pandemic has taught patients how to change utilization behavior. In that case, telemedicine and digital healthcare teach that one only needs a hospital for a few medically necessary services that cannot be provided in a freestanding ambulatory center. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay The fourth wave of the digital healthcare transformation is an opportunity for the hospital. The patient is increasingly in control. Patients control their health and health data through wearables, mobile health platforms, telemedicine, and self-tracking devices. Patients have experience expectations based on previous non-healthcare digital experiences by selecting the most appropriate digital ...

Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay. We are on the 12 th day of 2021, and already, the signs are apparent it will be another challenging year for hospital marketers. One could hope for improvement, but the confluence of external events, price transparency, and changes in healthcare delivery poses exciting challenges. The tried-and-true traditional ways of approaching the physician and patient market are no longer sufficient. As hard as it is externally, hospital marketers, in many cases, still face the daunting task of driving revenue and building the hospital brand with diminished budgets.   The marketer's glass is either half full or half empty depending on your perspective. I prefer to see the glass full of tremendous opportunity. The choice can be boiled down to; you can either surf the wave of change or let it wipe you out by marketing in your historical approaches and channels.   Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay With that in mind, here are eight strategic trends t...

Beginning on January 1, 2021, patients should be able to search a hospital or health system website for the prices on 200 standard procedures. Mandated by CMS in 2020, the purpose was to provide a measure of price transparency for patients and consumers when seeking medical care. Image by Niek Verlaan from Pixabay  What happened? In randomly searching the internet on hospitals and health systems websites for pricing information, I found a confusing maze of information.   In all cases, the ability to find and search the information was difficult at best. I know my way around a website, search terms, and the internet as a healthcare provider and vendor marketing professional.   If I have difficulty finding, searching, and using the information to decide, how is a consumer or patient? Kudos to any hospital or health system that provided an experience that made the information easily accessible, searchable, and user-friendly. I am sure that over time with prodding from CMS...

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay What a year 2020 has been, from the Coronavirus pandemic to the election and everything in between. The response by hospitals and health systems across the country to the pandemic has been excellent. In an industry not known for rapid innovation and adoption of new ways to deliver care, the pandemic showed just how resourceful the leaders, doctors, and nurses changed their organizations to meet the need of patients, the community, and face the threat head-on. Kudos to everyone for the countless lives saved. Remember those doctors, nurses, first responders, and other healthcare workers who lost their lives serving others. As some of you may know, I write another blog, Perceptions, Observations, and Musings of an Old Man, since 2019. Writing two blogs takes its toll and is not easy. I am wimping out for the last two weeks of 2020 and giving you the best of Healthcare Marketing Matters blog posts from 2020. The best blog posts' criteria are the number o...

  Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay Patients as buyers are no longer an "it will happen someday," but a market reality come January 1, 2021. Signs are apparent that market power is shifting from the hospitals as the dominant seller controlling the relationship to the patient as the chief buyer. The CMS January 1, 2021 mandate of the 200 searchable standard procedures with prices on the hospital website will allow the patient more control. In this kind of environment, the patient is king and queen. The hospitals' position in patients' minds will be an amalgamation of expectations and experience along the dimensions of brand, price, quality, experience, and engagement. Why? Because hospitals and health systems have little differentiation. Image by djedj from Pixabay A hospital is a hospital, is a hospital. What value does the hospital or health system bring to physicians and patients? That is the question at hand. And in a buyers' market, it's the only quest...

Image by pearson0612 from Piaxabay   Hospitals and health systems made great strides in leading and engaging their communities through the teeth of the first wave of the pandemic, and establishing themselves as the credible source of information and resources, communities, who responded positively for the most part. Once the first wave passed, most healthcare organizations moved away from the pandemic messaging and quickly reverted to pre-pandemic marketing efforts.   It was too soon to completely drop the pandemic community leadership and patient messaging activities, as I have written before. Now with SARS-CoV-2 infection rates skyrocketing daily across the country, thousands of deaths per day, and hospitals at or near ICU capacity, and canceling elective surgeries, hospitals have a high stake in the success of the vaccination efforts now underway. As reported in The Hill, "About half of Americans willing to receive COVID-19 vaccine, AP poll finds" only 47 percent of the...