There are lots of small details that can’t be missed in healthcare. We’re so busy focusing on things like finding MBI numbers for patients on sites like https://www.zolldata.com/mbi-lookup-tool and making sure appointments are being properly conducted that we forget that communicating with patients is an extremely important part of healthcare.
We recently discovered the number one reason a patient considers when choosing an acute care facility is, “My insurance is accepted there.” Yeah. Surprised me, too. Didn’t see that one coming. In fact, it was a staggering 96.3% of consumers who stated its importance. Do you hear any facilities highlighting this in their healthcare messaging? Me neither.
These additional reasons make a little more sense.
- 93.6% said, “They specialize in what I have.”
- 90.3% said, “They deliver amazing results.”
- 90.2% said, “Patient safety is a priority.”
- 89.5% said, “They use the newest treatments and breakthrough medicine.”
The priority of patient safety was reassuring and also quite relevant in recent news. Despite the national decline in patient infections and preventable injuries during a hospital stay, the St. Louis Post Dispatch reports over 750 hospitals in the US are at risk of Medicare sanctions – that’s a quarter of our nation’s hospitals.You can read more about that here.
I would strongly consider the findings indicated above – or at least some integrating some combination of these messages into your overall strategy. But the study shows a total of 16 attributes that consumers say are important to them, so it may be worth taking a look at the entire study.
But whatever works best for your effective healthcare messaging, I would suggest wrapping it all up in one more effective ingredient: empathy. Let them know you are human. Let them know you understand them and the human condition. Let them know you feel what they feel. People don’t just want healthcare, they want people who care. This is best exemplified in the work being done by the Cleveland Clinic. You will notice their short film says nothing about the top five points we just talked about.
As a matter of fact, it doesn’t say anything at all. But it gets the message across. This is powerful, and it is very effective healthcare marketing. In the end, it is all people want: someone who understands.
[gl-hs-cta cta_id=’7e1e31c9-0210-48cf-a641-a987cf7387c0′]