What do you think is the most important experience for someone who is headed to a hospital? If we can make a quick guess right now, it would probably be convenient location, friendly and caring personnel, or shorter queues. If you ask most patients however, the biggest element that influences their feelings regarding their trip to the hospital is what they have experienced from their physician.
Certainly, you would probably prefer a doctor who feels approachable and easy to talk with as opposed to someone who appears cold and snob. Establishing a patient-friendly reputation for your hospital though, is largely dependent on your physicians themselves and on how they work with patients on a regular basis. However you can utilize the power of content marketing to arm your doctors with an early advantage in this department.
Personal relationship is what matters the most to patients
Patients develop loyalty to doctors whom they are familiar with. In fact, even when there is a medical insurance package being offered to them that features monetary rewards if they decide to go with another doctor, most patients will choose to find a new insurance package instead of a new doctor. This just goes to show how vital the doctor and patient relationship really is. Because majority of the time, personal relationship beats brand loyalty in patients.
Introduce your Physicians on your Website
The time patients do their homework for a potential doctor, they typically won’t find plenty of reliable information to make satisfactory decision. Sure, they will find the doctor’s name and field of specialty on the website but they won’t find any helpful info that will tell them how the doctor works with his patients, if he is proficient at relaying complex medical problems in an understandable way, whether or not he treats his patients with respect, and if he is approachable. Regardless if there is a photograph included in the profile, it’s still not enough to help the patient gauge what kind of experience he can expect from his new doctor.
So your online visitors can have a better sense of who your health professionals are and what their respective knowledge and expertise are, make your physicians appear more human by allowing them to take part in the developmental stages of the content. Let every physician in your hospital create his own blog post and this will demonstrate to you visitors that your doctors are well versed with their profession. It also feels friendlier and carries a personal touch to it, especially if you let them include bits and pieces of their personal life, like their favorite food or sports team.
Not every doctor is good at writing though, so your help could be needed in this area. And never go overboard – including religious and political views might be a bad idea as it can discourage potential patients who don’t share them.
Go beyond the boundaries of your website
In majority of physicians, you might not enjoy much success if you compel them to reach out to prospective patients through social media. Doctors generally follow tight schedules and for someone who is devoting more than 8 hours of his time almost every day in the hospital, you can understand why commenting on Facebook posts is a difficult proposition. Nevertheless, social media remains a crucial platform in reaching out to patients. Based on a new survey, 41% of patients revealed that social media plays a role in their choice for a hospital or doctor.
Regardless if your physicians are reluctant to devote even just a few minutes each day for Twitter or Facebook, you can still utilize it as a means for patients to have a better feel of who your doctors are and what they do best.
St. Michael’s has done a fantastic work in showcasing various Physicians through social media. People who follow their posts, or those who stumble on their Tweets, already have a far greater understanding of the physicians being featured compared to those that are listed on a website with just their names, titles, and photographs. Surely, it’s easier to choose a doctor who managed to effectively establish his expertise through a well written blog post compared to someone whom you have very little knowledge of.
Make sure they can relate to your Physicians
A huge chunk of the content must be filled with relevant information that are related to your doctors and the needs of your target customer. However, you can devote the rest in humanizing your physicians.
For instance, there would be a blog post in your website that involves one of your doctors discussing his own personal experience regarding a heart surgery. A potential client who stumbles upon the post would become aware instantly that this doctor knows exactly what it feels like to be in a life and death situation, undergo intensive treatment, and get right back on track, health wise. That would be a powerful referral in itself. In addition to that, the doctor in charge of the operation and treatment will likewise be highlighted.