Health IT, Hospitals, MedCity Influencers, Patient Engagement

Modern healthcare consumers will be drawn to physician profiles done right

Whether newly insured, seeking care for the first time as an adult or disgruntled with […]

Whether newly insured, seeking care for the first time as an adult or disgruntled with a current provider, prospective patients represent golden opportunities for healthcare systems, hospitals, physicians and practices. Although organizations go to great lengths to attract local patients, many overlook the power of online physician profiles to boost their organizations’ local visibility and enhance the patient experience. These three step will show how physician profiles enhance the patient experience, how organizations can create successful physician profiles, and how timely real-world content can help.

Step 1 – Enhancing the patient experience

While two-thirds of consumers in a recent Strategy & survey of 2,339 U.S. residents indicated they were satisfied with their core healthcare benefits and 63% were satisfied with the cost and quality of their healthcare, less than half (40%) were satisfied with their overall experience shopping for healthcare and/or insurance.

Difficulty finding what they seek likely contributes to this dissatisfaction, but effective physician profiles can help by increasing the visibility of physicians and their affiliated organizations on search engines, social media, online directories and other prominent online resources, which have long been the go-to source for patients when it comes to health information. In fact, according to a report from the PewResearch Internet Project (http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/01/15/information-triage/) published in early 2013, 72 percent of internet users say they looked online for health information within the past year, and 77 percent of those online health seekers reported beginning at a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo! the last time they did so. Without online visibility, organizations fail to be there when a prospective patient needs them, and the story ends before it begins.

Physician profiles should be simple but also informative, relevant and visible to attract the attention of prospective patients. Managed effectively, these profiles can help patients easily find the local physicians, practices and hospitals they seek, and they offer organizations a great way to stay visible with patients in local search results, social media, online directories and other referral sources. The profiles also ease the process for prospective patients to schedule visits, pay bills, attend seminars and events, and understand the symptoms and conditions on which a physician specializes. In turn, physicians and their organizations can leverage ample opportunities to embed calls to action and branding messages.

Step 2 – How to create successful physician profiles

Search engine algorithms and their decision-making processes change often, but certain concepts and tactics remain consistent. Follow these steps to create successful physician profiles and ensure a strong digital presence, especially within local search results and on mobile devices.

It is important that all online hospital, practice and physician listings are accurate and up-to-date. All content contained in physician profiles should be current and fresh. Address and phone numbers should absolutely be correct and current, but this is just the beginning. Profiles should also contain current information regarding services offered, hours of operation, degrees, experience, accepted insurance plans, languages spoken and more. All of this information should be maintained and updated across all listings on owned and third-party sites.

We must also ensure physical name, address and phone information is being distributed accurately. Hospitals’ and health systems’ websites are only the beginning, though each should minimally include a unique web page and a mobile page for each affiliated physician. Beyond this, organizations should maintain listings for each physician at top referring sites. This includes Google, Yahoo!, Bing, local directory sites and local healthcare directory sites.

It is important to help each physician embrace social media. Patients increasingly turn to social media for guidance of all sorts. Actively managing pages for physicians on the most important social networks, regularly providing fresh content and simply maintaining an active presence produces benefits in at least two ways: by reaching social media users directly and by leveraging social signals to further enhance search engine visibility of physicians and their affiliated organizations. Starting with Facebook and keeping pages for each affiliated physician updated and engaging ensures a more comprehensive and effective patient acquisition strategy.

A process must be created to regularly refresh all profiles. Managing location information and profile content at scale for hospital service lines, physicians and practices across an entire health system can be daunting. Using a local search automation tool can help increase online visibility while making the process more manageable/efficient and less prone to errors.

Being attentive to what works best can help healthcare marketers fine tune their approach over time and work to leverage individual successes to improve the effort across the entire organization.

Step 3 – Leverage timely real-world content to boost relevance and traffic

Being attentive to timely high profile health stories occupying the minds of current and prospective patients can pay big dividends for organizations seeking to stay top of mind and increase traffic to their websites and facilities by providing valuable information to the public. The simplest and most effective way to get started on this initiative is to align content and messaging with relevant high volume search terms. Make some logical assumptions about what health concerns may be on the minds of current and prospective patients, and then have a look at free tools from WordTracker or WordStream to get started by better understanding the high volume search terms associated with these concerns.

General practitioners and primary care physicians can leverage content related to top trending local or national health stories like the Ebola scare, new flu outbreaks, medication alerts or recalls, and more. Many regional events also drive demand for healthcare information and resources, including events like extreme temperatures or natural disasters. By providing consumers with answers to important questions like “is our water safe to drink?” or “which areas have high pollen count?” organizations can tap into significant spikes in demand for this information, improve the well-being of their communities, communicate important facilities-related information and more.

Other types of relevant and timely content can also boost traffic and local visibility to physician and organization profiles. If an organization makes the U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals list, they should mention this and provide a link to the list on all relevant profiles. Did the organization recently invest in new state of the art machines or equipment? Is a staff physician a renowned expert on new treatments or procedures? Any of these accolades could generate consumer interest that turns into online visibility and business.

Medical specialists should tailor their content accordingly. For example, a specialized cancer treatment facility doesn’t stand to gain much by publishing content about the Ebola outbreak. Specialty organizations should instead focus content development on topics of interest to their current and potential patients. A cancer center, for example, may find success promoting its digital imaging equipment, track record with new cancer treatments or procedures, local support groups, etc.

Once physician profiles are in place and optimized for success, identifying and catering to timely concerns on the minds of current and prospective patients can take these patient acquisition tools to new heights. With few organizations effectively capitalizing on this local search marketing fundamental, healthcare organizations that embrace the opportunity often realize significant and prompt results.


Amanda Bury

A veteran of the digital and healthcare industries, Amanda is helping healthcare systems across the country drive new patient acquisition strategies through the use of technology. As managing director of the healthcare division at SIM Partners, a leading provider of location-based marketing technology, Amanda leads client growth strategies that improve the patient journey as well as maximize digital marketing results at the local level. SIM Partners' local marketing automation platform, Velocity, maximizes digital marketing results for healthcare systems by managing location data and content at scale. She is an avid blogger and has been published in MedCity News and Medical Practice Insider.

This post appears through the MedCity Influencers program. Anyone can publish their perspective on business and innovation in healthcare on MedCity News through MedCity Influencers. Click here to find out how.

Shares0
Shares0