Bridging Bariatric Patient Conversion Rates and Practice Growth Written by SQHealth-admin on May 17, 2018. Posted in Bariatric Surgery, Convert. Our Final Rule for Growing Your Bariatric Practice Addresses the Importance of Managing Patient Pipelines with Better Monitoring, Tracking and Analysis Before we explore our fourth and final rule and conclude our series about how to grow your bariatric practice, let’s revisit the first three rules: • Rule #1: Know Your Numbers: The foundation of any successful bariatric practice marketing program! Having a firm grasp on your bariatric patient acquisition data is crucial for developing and gauging effective marketing strategies. • Rule #2: Make It Easy for Patients to Find You: Patients use online searches to find healthcare services more than anything else. With so much at stake, you must leverage online search strategies and tools to get your bariatric surgery program directly in front of them. • Rule #3: Use Online Seminars to Increase Leads: If you aren’t offering online bariatric seminars to prospects, your competitors probably do—and they are taking your share of new bariatric patients. Now, the fourth rule: Increase conversions rates throughout the entire patient pipeline. This specifically includes patient conversion rates for: • Leads to Surgery • Seminars to Surgery • Consults to Surgery This is important because we’ve seen compelling results from our own studies that have shown direct correlation between positive bariatric patient surgery conversion rates and success bariatric surgery programs. Getting Patients Into the Pipeline is Only the Beginning of the Conversion Process Below is a chart from a study of one of our client’s conversion rates over a two-year period. Even without scrutinizing the chart’s details, it’s immediately obvious that as the slopes increase positively in the left column (conversion rates), the same happens in the right column (program growth). Take a moment to think about how each line represents a different phase of the patient pipeline. Notice in the left column how patients are more likely to get surgery (convert) the farther they move down the lead–to-seminar-to-consult pipeline. The takeaway is that it’s not enough to just have a great marketing strategy that gets prospects to become aware of your program. Instead, you must also have a well-managed patient pipeline that can retain prospects and nurture them through the entire journey. Once Again, You Must First “Know Your Numbers” to Improve Your Growth Ironically, the first step in increasing bariatric conversion rates and managing patient pipelines relates to the first rule, “Know Your Numbers.” This is because having an accurate and reliable process for monitoring your conversation rates will give you valuable insights into your patient pipelines. There are multiple processes and tools for collecting statistics, ranging from simple-to-sophisticated to analog-to-digital. We asked guests at our recent Webinar, 4 Powerful Strategies That Can Grow Your Bariatric Program, about which tools they used, and the results showed a range of practices: Using Bariatric Patient Pipeline Management to Improve Conversion Rates Let’s presume you actively use at least one of the above processes for tracking your bariatric patient pipelines and measuring conversion rates. Would it be a fair assumption to say if you aren’t using bariatric-specific patient tracking software, you probably aren’t experiencing the growth you want or need? If this describes your situation, don’t feel bad—but also don’t overreact and get the first option you find, because it might not be the best solution for you. There are two reasons for this. First, not all bariatric patient management software and platforms integrate with all EMRs. In our experience, we’ve seen much better outcomes when the platform “plays nice” with an existing EMR because it can significantly improve efficiency throughout your entire practice. Second, not all platforms can give you easily understandable metrics about your patient pipelines that answer essential questions like: • Where do our leads come from? • Where do our patients stall? Below is an example of how our platform provides a simple yet powerful illustration of where your patients are in their entire journey—including post-operation. In this example, the practice does well with getting prospects into the program (patient intake, seminar and insurance verification). But notice how there’s a sudden surge in stalled patients during the consult and clearance stages. If not already lost, then these prospects are very likely to drop out of the program (and likely go elsewhere). A Final Thought As mentioned at the beginning of this series, we regularly hear from bariatric surgery practices about how difficult it is to manage the day-to-day operations while also trying to increase patient volumes. Although there are no quick fixes or one-size-fits-all solutions, the truth is there are many bariatric surgery practices enjoy a healthy balance of current surgery volumes and anticipated growth. We are privileged to have some as clients. Your practice has the capability of enjoying that kind of success, and we hope this series helps you continue to advance towards that goal. Nate McCormack is Sequence Health’s Director of National Sales. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
5 Ways to Get Your Own “Best Healthcare Website” Written by SQHealth-admin on May 2, 2018. Posted in Connect. We are frequently approached by hospitals and clinics that want to know how they can have the “best healthcare Website” or how their Website currently compares on a national, regional or local level to top healthcare Websites. Although we can use tools that deliver quantifiable answers for the latter—including Google Analytics and Alexa—they aren’t as useful for answering the former. Do a Google search for “best healthcare Website” and you will see hundreds of results for blogs, awards and other pages. Although many provide solid references for what a “best healthcare Website” might look like, they usually don’t give you the guidance to get your Website into the same class. Having a slick-looking, modern Website is always nice, but there’s much more to having a top medical Website. For example, the ever-popular Mayo Clinic’s Website might be regularly rank high on many “best healthcare Website” lists, but it doesn’t mean your hospital or clinic should make a duplicate version. Instead, you need a Website that not only looks great, but is great because it performs and functions for specific reasons. Here’s an easy and remarkably practical method for getting your Website onto a path that will at least improve its appearance and performance—and perhaps someday land you on somebody’s “best healthcare Website” list. The process borrows from the “five W’s” problem-solving technique ideal for becoming more aware of your Website’s strengths and weaknesses. Who is Your Audience? Your immediate response might be, “Well, duh, our patients!” But seriously, think about it: How well do you understand the background of your audience—which, yes, are your patients? This includes a matrix of: • Age • Gender • Culture • Income • Insurance and payment mixes • Geography and proximity • Medical priorities and needs With those points, you should develop some abstract profiles of your audience. Now visit your Website and take an honest look at all of it—photos, content, function, etc. How well does your Website look or feel relates to who your patients actually are or what they want from you? Takeaway: If your Website doesn’t reflect the makeup and needs of its audience, you will want to consider updating your content to be more representative. What Does Your Website Need to Be or Do? Now that you’ve thought about who your audience is, take it one step further: What do they need from it? This may include: • Appointment scheduling • Patient portals • Physician and specialty searches Or conversely, think about your Website and what your audience doesn’t need from it? This includes: • Slow loading times • Outdated or obsolete plugins • Unresponsive design/no mobile version Takeaway: If your Website’s technologies are not delivering the performance and convenience your patients expect, you’ll want to think upgrading or replacing your Website’s architecture or platform. Where are Viewers Finding or Using Your Website? If you regular follow this blog, you’ll already know the tremendous importance having a mobile-friendly healthcare Website. This is related to a simple fact: a majority of healthcare Website visitors visit on their mobile devices. Google’s recent mobile-first update (which uses the mobile version of a Website to determine keyword rankings for searches) has reinforced this concept and is already causing massive shifts in search engine result pages (SERPs). Takeaway: If you aren’t looking at your Website metrics at least once a month, you should immediately make it part of your routine. The more engaged you are with your metrics, the more inclined you’ll be to improve your Website. Even if you don’t have a strong healthcare SEO strategy, you still should be using Google Analytics to look at your healthcare Website metrics to learn as much as you can about your patient’s online visiting habits, routines and more. Why Do You Have a Website? This should actually be the first question in this list because it’s also the most important. Give it a moment and think: What’s the point of having a Website for your hospital or clinic? You will likely be flooded with numerous reasons why you have a Website, and most reasons will probably relate to the first question about “Who is your audience?” This is because the most important reason you have a Website is to improve patient experience—which in turn leads to more appointments, surgeries, etc., as well as better outcomes. It at that point you must ask yourself: If you can define crucial reasons for why you have a Website, what are you doing to ensure your Website fulfills those reasons? Takeaway: If your Website isn’t living up to its expectations, it’s time to revisit your marketing plan, pinpoint its objectives, and then start developing a strategy to improve your Website. You will likely discover you either have the internal resources or you don’t—in which case, you will want to find a proven medical Website design and development partner to help you in your quest towards having a “best healthcare Website”! As Sequence Health’s Website development leader, Tonni Islam is one of our most reliable subject matter experts. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
Bariatric Surgery Seminars: Online vs. In-Person Written by SQHealth-admin on April 24, 2018. Posted in Bariatric Surgery, Convert. Bariatric Medical Marketing Practice Rules The Third Rule for Growing Your Bariatric Practice Places a High Value on Online Seminars If you’ve been following our blog series about how to grow your bariatric practice, you have already learned our first two rules: • Rule #1: Know Your Numbers • Rule #2: Make It Easy for Patients to Find You Now it’s time to introduce the third, which is to use online bariatric seminars (OLS) to: • Increase qualified bariatric patient intake leads • Expand into new bariatric surgery markets If you’re thinking, “Well, we already have a pretty good in-person bariatric seminar in place and seem to get decent results with it,” please be advised: If you aren’t offering online bariatric seminars, competitive medical practices probably do—and they are taking your share of new bariatric patients. Most simply, online bariatric seminars enable a better experience for prospects—and that directly translates into better conversion rates for you. We know this because we conducted a one-year study of a bariatric surgery practice that offered both in-person information sessions and online seminars. Although their conversion rates were decent for in-person seminars, they paled when compared to OLS: There’s no mystery to why this happened. Two key reasons are because bariatric surgery prospects are often: • Apprehensive about in-person seminars • Too busy to attend in-person seminars at a set date/time/location But, when prospects have access to online bariatric seminars, they can register and begin watching immediately. More Benefits for Online Bariatric Seminars Not only do online bariatric seminars help improve your conversion rates, but they can also be highly efficient and economical for your practice. This is because they: • Are recorded and produced once: This prevents you from having to commit resources for conducting the same seminar over and over. • Deliver the best payer mix: OLS gives you access to working and busy adults that are Internet and computer savvy. Components of a Successful Online Bariatric Seminar Our experience in developing successful online bariatric seminars has given us the ability to share some sound advice about key components that include: • Requiring registration that should be captured in Google analytics, too • Linking the registration to patient management software for a better understanding of the patient pipeline • Polls and surveys to test knowledge • Short, easy-to-digest segments rather than one long 30-minute clip • Interactive playback features that allow patients to pause resume the seminar • Optimized, professional-developed content for online viewing and NOT just a recording of a typical in-person seminar • Tracking for analytics and viewership • Automation for sending post-seminar requests for insurance verification, consult, etc. Please be sure to also watch our online seminar 4 Powerful Strategies That Can Grow Your Bariatric Program to learn more! As Sequence Health’s director of digital production, Karen Haft regularly engages with bariatric medical practices to find solutions that help grow their revenues and profitability. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
It’s Not Too Late: Google Speed Test Your Healthcare Website NOW Written by SQHealth-admin on April 12, 2018. Posted in Connect. Will You Be Ready for the “Google Speed Update” and Its Massive Impact on Your Healthcare SEO Rankings? Google’s long-awaited mobile-first indexing finally began taking effect recently in full force, and we’re guessing you’ve seen the initial shockwaves for volatile healthcare keyword rankings. We hope you were well-prepared for it and am coming out unscatched. Now the newest trepidation among my colleagues in the SEO blogosphere is with Google’s next anticipated SEO game-changer: the so-called “Google speed update.” As with most big Google SEO shifts on the horizon, there’s always the “what we are certain about” and “what we think will happen.” For the Google speed update: • We are certain it will take effect in July 2018 and only impact some Websites. • We think it will soon after become a major ranking factor for all Websites (and will really hurt those that still haven’t recovered or adjusted from mobile-first indexing). For those reasons, we’ve been updating our healthcare SEO clients’ websites programming based on the results of the Google mobile speed test to ensure their page speeds are up to spec. It’s also why we’ve been receiving many questions about the Google speed update. Here are just a few! What Exactly is the “Google Speed Update?” Ever since 2010, desktop site speed has been what Google calls an important “signal” in its keyword ranking algorithm.1 The reason has always been simple: Google prioritizes positive user experiences, and faster sites contribute to that. The upcoming “Google speed update” increases the importance of that signal—but puts the focus squarely mobile page speed. Who Will the “Google Speed Update” Affect? When the Google speed update was first mentioned on its Webmaster Central Blog2 in January 2018, they explained: “The ‘Speed Update,’ as we’re calling it, will only affect pages that deliver the slowest experience to users and will only affect a small percentage of queries. It applies the same standard to all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.” Put another way: When the Google speed update rolls out in July and you notice some unusual drops in your rankings, you will probably want to first look at your mobile page speed. Chances are you have “pages that deliver the slowest experience” and Google is penalizing you for it. How Do I Perform Google Speed Tests? Google provides a free mobile speed and performance test that quickly gives you a comprehensive understanding of what you might expect from your mobile healthcare Website after the update is launched. Just enter your Website address, and in about a minute, Google will tell you your: • Loading time on a 3G network (and estimated visitor loss rates) • Comparison to top-performing Websites in your industry (which should hopefully identify yours as “Health”) It will also provide you with a free detailed report of fixes to speed up your mobile site. Google also recommends some other tools that we also think are useful for improving your overall healthcare website performance. These include: • Chrome User Experience Report: Use this to get metrics for how real-world Chrome users experience your Website. • Lighthouse: An open-source, automated tool for improving the quality of your Web pages. • PageSpeed Insights: This analyzes the content of your Web pages and then generates suggestions to make that page faster. We will continue to monitor this topic in the coming months! As Sequence Health’s Director of Digital Marketing, Susan Gullion is one of our most knowledgeable resources for enhancing our healthcare clients’ search engine marketing strategies with SEO, PPC and social media. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care. 1 Using Site Speed in Web Search Ranking 2 Using Page Speed in Mobile Search Ranking
Physician Practice Operations Efficiency: A Potential Key to Unlocking Your Potential Written by SQHealth-admin on March 13, 2018. Posted in Manage. Data Survey Indicates Link Between Efficiency and Patient Satisfaction If you’ve wondered about what separates the best healthcare practices from the rest, physician practice operations efficiency might be one place to look. That was one of the key takeaways from the 2017 MGMA DataDive Practice Operations Survey.1 The survey gauged more than 1200 U.S. hospital and private-owned practices for their: • Average office wait times • Scheduling availability • Use of patient portals In a news release to announce the survey, MGMA leadership drew lines between efficient physician practice operations and patient satisfaction: Medical practices face a variety of challenges today, and among the most addressable are practice operations which tend to separate top performing practices from the rest. With this survey, we aim to glean insights that will enable practices to improve efficiencies and better serve their patients by making processes as smooth as possible. Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright, MD, MMM, FAAP, CMPE MGMA President and Chief Executive Officer Are You Helping Move the Need for Reducing Patient Wait Times? Medical offices’ wait times are among the obvious indicators of efficiency in healthcare. If your healthcare practice has taken steps to make its practice operations more efficient in the past couple years, give yourself a small pat on the back. That’s because patient wait times were reduced by five minutes from the previous year, according the survey. It further translated into average wait time reductions of: • 20 minutes between the waiting area and the exam room • 17 minutes for hospital-owned practices Is your practice contributing to this positive trend—or is it falling behind? This is an important question your practice needs to be able to answer. How to Improve Your Physician Practice Operations and Join the Elite Other than obvious indicators, you may now be wondering about other ways to improve your physician practice operations so you can either join or solidify your footing in the “best healthcare practices” classification. As a provider of patient satisfaction solutions, we noticed some key survey data that closely relate to the products and services we offer. These might be crucial areas for you to improve your efficiencies! • Ease of Scheduling Appointments: This is vital for hospital-owned practices which—according to the survey—don’t see patients as quickly as physician-owned practices (by a margin of two days!). • Engagement (Phone Calls): This is vital for multi-specialty practices that take an average of 49 seconds to answer incoming calls—as compared to surgical specialties that average 13.5 seconds! • Satisfaction (Surveys): There’s a massive divide between practices that do patient satisfaction surveys (74 percent) and don’t (three percent)! Nate McCormack is Sequence Health’s Director of National Sales. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care. 1 MGMA Releases Industry Benchmarks for Optimizing Medical Practice Operations, Including Findings That Average Wait Times Decreased by Five Minutes In 2016
Bariatric Medical Practice Marketing Rule #2: Make It Easy for Patients to Find You Written by SQHealth-admin on February 27, 2018. Posted in Bariatric Surgery, Connect. We kicked off this blog series with a discussion the first rule for growing your bariatric medical practice: the importance of “knowing your numbers.” This time, we will explore our next rule: make it easy for your patients to find you and begin their journey. Let’s begin with understanding how and where patients are finding healthcare services. It should come as no surprise that patients use online searches more than anything else—which includes personal referrals from physicians, family, friends and colleagues, as well as offline influencers like TV, magazines and newspapers. Click to view larger. We know this from a well-known Google study1 published this a few years ago that also showed how: • More than 85% of patients began their searches online for health-related topics • 48% of patients took more than two weeks to research before booking appointments • 61% visited two or more hospitals sites before “converting” (more on this in a moment) Find Yourself: Are You Experienced? When we’ve asked bariatric healthcare marketers if they’ve ever tried to find their own hospital or clinic online—the same experience a potential patient would have—the answer is often no. We are driving home an important point, not pointing fingers: If it’s not easy to find yourself online, imagine what it must be like for patients that aren’t even aware of you, especially in competitive markets! With so much at stake with patients being able to find your bariatric medical practice online, the importance of online search strategies, healthcare advertising and tools become increasingly obvious—and even more when you learn that: • Searches drive nearly three times as many visitors to hospital sites compared to non-search visitors • Organic search results are more than 80% more likely to be clicked on than paid search results The ABCs of Bariatric Marketing with SEO, SEM and PPC Great SEO (search engine optimization) is the key to getting your share of organic search traffic to your bariatric surgery center’s Website, but it can take time to develop a solid SEO strategy and to see the results. That’s why we should not be too quick to downplay healthcare digital marketing and the amazing potential of paid searches, also known as PPC (pay-per-click) and SEM (search engine marketing). With the right combination of creatives (ads), keyword selection and bidding, patients will take action. According to Google, it’s meant: • 28% visiting the advertised hospital’s Website • 21% considering the advertised hospital • 5% contacting the advertised hospital Conversions: Are You Turning Prospects Into Bariatric Surgery Patients? No matter how much search traffic comes to your bariatric hospital’s Website, it doesn’t mean anything unless you have great “conversion rates,” another way to say: Are you turning prospects into patients after they’ve found you? This leads to two immediate questions: • What is your current conversion rate? • How can you increase your conversion rate? If you are finding that your conversion rates aren’t meeting your expectations, you will want to again return to the earlier question about trying to experience what it’s like to search for your facility. This time, try to understand the experience of your Website. How would you answer the following questions: • Is your Website appealing to prospective patients? • Is your Website optimized for both mobile and desktop? • Is it easy for patients to find the right information? • Is there a clear call-to-action (CTA) on the Website to help patients get started? • Do you offer seminars—and if so, what type and how often? Don’t assume low conversion rates are entirely the fault of the Website, though. This is especially true if you are noticing a sharp decrease in rates between Website registrations and seminar completion. In this case, consider these enhancements: • Automated reminders prior to seminar • Personal phone call prior to seminar • Offer more seminar times or online options like Webinars We’ll close on that note, but when we resume, we’ll talk more about increasing intake rates after seminars and Webinars. As Sequence Health’s Central/Western Regional Director, Chris Stearns regularly engages with bariatric medical practices to find solutions that help grow their revenues and profitability. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care. 1 The Digital Journey to Wellness: Hospital Selection
Got HTTPS? Big Chrome 68 Web Security Changes are Coming Written by SQHealth-admin on February 17, 2018. Posted in Connect. You’ve Got Until Summer to Update Your Hospital Website Security and Avoid Being Marked as “Not Secure” For more than a year, we’ve been closely watching Google for updates about their ongoing push for Websites to adopt HTTPS encryption (which is sometimes also called TLS/SSL encryption). Last week, we finally heard the game-changing news we’ve been waiting to hear since 2016: “Beginning in July 2018 with the release of Chrome 68, Chrome will mark all HTTP sites as ‘not secure.’” 1 An example of how Chrome 68 will mark unsecure Websites. The key word is all, and that’s because Google has been gradually phasing-in Web security requirements for certain kinds of Web pages. That will all change in July 2018, which is why it’s no longer just a good idea to update your practice or hospital Website security, but now a very, very, very strong recommendation to do so. Don’t be Confused, We’ve Got You Covered In case you don’t fully understand what any of this means—or its implications for your healthcare Website—don’t worry. As mentioned, we’ve been watching this closely, and we’ve said plenty about it our blog. We first suggest you visit Is Your Hospital Website Secure Enough for Google in 2017?, which we published in late 2016. In it, we addressed the basics of healthcare Web security, including: • How to determine your Web security status • How to update your Website security We next encourage you to visit another piece we published last fall, Will Chrome 62 TLS/SSL Requirements Affect Your Users’ Experiences or Your Online Rankings?. This time, we addressed Chrome 62’s labeling of certain pages that weren’t secured and explained its: • Potential impact to your SEO and SERPs (search engine result pages) • Likely impact to your hospital Website conversions and patient conversion rates • Possible impact to patient confidence in your brand 2018: The Year of Google Disruption? Those that celebrate Chinese New Year know that 2018 is the “Year of the Dog.” Because the Sequence Health SEO team so closely follows Google, we’ve become inclined to say 2018 might also be called the “Year of Google Disruption.” We have a feeling this year will be a big year of changes on the Internet as it relates to Google. We’ve already seen a lot of disruption in keywords rankings in January 2018. We also know Google has been threatening to change to mobile-first indexing (from desktop-first) for more than a year, which will not bode well for Websites that are not responsive or don’t have a mobile version of their Website (and which we’ve also discussed in our blogs). For the moment, we can be 100-percent certain about Chrome 68’s impacts on Website security—although the question now is knowing exactly which day in July 2018 it will get launched! As Sequence Health’s Associate Director of Search Engine Marketing, Susan Gullion is one of our most knowledgeable resources for enhancing our healthcare clients’ search engine marketing strategies with SEO, PPC and social media. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care. 1A Secure Web is Here to Stay
Perspectives on How Net Neutrality Will Impact Healthcare IT Written by SQHealth-admin on February 12, 2018. Posted in Other. Until a year or so ago, very few people cared about “net neutrality,” and even fewer knew what it is. Now, it’s a hot topic on the minds of many people for multiple reasons. For some, it’s been a sensitive socio-political subject. For others, it’s been a source of satire—such as Burger King’s satirical TV spot.1 For us, it’s about how net neutrality might affect healthcare IT. We are only interested in understanding net neutrality’s possible effects on healthcare IT—for better or worse. The following is a digest of what some healthcare industry journalists and thought-leaders have said. What is Net Neutrality? In case you aren’t quite sure what net neutrality is or why it’s been such a buzzword, Save the Internet’s explanation is spot-on: “Net neutrality is the basic principle that prohibits Internet service providers [ISPs] like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from speeding up, slowing down or blocking any content, applications or Websites you want to use. Net Neutrality is the way that the Internet has always worked.” 2 Or at least the way the Internet used to work. With the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) December 2017 repeal of net neutrality rules, ISPs can now block, throttle or provide preferred “fast lane” service to whomever they choose (although most ISPs have said they won’t). Patient Engagement and Electronic Health Records (EHR) Most of what is said about net neutrality and healthcare IT tends not be favorable—with EHRs and patient engagement being two topics that may see negative impacts. For instance, Becker’s Health IT and CIO Review said EHRs are at risk because “these systems are increasingly moving toward cloud storage, and fast and reliable access to the data stored there is imperative for patient care.”3 For similar reasons, Healthcare IT speculated about potential harm to patient engagement: “The general public, including parents and caregivers of children, use web-based platforms to access children’s medical records, make appointments and find health information. Having slower access to these tools could potentially result in delays in care and seeking information, and place an undue burden on ready access to quality healthcare and health information.” 4 Telemedicine As with EHRs and patient engagement, there’s no debate about how telemedicine relies upon the Internet to connect people—especially those in underserved populations. But what is highly contested is whether net neutrality is a boon or bane for telemedicine. For instance, Fortune shared a perspective about the potential advantages: “Net neutrality repeal proponents retort that allowing faster Internet lanes for certain organizations—for instance, hospitals—would actually benefit consumers.” 5 …while Modern Healthcare presented another that highlighted a possible pitfall: “Though the FCC could make exceptions for healthcare so it’s not subject to the same rules…that might still leave patients to fend for themselves.” 6 Patient Costs The uncertainty about the pros or cons of net neutrality also carry over into speculations about impacts on patient costs. Health Data Management explained how it could increase patient costs: “However, critics—among them hospital organizations— contend the move will set the stage for cable TV-like tiers of services that would force consumers to pay more for services. This may particularly be true in rural areas, where there is often little or no competition among Internet service providers.” 7 …while Modern Healthcare cited an FCC spokeperson’s rosier outlook: “…[the] proposals would unleash innovation and investment in networks, providing better connectivity for rural and underserved hospitals and reducing costs everywhere.” 8 Only time will tell what net neutrality’s true impacts on healthcare IT will be. We will certainly keep watching and listening! As Sequence Health’s Associate Director of Search Engine Marketing, Susan Gullion is one of our most knowledgeable resources for enhancing our healthcare clients’ search engine marketing strategies with SEO, PPC and social media. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care. 1 Burger King Deviously Explains Net Neutrality by Making People Wait Longer for Whoppers 2 Net Neutrality: What You Need to Know Now 3 3 Ways the Net Neutrality Repeal Could Affect Healthcare 4 Now That Net Neutrality is Dead, the Question is: Will It Help Healthcare? 5 One Possible, Surprising Victim of Net Neutrality Repeal? Health Care 6 FCC Repeals Net Neutrality Rules, Potentially Affecting Telemedicine 7 Healthcare Organizations Voice Worry Over End of Net Neutrality 8 Net Neutrality Repeal Threatens Telemedicine
Five Key Mobile Website Design Tips for Hospitals and Clinics Written by SQHealth-admin on January 5, 2018. Posted in Connect. Now is the Perfect Time to Get Ready for Google Mobile-First Indexing Late last year, we talked about the importance for healthcare Websites to be ready for Google mobile-first indexing to roll out in 2018, which can happen any day now! If you haven’t already, now is the perfect time to review some mobile Website design tips that can help your hospital or clinic improve the quality of your mobile users’ experience, which in turn should lead to improved search engine rankings and more conversions. Analyze and Test Your Website Before you can improve your healthcare mobile Website design, you need to be positive it is ready for mobile-first indexing, which we discussed in “Google Mobile-First Indexing: Is Your Healthcare or Hospital Website Ready?” Once you’ve confirmed you are ready, the next step is to analyze its performance with Google Analytics. (If you’ve had to make some significant changes to get ready, allow a couple of weeks for new data to accumulate). Are there any pages that have unusually low traffic volumes? Or are there any calls to action that are demonstrating unusually high bounce rates? Looking at these types of metrics can quickly let you know the areas in which you’ll first want to improve. Provide a Link to the Desktop Version Always let your mobile visitors have the option to link to a complete desktop version of your healthcare Website. This may seem to contradict the whole purpose of having an optimized mobile Website, but some visitors may prefer to browse your desktop version on their mobile devices. Use Simple Menus Whether you choose to use collapsable “hamburger” menus, the most important mobile website design tip for menus (and submenus) is to keep them as simple as possible. Links to downloadable clinical trial report PDFs are an perfect example of what to prune from your menus. Healthcare mobile users are not likely to download or read such documents on their phones. If you must provide these types of links, consider asking users for their e-mail addresses so a link can be sent to them for downloading later. Make Searches Fast and Intuitive Mobile users heavily rely upon in-site searches, especially since menus are not as easy to navigate as they are on desktops—no matter how much you’ve simplified them for your mobile Website. Here are three key mobile Website design tips for making searches fast and intuitive: • Don’t bury your search in a menu. Experiment with different types of searches that can can be initiated and completed without going into a menu. Explicit (visible) search bars are one of the best ways to start experimenting with what will work best for you, as are filters and questions to guide search queries. • Optimize search result relevance. The better your search tools can provide relevant results, the faster users can find what they need. • Make search results easy to view. Always remember your users are not on larger desktop screens, and therefore, it’s crucial they can quickly understand and navigate search results. Be Selective with Calls to Action and Forms This final healthcare Website design tip continues the theme for speed and simplicity, especially if your hospital or clinic heavily depends on your Website for patient acquisition. On your desktop Website, you have the luxury of asking prospects for information well beyond their names and contact information. But for mobile users, every extra field they’ll need to complete (even if optional) can make a form seem long and difficult to complete. If you find it difficult to reduce the scale of your conversion tools, consider running A/B tests with Google Analytics. Set your test to randomly display a shorter or longer version of a form and then measure their performance. Tonni Islam is a Senior Designer at Sequence Health. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
Our New Medical Call Center in Cullman, Alabama! Written by SQHealth-admin on December 29, 2017. Posted in Company Overview. For many medical answering services, the end of the year usually means a slowdown in major activities until the new year begins. Sequence Health definitely bucked that trend this year! That is because we successfully moved into our new Cullman (Alabama) Medical Call Center last week! Click to see larger image With a lot of hard work from many members of our Medical Call Center team, it was a very smooth experience. Thank you to all for the effort, high spirits, and willingness to jump in and be self-sufficient when needed! Click to see larger image Although we’ve been calling it a “move,” it was actually more of a “transition.” The process began in August 2016 when we first announced our plans to create a state-of-the-art medical call center in a 15,000-square-foot facility in Cullman’s Industrial Park III. While developing the facility, we incubated the Call Center at Wallace State Community College’s Bailey Center in nearby Hanceville. No detail was overlooked in our vision for the ultimate medical call center facility. Staffed by experienced professionals from our former Atlanta call center along with skilled new recruits from Cullman and Wallace State, we are better positioned than ever to deliver best-in-class outsourced healthcare call center services. Our advanced patient support solutions, including our nurse triage service, help healthcare providers deliver timely, clinically guided care over the phone. Sequence Health wishes you a very happy and prosperous 2018! Shedrick has been Sequence Health’s Medical Call Center Director since 2013. Sequence Health is a cloud-based technology and services company that improves profitability and patient outcomes for hospitals and practices through end-to-end patient engagement solutions backed by clinical and non-clinical teams. Its HIPAA-compliant, SaaS platform improves care team workflows, automates patient communication and tracks patient progress to optimize the patient journey. Since 2004, leading healthcare providers have trusted Sequence Health to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.