When I read this quote it reminds me of how I should view the world of healthcare and marketing in the new digital age. Hospitals and physicians are moving more quickly into the social media scene but one area that seems to be lagging is ambulatory surgery centers (ASC).
Back in September I started to do some research on internet marketing and ASC's and did not find a lot of information out there. After some thought, I developed some strategies for how an ASC could use online marketing to increase marketshare and wanted to share a couple of those.
First an ASC needs to look at their patient population and see how they are using the internet to look for health information. Phew Internet & American Life Project Survey has a great survey that shows how different generations are using the internet.
According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project surveys, eight in ten internet users look online for health information. This makes it the third most popular online activity among all those included in the Pew Internet Project’s surveys. The second most searched topic in the health information category was “certain medical treatments or procedures.” Furthermore, the study also shows that 48% of parents who have internet access have searched online for information related to their child’s diagnosis and surgical procedure. 84% said that the information they found online influenced the medical decision they faced and 43% said they discussed what they found online with their child’s surgeon. For ASC's, they should evaluate how to utilize this information to create a strong presence to maintain and increase maketshare in their targeted patient population.
ASCs should do a gap analysis of your competitors websites to see what they are doing. What are they doing well? What could they be doing better? Then evaluate your ASC's website and content to see how it compares to your competitors. After you have completed that, then benchmark it to a health system that does this well. One place to start is Geisinger because they are using online videos to communicate to their patients and their website is very user friendly.
Now what? Well ask yourself how an ASC can take all this information to reach out to not only patients (current and/or new) but also to surgeons and referring physicians.
I started with two simple things to look at:
For Referring Physicians/Surgeons: When patients have a choice, we want them to come to our surgery centers right? Creating a user generated site will encourage referring physicians to refer patients to your ASC's website. Let patients get to know their surgeons better before they have an appointment.
Recruiting Patients: We want to direct patients to information on the ASC's procedures and their doctors; not to other websites like webMD.com and answer.yahoo.com. This helps to build trust with patients when they can get all the information they need through the ASC's website. Do a google search with what a patient might type when looking for surgeons and/or information about surgeries. Is your ASC even listed? If not, then ASCs should look at long tail search criteria because most people search in sentences not in keywords.
These two strategies barely touch the tip of what ASCs could do to reach out to their patients and physicians. But we all need to start somewhere right?
Just remember to align strategies your ASCs strategic initiatives and create a platform that is consistent.
--The Catalyst
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