Improving patient engagement in hospitals

We asked over 150 healthcare leaders in India about their priorities post the pandemic and almost everyone said,

To help hospitals achieve these goals, we unpack a few simple patient engagement tips and tools in line with the changes in patient behavior observed post Covid 19.

Let’s face some hard facts about patient engagement in today’s hospitals

 

Patient engagement is a constantly evolving topic and is hard to define

However, in the current context, patient engagement is a collaborative process in which patients are given the knowledge, skills, and resources to become active participants in their own health care management.

Simple tactics to hack growth with patient engagement

1. Make yourself accessible on demand

Patients want on-demand access and therefore hospitals should,

• Avoid waiting time in your communication channels. Try to automate calls and call backs
• Make text the main channel of communication. 98% of the patients read text messages

 

2. Show you care about the patient

Patients love a provider that cares for them. Hospitals need to make that small effort,

• Email, text, automated IVR reminders to remind patients on appointments. This also helps to reschedule and reduce no shows
• A “Hello, how are you doing?” call post discharge or post consultation
• Make your nursing staff ambassadors of care both offline and online
• Text based medication reminders

3. Handhold every patient across their journey

Patients like guidance and navigation. If he/she is left to ponder about the next steps, engagement has failed.

• Inform and help patients schedule the next steps
• Follow up through multiple channels to hasten the decision

This engagement will help you close the gaps in revenue, by ensuring patients come back to your hospital

4. Use patient feedback wisely

We live in a digital era where customer reviews determine the visibility of the brand. Hospitals need to understand that it is the same when it comes to healthcare.

• Incentivize patients to provide proper feedback through rewards and offers
• Drive happy patients to positive online reviews on platforms you want (like Google, Facebook, Practo or Twitter)

 

To execute and scale engagement the requirements are very simple

 

There is an experience chasm in healthcare, therefore engagement is key and first movers shall gain

 

Patient’s expectations today are shaped by the experience offered by not only hospitals and other healthcare companies but by the quality of services provided by companies in other sectors like retail, social media, entertainment and technology.

The patient engagement provided by hospitals when compared to customer engagement provided by companies like Amazon or Google falls flat. There is a chasm to cover and hospitals who are first movers in engagement shall recover at a rapid pace. Even small baby steps shall help multiply your growth.

To know more about how you can successfully deploy patient engagement at the lowest available cost and hack revenue growth reach out to raghava@camomilehealthcare.com.