Becker's Hospital Review

Sign up for the COMPLIMENTARY Becker's Hospital Review CEO Report & CFO Report E-Weeklies at www.BeckersHospitalReview.com or call (800) 417-2035 29 your brand. This strategy can be mimicked to drive downstream revenue to the most profitable service lines.   group gatherings. Currently, many healthcare organizations are utilizing closed Facebook groups or Google hangouts for this purpose. • everage your social channels. Individuals ages 18-24 trust informaL tion found on social media — a large consumer segment that has potential to become a lifetime patient.3 If you have invested in digital marketing, you want to share your resources across multiple channels to ensure you are continuing to drive traffic into your website. Encourage your staff and physicians to engage with your organization online, further spreading the reach and frequency needed to attract new patients while tying trustworthy associates to your hospital brand. • isten and respond. Some healthcare providers are missing a great chance L to improve the patient experience if they don't monitor for and acknowledge easily rectified, common online complaints about the organization, such as appointment preparedness confusion or parking woes. "This is where conversations are moving, where they're [the public] talking about you, and if you don't participate, you are cut off from the discussion," said Ed Bennett, who manages Web operations at the University of Maryland Medical System, in an article for Healthy Debate.4
Make room in your social media strategy for listening to what's being said about your brand online, and use any information you gather to directly address opportunities within your organization to create an overall better patient experience. These tactics provide significant value to your brand that can influence customers' purchasing decisions when shopping around for healthcare. Patient retention through online engagement For the engaged and technology-savvy patient, hospitals can leverage social media channels, apps or patient portals to keep existing patients in-network by promoting value-added services. • reate segmented conversations. While those new to social media may C use a blanket approach — setting up only one Twitter and one Facebook account, and posting everything to them — it's a good idea to create various accounts for different segments of your audience. Though the audiences may be smaller with these accounts, a segmented online presence gives you the opportunity to cultivate a truly engaged audience, as the members will be more interested in the niche content you're posting. Examples of this would be creating social media accounts specific to bariatric patients, pediatrics, diabetes and so on, and publishing content of interest to these particular audiences. • ake support groups beyond weekly meetings. In addition to other apT plications, social media networks also give healthcare organizations the ability to create "extensions of real life face-to-face patient support groups."4 For healthcare organizations with support groups including those for cancer care, smoking cessation, diabetes and so forth, "closed" online support groups — meaning those not open to the public and requiring a log-in — can help to fill the gap of support needed by many between in-person As hospitals work even harder to elevate their presence in a highly competitive market, online marketing strategies can improve retention, open lines of communication and boost the experience for patients and healthcare providers. n Footnotes: Pew Internet—Pew Research Center, The Social Life of Health Information, 2011. http://pewinternet.org/~/media/files/reports/2011/ pip_social_life_of_health_info.pdf 2 BerylHealth, Case Study: Enhanced Web Referral Program Drives Better Payer Mix, 2013. 3 Geonetric, Infographic: How Health Consumers Engage Online, 2012. http://geovoices.geonetric.com/2012/11/infographic-how-health-consumers-engage-online/ 4 HealthyDebate, How to Begin to Recognize Social Media's Potential to Improve Patient Experience, 2013. http://healthydebate.ca/2013/02/ topic/innovation/social-media-in-hospitals 1 Matthew Holz leads the strategy and product development efforts for BerylHealth's marketing services product. Mr. Holz comes to his position having over 10 years of market and product development experience. Prior to his work at BerylHealth, Mr. Holz was the healthcare product manager for a regional data management and analytics company in Cleveland.  Register Today! Becker's Hospital Review CEO Strategy Roundtable November 14, 2013 • The Ritz-Carlton Chicago Co-chaired by Scott Becker, Publisher, Becker's Hospital Review, and Chuck Lauer, Former Publisher, Modern Healthcare To register, visit www.BeckersHospitalReview.com/novhospitalevent.html, email registration@beckershealthcare.com or call (800) 417-2035.

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