9 Things You Shouldn't Do on an Empty Stomach

Health Technology, Digital Healthcare

Article | September 8, 2023

Effective Healthcare branding changes how the public perceives a healthcare organization. Brands are all about perceptions. The way your customers perceive your organization determines your brand. That encompasses your doctors, your board members, your nurses, and your patients. The process of healthcare branding helps organizations ensure they are perceived the way they want to be; as trusted, knowledgeable, caring, and experienced. More than a tagline, name, messaging, or logo, the recognizable feeling that these elements induce is your healthcare company's brand. Healthcare branding ensures that these elements meet in a cohesive system informed by positioning and personality and are constantly implemented across your brand's touchpoints. Why is Healthcare Branding So Essential? Healthcare branding was not always so important. Patients had the freedom to select any healthcare provider. Insurance was the principal determiner of their healthcare provider. It depended upon their workplace. Those without insurance got treatment at community clinics and emergency rooms. As you know, times have changed a lot in a big way. Changing the entire healthcare landscape, the Affordable Care Act put patients in the driving seat. Most of the patients now have access to healthcare insurance and successfully manage their own health. Patients without insurance have the options of out-of-pocket online pharmacies and providers. Healthcare providers have changed their performance metrics system to value-based assessments such as patient satisfaction. More than treatment, now the emphasis is on prevention. It has become a market that is direct-to-consumer healthcare. As a result, the consumer has become the controller of the healthcare brand-consumer relationship. As patients have turned empowered consumers, the benefits of healthcare branding have grown to the point that healthcare companies cannot ignore them. If they do, it affects their business. What are the Benefits of Healthcare Branding? Effective healthcare branding, directed by research and a clear strategy, has many valuable benefits: Identify Changing Patient Needs The needs of patients today have changed from the start of COVID-19. Even when a global pandemic hasn’t fundamentally changed the healthcare landscape, patients’ needs are continually evolving. Healthcare branding gives you the tools to understand evolving patient needs better and rebrand your company to meet them. Brand research includes qualitative research (including one-on-one patient interviews) and quantitative analysis. Insights gathered from brand research are critical in optimally positioning a healthcare brand. It is vital during dynamic and unpredictable markets, as in what happened during this COVID-19. Beyond brand research, effective healthcare branding ensures your healthcare brand is continually aligned with shifting market trends and their impact on patient needs. Establish Trust It isn’t easy to think of a quality more essential to a healthcare organization's success than trust. A healthcare brand is broken or made by the degree to which it is trusted by those it serves. When it comes to healthcare branding, trust is conveyed through everything from messaging to visual identity. Photography, colors, and typography all contribute profoundly to perceiving a brand as trustworthy. In healthcare branding, verbal identity is more important than visual brand identity in establishing it as an expert in the healthcare space. Everything from a reassuring, confident voice in its website copy to guides designed to update patients on necessary healthcare topics and regular publication of articles are proven and well-known ways in healthcare branding to build up trust. Set Your Brand Apart from the Competition However, trust is not the only thing needed in the modern age for effective healthcare branding. The days, judging a healthcare organization based on its medical practice's reputation alone have gone. Patients have become empowered consumers as time passed. The competition to treat these empowered consumers too has become increasingly fierce. Here comes the importance of effective healthcare branding, tracking all your online and offline activities, and evaluating them every day. Your healthcare brand is just one among the many other brands for internet-savvy consumers to choose from. First and foremost, all consumer decisions, including patients' decisions, are based on emotions. So, you have to think of ways to persuade your consumers' feelings to help your healthcare branding in the crowded marketplace. Competitive differentiation is more vital than ever. Effective healthcare branding makes you find out opportunities and ways for differentiation in the challenging and competitive landscape. And, you can capitalize on these opportunities and ways with powerful storytelling and unique positioning. Improve the Patient Journey Patient experience, as mentioned earlier, is a game-changer in the healthcare industry today. Healthcare branding gives you various ways to shape and improve patient experience powerfully. After all, a good percentage of patient experience happens outside the healthcare facility these days. The beginning stages of the patient journey are the awareness and consideration stages. Healthcare branding tools, such as content marketing, are critical in influencing patients in these stages. A website of your healthcare brand can make or break your patient’s pre-treatment experience. It is the selection phase of the patient journey. A premium and well-designed website optimized for conversion will enrich the patients' online experience, looking to book an appointment or answer a question. Healthcare branding is helpful in defining the patient treatment experience. When correctly leveraged, healthcare branding allows your healthcare brand to enhance the patient journey from when the patient hears about the brand to the moment of finishing the treatment. At every patient journey stage, healthcare branding fosters patient trust, builds patient loyalty, and reinforces patient-provider relationships. Takeaway Modern healthcare companies are operating in a competitive landscape where healthcare branding is more important than ever. Patients have become informed and empowered consumers. Digital healthcare brands have redefined the marketplace. Healthcare branding is vital if your healthcare company hopes to stand out from the rest and develop lasting and meaningful relationships with your patients. Fortunately, there are many ways to differentiate your healthcare brand and make it sounds unique meaningfully. Positioning, identity, storytelling, and patient experience represent a powerful area where healthcare brands can better align themselves with their patients' needs and stand out from the competition. Frequently Asked Questions Why is healthcare branding important? Healthcare branding helps you effectively project the personality of your healthcare organization and products. A good thought process to brand your healthcare product will make people remember you forever. What is hospital branding? Hospital branding is the process of making your healthcare organization be perceived better by potential clients. Effective branding makes your patients remember you through the best patient experience and the organization's external look. What are the three branding strategies? There are many effective branding strategies. Line extension, brand extension, and new brand strategy are essential types of branding strategies. You can have any strategy based on the nature of your product.

Health Technology

Article | September 12, 2023

Artificial Intelligence or AI has attained continuous evolution over the years and witnessed widespread adoption across major industries of the globe. The Forbes report of December 2021mentions that the number of AI startups since 2000 has increased 14 times, and investments in AI startups have grown six times. It underlines the fact that the AI industry, powered by its path-breaking developments and innovations, has always been an attractive and trending option in the market. Within a very few years, AI has taken over different segments of healthcare like wellness, early detection, diagnosis, decision making, treatment, research, training, public health functions (surveillance and outbreak response), virtual care etc. A study by Accenture claims that AI-enabled devices and gadgets meet 20% of the clinical demands, and this has reduced the unnecessary visits to hospitals by a great number. Applications of AI in healthcare is broadly categorised into 3 segments, namely, Patient-oriented AI; Clinician-oriented AI; and Administrative-oriented AI. The transformative role of AI in healthcare is undeniable, as it scripts new journey for patients and practitioners, alike. According to Healthcare IT News, 63% of the research subjects agree to the observation that the devices and machinery enabled by AI have provided excellent value to the specialty healthcare divisions like radiology, generic pharmacy, pathology, etc. The rapid growth of AI in highly delicate domains like healthcare calls for great promise to accelerate diagnosis and treatment. At the same time, it also puts ethics, patient safety and privacy concerns at the heart of it; thereby calling for a framework of governance. Gartner report of July 2019 predicted the application of AI in more than 75% of the healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs) around the globe. Since most of these HDOs are new to adopting and applying AI-enabled machinery and services, AI governance is crucial to prevent the actions that may lead to errors, misjudgements and further chaos. Moreover, the degree of variance in the application of AI is high, and therefore it is not advised to implement the AI mechanisms without proper guidance or governance. From AI-enabled smart bands to pacemakers, the range of devices and gadgets offered by the AI industry is simply remarkable. The implementation of AI in the healthcare sector has proven to be highly effective in drastically reducing the scope of slipups. Moreover, AI has also facilitated early detection of illness with the help of daily use gadgets and devices in a smart way. At this juncture, it is equally important to create data governance framework that ensure ethical principles are applied to patient, providers and payers’ data. Further, AI initiatives by healthcare providers should be created using transparent protocols, auditable methodologies and metadata. These technologies should do no harm, reduce biases and help patients make informed decisions about their care. A significant part of AI governance also lies in change management. To build trust towards AI’s adoption across the healthcare ecosystem, there should be a dialogue between clinicians, scientists, technologist and end-users. Such discussions will address the opportunities, value and investment, including concerns across the stakeholders. In fact, prominent think tanks suggest healthcare providers to establish an AI Governance Council to monitor the value, investment and use of strategic AI capabilities. Some of the crucial roles and responsibilities for the Council include addressing legal and regulatory compliance; clinical evaluations; ethical usage guidelines and organisational deployment of AI across the system. AI is indeed a revolutionary technology that has huge surprises up its sleeves for the future. But exploring new frontiers comes with its fair share of challenges. Establishing appropriate governance over AI implementation and initiating a conversation around the ethical implications and regulations as well, will play a fundamental role in the introduction and scale-up of AI in healthcare.

Health Technology, Digital Healthcare

Article | September 7, 2023

Health tech marketers tend to have a real bias problem. Everyone wants to believe that they have the best product available in the market, and are quite vocal about it on social platforms. But, are those the things your buyers want to know about your products? The biggest mistake you can ever make in health tech marketing is leading it with a technology bias. It will immediately create a distance between your audience and you. If you are working in technology, you can easily assume that everyone knows what you are talking about all the time. You breathe and live your industry. And as the marketer of your company's products, it's your responsibility to go to prospects with your tech company’s message. In your personal life, too, you may talk to your friends and families about your work and realize they have no interest in what you say as they have no idea what you are talking about. That is because they are not immersed in your company or industry. The same can happen in your health tech marketing process with your prospects and customers. Instead of focusing on their problems, if you lead with your technology solution and features of your products and company, you will lose them. It is vital to step back and see the bias you have in your company’s marketing initiatives. How Technology Bias Affects Health Tech Marketing The effects of technology bias in health tech marketing are strongest when the health tech marketer focuses more on technology, product, or company than the buyer's pain points. Customers do not want to know everything about your product. They probably want to know how your product can solve their issues. When approaching buyers with your product, this health tech marketing technology bias can have many adverse effects on the buying process. Technology bias in health tech marketing will lead to failure to get the customers' trust. They feel you are just trying to sell your product by explaining your product's features rather than solving the customer's issues. Technology bias in health tech marketing also will result in a negative effect on brand performance. As a health tech marketer, you are wrong in assuming you can sell your products by boosting the company or products of the company. It will only result in losing the customer's trust if you are not considering the buyers' problems. If you are going on with the practice, it will eventually affect your brand's performance as buyers view you as not genuine. This unfair practice of technology bias in health tech marketing will make you realize that you are losing the customers, even the existing ones. No buyer wants to hear more about the features or the technologies used in your products. They are focused on their issues and want to know how your product can solve those issues. Thus, as a health tech marketer, you may have to focus more on the customer pain points when approaching buyers; this will help you convert potential customers into clients. How to Get Rid of Technology Bias and Improve Health Tech Sales FPX Digital Transformation Study 2019 says that B2B companies have shifted their focus to customer experience from internal efficiency. Most of the respondents agree that they spend much of their digital transformation funds improving the customer experience. An important way to implement a buyer-centric or customer-centric marketing approach is to remove bias about your product from your health tech marketing efforts. Mainly, this has to be removed from the messages you send out in the early stages of the buyer journey. However, making it practical is difficult as it is ingrained in how you write, speak, and present your company to external and internal audiences. Here are some tips to get out of technology bias in health tech marketing and get closer to your customers. Listen to Customers Clearly Successful marketers excel not only in communicating but also in listening. It is impossible to create a message about your health tech product if you do not know what problem it can really solve. It will help if you take the time to know your prospects and customers. Do not let your mind wander thinking about which benefits and features you have to push in your health tech marketing. Remain fully present in video, phone, and in-person meetings. That will help you find they have different problems, and you can solve them differently. When you give importance to listening, you will not waste time and effort solving a problem that you think exists. Instead, you will start developing buyer-centric health tech marketing messages that align with your business. Don’t Assume Anything You hate being in a room where people are talking about a subject you know nothing about. Your health tech buyers may have the same experience if you assume your customers know what you do and how they fit into your space. That’s why it’s essential not to take a “features-first” approach in your marketing interactions. You understand your product's ins and outs, but your prospects don’t and are likely not ready for that. As an effective health tech marketing technique, before you assume anything, give them the complete picture of who you are. Simplify the Message A product-driven language full of jargon will make your brand unapproachable for your audience. You can apply the old phrase here, “keep it simple stupid.” You have to position your technology as sophisticated and robust, not convoluted and tricky, through an effective health tech marketing process. Your health tech marketing content should make sense to people both outside and inside your industry and company. Visitors of your website should not go for additional research to understand what you do precisely. It should be clear from your content. Thus, simplifying your content is essential. Make Your Customer the Hero The hero of your health tech marketing story is not you but your customer. After all, your customers in your industry work hard to deliver better service and results to their customers. Your messages should position you as a mentor for your customers that provides technology support in the job of your customers to drive success. The “customer hero” approach should have a fundamental change in how you speak to your customers. The approach is not fully taken hold in the B2B health tech marketing space so far. Share Real World Stories One of the most practical ways to eliminate technology bias from your health tech marketing is to talk more about your customers and less about your products and company. You have to show you have the purpose of bringing in a fundamental change in your industry that enhances the day-to-day business lives of people and not just sell great technology. Testimonials and customer case studies help a lot in shaping your brand story. Using them, narratives can be created about your customers' journey after and before using your technology. Rather than detailing the benefits and features of technology, narratives highlight the platform's tangible business value for real people in businesses. Final Word Technology brings a change in companies, and most people do not accept changes so quickly. It is because the change pushes people to do things differently by moving beyond their comfort zones. As part of health tech marketing, your job is not to make this change terrifying, but compelling for your buyers. This will happen only when you take your technology out of your head and start focusing on your clients' requirements, problems they face, and what exactly they need from you. It will then surely make you put your product and technology bias aside. And you will be capable of effectively executing your health tech marketing initiatives. Frequently Asked Questions How does health tech marketing become effective? Effective health tech marketing is essential to reach out to potential clients and grab their attention. Health tech marketing becomes effective only when the marketer focuses on the requirements of the clients rather than on the features of the product or company. What is technology bias in marketing? Technology bias in marketing is focusing much on your product or technology when you market a technology product to your prospects. Getting rid of this bias will make you attract more clients and successful in your marketing. How to get rid of technology bias in health tech marketing? Technology bias in your health tech marketing makes the customers put a distance from you. The best way to get rid of it is to make the customer the hero of your marketing messages by focusing on their issues. { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "FAQPage", "mainEntity": [{ "@type": "Question", "name": "How does health tech marketing become effective?", "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer", "text": "Effective health tech marketing is essential to reach out to potential clients and grab their attention. 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Article | October 26, 2020

Everybody deals with stress and anxiety however our anxieties can sometimes get the best of us. It’s important to know how to cope with your anxieties and fears if they get out of control. With this in mind, here are some tips that a person can use to help manage their daily stresses and anxieties. 1. Take a break: Sometimes, we get stressed out when everything happens all at once. When this happens, a person should take a deep breath and try to find something to do for a few minutes to get their mind off of the problem. A person could take a walk, listen to some music, read the newspaper, or do an activity that will give them a fresh perspective on things. 2. Carry a small notebook of positive statements with you: Whenever you come across an affirmation that makes you feel good, write it down in a small notebook and carry it around in your pocket. Whenever you feel anxious, open up your small notebook and read those statements. 3: You can’t predict the future: While the consequences of a particular fear may seem real, there are usually other factors that cannot be anticipated and can affect the results of any situation. We may be ninety-nine percent correct in predicting the future, but all it takes is for that one percent to make a world of difference. 4. Challenge your negative thinking with positive statements and realistic thinking: When encountering thoughts that make you fearful or depressed, challenge those thoughts by asking yourself questions that will maintain objectivity and common sense. Focus on the reality of your situation and not on your thoughts. 5. Divide your activities into separate steps: When facing a current or upcoming task that overwhelms you with a lot of anxiety, divide the task into a series of smaller steps and then complete each of the smaller tasks one step at a time. Completing these smaller activities will make the stress more manageable and increases your chances of success. 6. Take advantage of the help that is available around you: If possible, talk to a professional who can help you manage your depression and anxieties. They will be able to provide you with additional advice and insights on how to deal with your current problem. BIOGRAPHY Stan Popovich is the author of the popular managing fear book, “A Layman’s Guide To Managing Fear”. For more information about Stan’s book and to get some free mental health advice, please visit Stan’s website at http://www.managingfear.com