Health Technology, AI
Article | July 18, 2023
Social media has become a powerful tool to connect people with friends, relatives, family, and other loved ones. Worldwide, around 4.2 billion people are actively using the internet. Among them, 3 billion are regularly active on social media channels. Social media is not just about interpersonal conversations; at least 80 percent of users follow one business on Instagram. With all the ads on your Facebook news feed, you connect with various brands or become aware about many brands. But does social media in healthcare make any impact?
Almost all industries have started to realize the power of social media and how it can impact connecting with consumers. Various social media platforms help companies share information, increase brand awareness, and partner with industry influencers. Social media has overpowered traditional marketing strategies. Social media has become the wave of the future.
Regarding the uptake of social media, the healthcare industry has been a bit slower. However, the industry now has accepted the undeniable importance of social media in healthcare. The reluctance might have been due to the risks associated for the providers as well as patients. Privacy and confidentiality of patient information has to be maintained always. Those were the challenges of social media in healthcare. However, consumers can get information from social media faster than any other tool.
The Healthcare industry includes both the healthcare technology providers as well as the healthcare service providers. Whether you are a service provider or a technology provider, social media can impact your customers equally. This article discusses the positive effects and benefits of social media in healthcare, especially healthcare service providers.
Embraced by the Medical Community
The healthcare industry took notice of social media when government agencies and other business industries started to reap the benefits of social media. A recent survey revealed an interesting fact about the use of social media in healthcare. More than 1500 healthcare providers around the US have social media presence online. Hospitals miss key opportunities if they don’t use social media. These hospital systems have started effectively using social media to reach out to their past, current, and future patients. Social media in healthcare is an easy medium to share vital information with consumers and patients in the industry.
The survey also revealed that more than 30% of medical professionals use various social media platforms to network with their peers. Many physicians also use these social media platforms for multiple activities in open forums. Having an active online presence evokes transparency among clients and peers. Healthcare providers can join various platforms such as Twitter to become healthcare influencers. Through social media in healthcare, providers can make connections, engage the community, and explore the industry.
The Case of Cleveland Clinic, Ohio
Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, US is the best example of how social media can be used to reach out to patients, engage them online, and stay ahead of competitors. They have more than 2 million followers on Facebook, 1.9 million followers on Twitter, and around 5 lack followers on LinkedIn. They have very different and unique social media strategies. They do post about whatever happens on the campus, including doctors practicing in their respective departments and interactive sessions with doctors and HODs, etc. Also, they do provide health tips and information, general health advice, and updates on the latest medical technologies and treatments. Apart from these, the hospital also reaches out to patients for queries and feedback through social media and responds to them promptly. These effective social media strategies help them in building up a brand, reputation management, create a patient relationship and build patient loyalty.
Loved by Healthcare Consumers
To find advice and new treatments, healthcare consumers widely use social media. This creates an opportunity for providers to connect with consumers through various forms of healthcare educational content. More than 40 percent of consumers believe that social media in healthcare affects their wellness decisions and health. Among 18 to 24 years old, 90 percent of people trust the medical information they get on social media. This shows the importance of healthcare providers on social media channels.
Mobile healthcare is expanding as consumers depend more on the internet for information. Countless fitness and health apps are available online. However, many of them are not effective and do not cure diseases but can change behaviors. Having an app will help you increase your accountability, as a provider, among consumers.
Positive Impact of Social Media on Healthcare
The healthcare community is widely embracing the scope of social media in healthcare. Healthcare technology providers, hospitals, and other service providers are opening new accounts to create a consistent image among consumers. There are many ways to improve care by reaching out to patients through social media in healthcare. Some of the positive impacts of best practices for social media in healthcare are as follows:
Increasing Access Across Generations
Healthcare companies have almost stopped employing the traditional ways of advertising. Patients always need quick access to information to reduce the risk of getting flu or to find new providers, including baby boomers, every generation is online. According to Forbes, as of 2017, 9 percent of Facebook users were above 55 years of age. This present generation is very tech-savvy, they search online for local healthcare services and healthcare information. They use Facebook and YouTube. So, you need to create a marketing strategy that targets baby boomers.
Generation X also searches health-related topics online, which accounts for 1.5 billion views on YouTube each day. As they care for children and aging parents, they may search for the best long-term care facilities, how to soothe a colicky baby, and so much more. As millennials are focused on healthy living and being cost-conscious, they depend more on social media platforms for healthcare information. Ninety-three percent of millennials say that they do not rely on healthcare providers for preventive health information.
Thus, as everyone goes online for healthcare information, healthcare service providers should consider the role of social media in healthcare seriously. By providing reliable and accurate information, healthcare providers can engage with consumers and increase the patient experience through social media.
Creating Authenticity
The days that the patients trust doctors blindly have gone. Healthcare consumers have become smarter and want to have relationships with providers who care for them. Allowing your tech-savvy employees to share videos and pictures of events or office helps have a human touch. It also improves patient engagement and overall patient satisfaction.
If patients know the people in your reception or nurses of respective departments, it helps them relax, engage, and makes them share their health history more openly. This is possible as they connect with those in the office through your social media in healthcare. It increases your authenticity.
Keeping an Eye on Competitors
Administrators and marketers keep an eye on their competitors through their social media platforms. They evaluate pain points, community involvements, service lines, and marketing strategies sitting in their offices. Hospitals and other providers can quickly get feedback on technologies and marketing strategies the competitors are using. This would help them if they want to incorporate these things in their care process before investing.
You can take note of the social media platforms where your competitors are performing well. This approach to social media in healthcare would remove the possibility of failure with your social media strategy, especially when you begin with it.
Real-time Updates
During emergencies and other situations, social media in healthcare allows you to communicate quickly. Social media updates can provide life-saving information, from crisis alerts to census notifications. World Health Organization (WHO) is an excellent example; they provide real-time information to the masses regarding any health crisis, warnings, and other critical safety information during disasters, using social media, especially Twitter.
Similarly, by providing real-time information to your consumers through your social media channels, you can increase your authenticity, authority, and dependency. Real-time access to information saves lives.
Gathering Feedback
Patients often want to communicate with their doctors quickly. They may need to share something about a recent appointment or about a reaction they had to medication. Making patients provide feedback on social media helps you learn how they feel about their medicine and care.
You can get essential feedback that might help you improve your care. It also helps you recognize and reward the staff that the consumers recognize. As a provider, you can also get back to them for additional information after the feedback you get from them on social media. This possibility of social media in healthcare will work more to provide better care next time.
Social Media for the Future
Social media in healthcare is going to stay here and have advancements from time to time. Most of the modern consumers are tech-savvy and want to have everything at their fingertips. Modern patients have no patience. Therefore, social media works to engage patients and enhance the patient experience and satisfaction.
Whether you are a large service provider, a solo practitioner, or run a hospital, you need a social media presence. For engaging with your community, social media in healthcare helps a lot. It can make an impact beyond your imagination. Use these strategies to improve the quality of the healthcare you provide.
It may be a tiresome job to do it all alone. We, at Media7, provide social media services to engage your consumers. Whether you are a service provider or a technology provider, we are here to help you with our compelling social media strategies. We help healthcare companies generate leads, brand themselves, increase sales, and make them your happy customers. For more details about us, visit https://media7.com/.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using social media in health care?
When used cautiously, social media can provide clear benefits, such as clinical education, professional networking, and patient’s health promotion. However, there can be disadvantages too, including privacy and confidentiality of patients, resulting in formidable consequences.
How has social media influenced the marketing of health care?
For establishing public awareness and managing reputation, social media is practical means. As part of an effective marketing plan, social media has become an essential medium for healthcare professionals to interact with consumers and engage them.
What is the Importance of Social Media in the hospital?
By providing important and general information on healthcare, hospitals can make their presence more valuable to consumers. Encouraging patients to share their feedback and thoughts makes hospitals connect with them and improve the care process.
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Health Technology
Article | September 12, 2023
Anesthesia groups face major challenges in the aftermath of the pandemic: Financially strapped hospitals are increasingly unwilling or unable to pay anesthesia subsidies, and a shortage of qualified anesthesiologists and CRNAs is making recruitment extraordinarily competitive.
The good news is that anesthesia opportunities are plentiful in the ambulatory surgery center (ASC) market. As more inpatient procedures migrate to ASCs, anesthesia practices can help meet demand by working with hospitals and ASCs. A dual-contracting approach can help increase revenue, reduce operational risk, enhance recruiting leverage, and present opportunities for equity investments in ASC ventures.
Expanding ASC Case Mix
Multiple factors are driving increased ASC volume.Consumers have long been attracted to the convenience andfast turnaround timesASCs offer, and as the pandemic began to take hold and patients worried about becoming infected in hospitals, theirpopularityincreased.
But even before the pandemic hit, theuse of ASCs was growing,with the number of centers increasing 7.1% annually since 2016.1No doubt this was in part driven by Medicare restricting fewer surgeries to the inpatient only (IPO) setting. This year alone, Medicare is adding 11 orthopedic procedures to the ASC-approved list, including total knee arthroscopy (TKA) and total hip arthroscopy (THA).2Commercial payersare alsofuelingASC volume by promotingthis venue as a lower-cost option to members.Lastly, with more than 90% of ASCs at least partially owned by physicians,providers themselvesare driving moreprocedures to this setting.
Hospitals Become ASC Buyers
For years, hospitals viewed ASCs as direct competition and discouraged or even prohibited inpatient anesthesia practices from contracting with them. But that dynamic is changing as more hospitals become buyers or majority investors.
According to a recent survey, the percentage of hospitals and health systems planning to increase their investments in ASCs rose from 44% in 2019 to 67% in 2020, with 75% of 200-plus-bed hospitals already owning more than one ASC.3Hospitals view these investments as a way to enhance physician relationships and increase surgical capacity.
The Benefits of Practice Diversification
For anesthesia practices that elect to contract with both hospitals and ASCs, a key benefit is improved profitability, since average ASC case reimbursements are higher than average hospital cases due to better payer mix and more efficient room turnover. Groups that work with multiple organizations also reduce their institutional or operational risk by limiting their exposure to potential financial problems associated with a single contracted entity.
Practices likewise gain an edge when it comes to recruiting in today’s highly competitive anesthesiologist and CRNA market. One of the chief benefits of ASC involvement is being in a position to offer a better work-life balance by spreading call responsibilities across a larger physician call pool. The math is simple: If a hospital group has seven physicians, each must provide call coverage once a week. But if the group also contracts with five ASCs and brings on five additional doctors to staff the facilities, individual call responsibilities are reduced to once every 12 days.
The importance of mitigating call duties to improve the work-life balance for both experienced clinicians and new hires can’t be overstated, particularly as hospitals work to streamline OR throughput by increasing the number of surgical procedures. Groups can also explore a range of creative compensation approaches, including essentially selling call opportunities to newly hired or recent graduate anesthesiologists as additional avenues to attract qualified clinicians while easing the burden on senior anesthesiologists.
Equity Opportunities
Among the most intriguing aspects of ASC involvement is the potential for becoming an equity stakeholder in the business. Surgeons traditionally have been the primary drivers in creating ASCs, but new opportunities exist for anesthesiology groups, particularly if their hospital is buying an existing ASC or developing a new ASC venture and looking to diversify the ownership group.
The idea of anesthesia ownership isn’t as crazy as it might sound. Like surgeons, anesthesiologists are integral to the success of an ASC, and like surgeons, they get there early and stay late. It’s no secret that joint ownership can greatly improve relations between the practice and the hospital, since both are now working toward the same objectives.
Groups can also make more money. I met with a surgical group not long ago with a 49% ownership stake in a hospital. That equity generated an additional $80,000 per year for each physician partner. How much you can make, of course, depends on your specialty, your level of ownership, and the volume of business. But you’ll never know until you try.
Outside Expertise
The pandemic has unleashed numerous changes throughout healthcare, and where the dust will eventually settle isn’t entirely clear. But what is certain is that for organizations to remain viable, they’ll need to be flexible and look hard at nontraditional business opportunities. Contracting with both hospitals and ASCs represents one such approach for anesthesia groups.
If you’re interested in exploring this and other business possibilities but don’t know where to start, Change Healthcare can help. Our team of expert anesthesia practice-management consultants have an average of 18 years’ experience in the specialty. We can be engaged on a per-project basis or we can provide our consultant services as part of our turnkey anesthesia-billing solution.
Our anesthesia revenue cycle management services can be deployed either on our own proprietary anesthesia-billing platform or on your hospital billing system. Either way, we’ll provide seamless, end-to-end service.
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Healthtech Security
Article | November 29, 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.
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Health Technology, Digital Healthcare, Medical Devices
Article | December 7, 2022
Contents
1. Alexa, Are You There?
2. Digital Assistants-Cum-Doctor-Assistants
3. Toward An AI-Friendly Life!
1. Alexa, Are You There?
If Siri, Alexa, Google Now, or Cortana are your friends, you do not need any special introduction for today’s topic! This is because these digital assistants have become part and parcel of our lives; from completing our minimal tasks to helping us solve our problems, they make our day-to-day life simpler and more manageable. Popularly called AI, Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines. Similarly, Machine Learning, also called ML, is the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior.
2. Digital Assistants-cum-Doctor Assistants
The unpredictable pandemic years, which took thousands of lives, depict the rise of complexities in the healthcare industry. To deal with such cases in the future tactfully, the healthcare segment needs to be proactive and implement advanced technologies to detect, resolve, and prevent untimely death. Modern technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning help the medical fraternity perform tasks usually done by humans quickly and accurately, saving much time that can be utilized elsewhere.
Let’s take a quick tour of how AI and ML can boost the healthcare industry:
Artificial Intelligence can broadly scan patient databases or consult patients via a chatbot or online support system to understand their symptoms, send data to doctors, and get real-time diagnoses and prescribed medicines.
Machine Learning, a subset of AI, can replace traditional processes with a supervised one, as in, a patient can be treated based on similar symptoms and treatment of other patients. The process requires a quick scanning of the database, which can be time-consuming if done by human effort.
Taking technology by storm, patients suffering from neurological disorders can be treated via Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) backed by AI. With the help of this technology, normal bodily functions, such as the ability to move, speak or react, can be restored. It can also assist doctors in treating patients with strokes, locked-in syndrome, etc.The healthcare segment is revolutionizing, as sensitive operations such as heart surgery are being performed with robotic precision and control with AI-based algorithms. For this purpose, precision machine learning processes are being used to train robots and improve accuracy.
AI can also help in digital pathology. Instead of placing separate slides or tissue blocks and observing them manually, pathologists can do it via AI, which can help analyze digital slides using image analysis and machine learning.
3. Toward an AI-friendly Life!
If you never forget to wear a smartwatch, track daily steps, get water intake notifications, eat mindfully, and consistently monitor pulse rates, then you are already AI-friendly! You have successfully incorporated AI into your life and taken the first step towarda healthy life!
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