Just like you want to be every patient's preferred real-life destination for treatment of their medical problems, shouldn’t you want to be their online preferred destination as well ?
Everyone knows that patients go online to research their medical problem and their treatment options. In fact , searches for medical problems are the second commonest reason for going online (after pornography !)
When someone has arthritis and needs knee replacement surgery, they will do a google search for knee replacement surgery. Does your hospital website feature on Page 1 ? Or are you going to lose them to your competing hospital’s website ?
If they come to your website, the chances they will come to you for their treatment improve dramatically ! On the other hand, if they go to another hospital’s website, the chances are high you will lose these patients. The question you need to ask yourself is - Can you afford to ? These are usually well-off patients who can pay for their treatment !
What do you have to do in order to get online patients to come to your website ? You need to rank high on google ! So why doesn’t your website come up on Page 1 when patients do a google search when they are looking for medical information ? The reason is simple – your website does not have enough valuable content for patients ! Content is what patients are looking for – and this is what google looks for as well !
Similarly, when they come to your website, they don't want to know who your CEO is or how many beds you have ! They first want to be educated about their particular disease ! The trouble is that most hospital websites are all about the hospital - and not about the patient at all ! This is why if you want to retain the online patient , you need to make sure you have high quality content to educate him. If you take the time and trouble to do so, he is likely to be very favourably impressed by your efforts - and therefore much more likely to come to you in real life !
After all, all hospitals have a website today ! What can you do to stand out and differentiate yourself from others ? What's your online USP ?
Even for patients who are admitted in your hospital, It’s a fact of life that patients ( and their family members) will search the web for information when they are ill. The major problem arises when patients get unreliable information when they search on their own . Not only do they get confused , they end up wasting a lot of the doctor’s time, because of their erroneous preconceived notions. On the other hand, if you provide reliable, trustworthy information yourself on your website , it helps to increase the patient’s trust in your hospital – and in your doctors ! This is a great inexpensive way of building good will and patient loyalty !
By using clever new applications based on the Healthwise Knowledgebase , you can marry Information Therapy with EMRs, patient portals and web 2.0 social media, to improve the care you provide to your patients , to convert them into raving fans !
Please email me at [email protected] and I'll be happy to provide more information !
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