instantly health

  Image by photosforyou from Piaxabay I was thinking the other day about the lessons of patient and physician engagement in specialty pharmacy and how that could transfer to providers. That is  meaningful engagement for managing population health, changing health behaviors, keeping physicians, referrals, and patients in the network, while improving engagement and experience. It occurred to me that specialty pharmacy has been engaging physicians and patients for a long time, long before "engagement" and "experience" became the corporate buzzword in hospitals. Specialty pharmacy is more than just a transactional drug fill. Due to the expense and side effects of many of the specialty pharmaceuticals, a high level of patient engagement by clinicians, customer service, and feedback on patient compliance and side effects is essential. Specialty pharmacy also requires a seamless and well-designed experience for physicians and patients. Image by Tina Koehler from Pixabay ...

  Image by Paul Brennan from Pixabay Last week’s Lessons from the Field post was about the hospital brand promise asking basically, what is it. An exciting number of discussions ensued. Except for a few notable hospitals and healthcare systems, the conclusion was that hospitals might not have a complete understanding of their brand promise to patients.    Most may not even be able to define the brand promise. During those discussions, I took a step back and asked what the hospital brand is? Suppose you cannot articulate clearly and succinctly what the hospital brand promises are. In that case, the chances are excellent that the hospital and its employees do not know what the hospital brand is. Hint, it’s not the logo and tagline. Image by Andreaooi from Pixabay Though the hospital logo and tagline should graphically communicate the core brand as best as possible, that is not the hospital brand.  In hospitals and other providers, the non-marketing professionals, fro...

  Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Since 2016, much has been written and experimented with regarding the three marketing buckets to patients: engagement, experience, and choice. Much of what we wrote was applicable for the times, but the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic changed everything. Everything from how care is delivered and accessed to patient paying a more significant role in accessing care through telemedicine and other innovations, hospitals are forced to become more patient-focused and responsive then they may have been in the recent past.    Society is now beginning to emerge from the pandemic, returning to some semblance of normalcy, so marketing should not be focused on freshened up pre-pandemic messaging. The hospital should concentrate on communicating the hospital brand promise for today's changing healthcare market. Understand that with the new healthcare reality, engagement, and experience of the patient, initial steps with searchable prices for consumerism and ...

  Image by Tumisu from Pixabay I think a critical set of questions is left out of most healthcare provider and vendor business and marketing decisions. We all do our business, marketing, and strategic plans, trying our best to divine where the healthcare business environment is headed. Providers and vendors attempt to account for technological, care, regulatory, reimbursement, patient choice decisions, and unexpected innovation that disrupts an industry segment. We eye our competitors for weakness or emulate in some way. Sometimes we take a strategic decision or take a marketing action simply because Modern Healthcare says so, attended a conference, seminar, or webinar, or a competitor took an unexpected direction and decided you needed to do that too. It could very well be because the CEO said so. Often, we overlook asking the most basic of questions in all of our thinking and analysis, missing answers of strategic importance. While on paper and in our minds, it is all achievabl...

  Image by David Mark from Pixabay Does the headline question have you thinking? There is a more profound meaningful patient experience, engagement, and marketing activity for hospitals than meets the eye in the headline. When was the last time one said thank you to the patient for trusting you with their care, treatment, and recovery? Hospitals have doctor, volunteer, and employee events to thank them for all their hard work. But those activities, for the most part, are annual and expected. When was the last time your hospital thanked a patient, not through a community event or a patient satisfaction survey asking for a high score or a patient-focused event, but thanked them while they were still in the hospital? And that is the difference . We all read, hear and talk about the mission of the organization and it is essential. The mission is what drives the hospital. It's the true north compass point for interactions with employees, physicians, vendors, and patients.   ...

  Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Everybody talks about Artificial Intelligence (AI), but what does that mean for the healthcare provider and vendor marketing? AI is already with us as a part of our everyday lives; look at Alexi, Siri, Google Home, and Cortana. These devices already know what we want and assist us in navigating a complex world at home, at work, and in our play. They help us search for medical services and vendors who provide medical products and services. If you think about it, AI will have a profound effect on how hospitals anticipate the needs of and engage with patients and how vendors create a new prospect journey independent of sales. At some point, direct contact with an individual, be it a physician, clinician, or salesperson, will come into play, as human touch will always be needed. But for sales, prospecting for new customers will become less about cold calling and existing client referrals, to responding to well-developed leads uncovered by the buye...

  Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay For several years now, hospitals and other providers have marketed to patients that they are patient-focused using any number of brand tag lines. Cleaver and memorable in most cases, the brand taglines, in a few short marketing communications messages, hit various marketing channels. You can replace healthcare providers with vendors and patient-focused with customer-focused for the same result. I am not writing today about how you become patient or customer-focused. Previous blog posts have addressed the characteristics and mechanics of what it takes to be patient or customer-focused. If you are interested, you can read “Patient & Customer Centricity is Culture- Driven, Not Program Driven” http://bit.ly/2PVtRLW , and “ Your Definitive Guide for Making a Hospital Patient-focused in a Pandemic World https://bit.ly/2Go5Ri5 .” Today is more concerning what does it mean to say you are patient or customer-focused. And in saying “we’re patient o...