Getting Personal: Making the Most of Social Media in Healthcare with Facebook Bots and Facebook Live Written by SQHealth-admin on April 26, 2017. Posted in Connect. Recent developments in using social media for health are now enabling hospitals and clinics to make personal connections like never before, notable because social media—and Facebook in particular—has been routinely rejected by marketers from many sectors due to its impersonality. However, Facebook’s recent innovations are now providing capabilities that are perfect for healthcare marketing and communications, enabling hospital administrators and doctors to provide more personal levels of customer care. From profiling staff members to promoting services to distributing timely healthcare information, Facebook bots and Facebook Live are emerging as preferred social media healthcare marketing tools. And when used properly, they can significantly improve patient engagement outcomes. Here are some examples. Healthcare Marketing with Facebook Live Facebook Live enables healthcare marketers and staff to use video to interact with patients in real time. It is ideal for communicating the services and benefits that differentiate your healthcare facility from others. For instance, does your hospital or clinic have difficulty promoting or explaining: • Specialized medical equipment? • A unique focus on conditions and treatments? • Trendsetting procedures? Facebook Live can be used to put the spotlight on these sorts of features, allowing patients to better understand what sets your healthcare facility apart from another. With this type of information on hand, prospective patients will be better able to make appropriate care decisions while hopefully prioritizing your practice in particular. Scheduling Doctor Appointments with Facebook Bots Facebook bots are customizable programs that automate tasks. For example, scheduling doctor appointments no longer require a patient to call your staff and use valuable time to perform a relatively simple activity. Instead, Facebook bots can handle this task, letting patients send a simple message to get the ball rolling. This functionality has the added advantage of minimizing back office requirements, which streamlines your scheduling process without human assistance. Checking Medical Test Results with Facebook Bots There are many digital platforms that can now manage medical test results (like the popular MyChart phone app), so why not let Facebook be one more? When patients contact you via Facebook, a bot can provide access to results and medical data through a confidential portal. A fast and convenient alternative to paper results, this sort of system can offer a better substitute without the need for a follow-up appointment. This option can also be used to request copies of medical records, guiding patients to a records request process that can allow for a quick transfer of necessary documentation. Refiling Expired Prescriptions with Facebook Bots When a patient’s prescription is out of refills, he or she often ends up in a game of phone tag between the local pharmacy and his or her doctor’s office, desperately seeking a new script. A Facebook bot can simplify this process, automatically tapping into recordkeeping systems to let doctors know that their patients require assistance. A simple keyword system is all that is needed here; when patients provide a prescription number or other piece of contact information, bots can quickly and efficiently run interference to ensure consistent access to medication. Providing Healthcare Information with Facebook Bots When it comes to health information, many patients have more questions than answers. Oftentimes, seeking responses to queries means going to Google and doing general research with unreliable results, but chatbots can make this much easier and accurate. Instead of looking up information on the medical services you provide, customers can go to your Facebook page and get an automated response in seconds. Likewise, they can get answers about health information ranging from simple medical questions (like the definition and symptoms of a disease) to more complex treatment information. Considerations for Using Facebook Bots and Facebook Live • Privacy Issues and HIPAA Compliance: HIPAA is a critical issue in all areas of doctor-patient communications, and the legal protections surrounding confidential information are exceptionally serious. Medical practices implementing a chatbot system must be extremely careful to stay compliant under this law, ensuring that no access to personal data is directly available, or perhaps available at all without stringent verification of identity. • Emergency Services: As many healthcare professionals know, calling 911 is the best way to seek help in an emergency that requires medical care. Information to this end is usually available on hospital scheduling hotlines, Websites, social media pages and more, safeguarding providers against legal liability in the event that patients attempt to proceed with scheduling an appointment or seeking help online rather than calling emergency services. Any use of a chatbot will also need to take this information under consideration, implementing proper safety checks to ensure patients seeking immediate help are provided with the proper instructions. • Misinformation: Medical information provided by doctors is generally personalized to a particular patient’s needs, as not all advice can be applied universally. Information communicated through a chatbot will have to reflect these disclaimers as well, letting patients know clearly that any information made available is not specific and should not serve as a substitute for seeing a medical professional. 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. Please contact us to learn more about how Sequence Health can partner with you to develop a custom healthcare social media marketing solution.
HIPAA-Compliant Texting a Convenient, Efficient Way to Improve Patient Management and Outcomes Written by web_developers on April 12, 2017. Posted in Connect. Last month, we published a blog, “Using Automated Phone Calls and Texts to Improve Patient Outcomes, Hospital Brand Perceptions” that examined some advantages how telephones—including mobile phones and smartphones—can enhance patient management and communications. We also demonstrated the importance of using mobile device communications to engage with patients—in particular, via text messaging—after sharing research that stated approximately two-thirds of American adults own a smartphone, with 62 percent of them having used the device to get information about a health condition. As with so many other matters that relate to patient information, privacy—especially with respect to HIPAA compliance—is of supreme importance. Therefore, to fully appreciate the advantages of using text messages to communicate with patients, it’s crucial that patient text messages are HIPAA compliant. Ensuring HIPAA-Compliant Text Messages Ensuring that text messages comply with HIPAA privacy laws is fairly simple: You are essentially in compliance if your messages don’t include any information that identifies the patient (including his/her conditions or treatments). For example, you may send text-message appointment reminders and confirmations, but only if you don’t include the patient’s name, birth date or any similar information. It’s important to note text messages don’t need to be entirely stripped of practical healthcare information to be HIPAA-compliant. For instance, text messages that encourage patients to remain an active participant in their healthcare fit within this concept—so long as they don’t recommend specific tests for the patient or explicitly indicate the patient has a specific condition. Advantages of HIPAA-Compliant Text Messaging with Patients • More Convenient for Patients Many people who have a smartphone use it as more of a mobile office than as a mobile telephone. In some cases, they don’t even answer the phone. Instead, they prefer to use text messaging, e-mail and other messaging platforms. By communication through channels that patients may find more convenient, you might find that you’ll have more success contacting them via text than you might through phone calls. • Increase Engagement with Patients Smartphone users interact with their devices an estimated 2,617 times per day—which includes the times they check for messages, social media and missed phone calls. With such a high volume of daily interactions, HIPAA-compliant texting can help healthcare providers increase engagement with patients—but without having to place time-consuming phone calls that might just go to voicemail. • Improves Outcomes Research is routinely finding that text messages can improve patient outcomes. For instance (and as I recently mentioned in an article published by Digital Commerce 360.com, “Automated Texting Can Improve Patient Management and Outcomes”), a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research noted patients who received text messages as part of a study related to Type 2 diabetes had improved outcomes. • Optimizes Staff Resources Using platform-as-a-service (PaaS) patient management solutions that can send automated messages may free up your staff members’ time that would have otherwise been spent making phone calls to patients. This enables them to more quickly answer inbound calls from patients, which can result in a more productive and positive experience for patients. Gopi Yeleswarapu is Sequence Health’s Chief Technology Officer. Sequence Health is a recognized leader for innovative patient engagement solutions—which includes its Platform as a Service (PaaS), Sequence. To learn more about how Sequence can help you take advantage of HIPAA-compliant texting and other automated patient engagement solutions, please contact us.
Using Automated Phone Calls and Texts to Improve Patient Outcomes, Hospital Brand Perceptions Written by web_developers on March 3, 2017. Posted in Connect. The thought of using any type of automated phone system for communicating with patients—including text messages—might not initially seem to a be productive one. After all, how many times have you received a “robocall” or an unsolicited text that proved to be nothing more than a nuisance? In that context, why would you want to jeopardize your hospital’s brand with perceptions of being a nuisance? However, those conclusions might not necessarily be valid. Studies about automated healthcare phone calls and texts are suggesting thited a report that indicated how a “health system [that] had previously been close to the bottom of the national average for colorectal screening “used automated phone calls” to get 578 patients to schedule colon cancer screenings, which led to the diagnosis of pre-cancerous polyps in an estimated 145 patients.” contrary—particularly in the ability for them to boost patient outcomes and engagement and to improve brand perceptions. Automated Phone Messages: The Colon Cancer Screening Study There are some outstanding examples of how automated phone messages have proven their potential. FierceHealthcare.com’s “Automated Phone Notifications Engage Patients, Boost Follow-Up Care” cited a report that indicated how a “health system [that] had previously been close to the bottom of the national average for colorectal screening “used automated phone calls” to get 578 patients to schedule colon cancer screenings, which led to the diagnosis of pre-cancerous polyps in an estimated 145 patients.” Some simple math shows 25 percent of those patients were diagnosed…an impressive rate indeed! Automated Text Messages: The Heart Disease Study Of course, any discussion about modern phone communications implies the usage of mobile devices and smartphones—which further implies the usage of SMS text messaging. According to Pew Research’s “6 Facts About Americans and Their Smartphones,” approximately two-thirds of American adults own a smartphone, with 62 percent of them having used the device to get information about a health condition. With most of the population using a technology that has a positive relationship with personal health management, it would seem reasonable to suggest that automated text messages could be a key to improving patient outcomes, like automated phone messages. Once again, studies are confirming this presumption. In 2015, the JAMA Network published clinical trial results, “Effect of Lifestyle-Focused Text Messaging on Risk Factor Modification in Patients With Coronary Heart Disease“, in which half of the 700 participating heart disease patients were sent text messages either two or four times a week for a six-month period. The report concluded: “Among patients with CHD, the use of a lifestyle-focused text messaging service compared with usual care resulted in a modest improvement in LDL-C level and moderate improvements in blood pressure, BMI, and smoking status.” Improving Hospital and Clinic Brand Perceptions Earlier it was suggested that automated phone calls and texts could be perceived as a nuisance—even if they are in fact effective at improving communications with patients. Yet, research is deflecting the negative implications. For instance, MedicalEconomics.com’s “Staying Connected to Patients Beyond the Office Visit” mentioned a study that said: “66% of Americans have received a voicemail, text or email from their healthcare provider, with half of those who received a communication saying it made them feel more valued, a third saying the digital communication improved their opinion of the provider and a third saying it made them feel more likely to visit the provider again.” How to Use Automated Phone Calls and Texts to Improve Patient Management and Outcomes If your hospital or clinic uses a patient appointment management platform, it’s possible that you already have the tools needed to immediately use automated phone calls and text messages to better engage with and manage your patients. However, automated communications are useful for many other objectives, including alerts and reminders for: • Prescription refills • Drug recall • Monitoring • Preventative care The advantages of improving patient outcomes not only exceed the primary goal of every healthcare provider to help patients enjoy healthier and happier lives, but as we’ve discussed in blogs such as “BPCI Initiative Year 2 Lessons Learned,” they are increasingly related to Medicare reimbursements. Sequence Health is a recognized leader for innovative patient management solutions, which includes our Sequence patient management PaaS (platform as a service). To learn about how Sequence Health can help your improve your patient outcomes and engagement, please contact us.
Driving Long-term Engagement is Key to Increasing Bariatric Surgery Volume Written by SQHealth-admin on February 3, 2017. Posted in Bariatric Surgery, Connect. What if there was a cure for diabetes but only 1% of the patient population even knew about it? And what if out of the people who were aware of it and sought more information from healthcare providers, only 15% ended up receiving it? That would no doubt be considered a national healthcare crisis. Stakeholders like advocacy groups, insurers and the Centers for Disease Control would want to know why patients were not receiving lifesaving therapy. Identifying and eliminating hurdles to receiving that care would quickly become a top priority for clinicians and healthcare systems. The Struggle to Convert Bariatric Surgery Candidates A feeling not dissimilar to this was present at the Texas Association for Bariatric Surgery’s 2017 Annual Meeting in Dallas last week. Bariatric surgery providers repeatedly expressed frustration at their astonishingly low conversion rate: only 15%. That means that 85% of the patients that express an interest in the surgical therapies that can help them control obesity and comorbidities like high blood pressure, diabetes, and severe sleep apnea, never end up receiving surgery. There are even more patients that aren’t measured because they don’t initiate information seeking. Let’s start with the patients that ask about the surgery but fall out of the funnel before converting. It’s understandable when you consider how lengthy the path to surgery can be. The average amount of time that passes between first considering surgery to undergoing it is three years. Those are also not idle years where patients are simply waiting for a date to open up; the path to bariatric surgery is complex and riddled with insurance pre-approvals, medical and psychological evaluations, and lifestyle changes that patients must commit to. Failure in any of these areas results in patients not receiving the surgery that can greatly improve their overall health. Read more : Bariatric Surgery Seminars: Online vs. In-Person How Insurance and Accreditation Impact Patient Access In addition, most hospitals in Texas are within miles of each other, competing for the same patient. I spoke with hospital administrators with bariatric programs that, although accredited by MBSAQIP, did not meet certain standards for insurance carriers, like BCBS Blue Distinction or Aetna IOQ. In one particular case, I learned that the hospital I was speaking with had to refer out 30%, or 35 of their bariatric cases to a competing hospital because the patients were members of an insurance plan that required the insurance’s ‘seal of approval,’ and you can bet that the competing hospital was accredited by the insurance provider. Of course there will be patients who start the process, only to realize they either can’t afford surgery or don’t qualify for surgery. But the number is far fewer than most coordinators realize, and they would know that if they tracked all of their leads. Also, there are alternative ways to keep these patients engaged, motivated, and help them achieve their desired goals, like offering a weight loss medicine program, non-invasive balloon procedures, or by offering discounted procedures with financing options for cash pay patients. Read more: A Guide to How to Verify Insurance Eligibility & Benefits The Challenge of Managing the Patient Journey Bariatric surgery coordinators are responsible for helping move patients through the process, but they are largely operating with hands tied behind their backs. Most of them are using simple Excel spreadsheets to keep up with patient progress. They know that this is inadequate for driving engagement and leading patients through a journey full of milestones, education, and paperwork. I heard the frustration again and again throughout the conference. This is one of the holes in healthcare (and frankly, EMRs) that led us to develop Sequence and a major reason we exhibited at the TABS meeting. Tracking patient engagement and measuring outcomes through a care episode is becoming a top concern for many healthcare providers as payers move to value-based reimbursement programs — but for bariatric surgeons, moving patients through an exceptionally long and complicated funnel is key to ensuring that they receive treatment in the first place. Turning Awareness Into Engagement What about the potential patients who never make it to the information seeking stage? The same principles that start with intent and successfully guide patients through the care journey from pre-op all the way through recovery can also be used in initial marketing. It’s a matter of supplying the best education at the right time, which is almost impossible to do with spreadsheets alone. Moving patients from “I’ve heard of bariatric surgery,” to “It sounds like it might be right for me,” is a marketing journey that is driven by the same methodologies that move patients from intent to conversion: well-timed education, engagement, and follow-up with outcomes that can be measured and quantified at every touchpoint. Done correctly with the right technology solution, managing the journey from awareness to intent effectively boosts conversion rates and shortens that three year timeline to receiving surgery. Improving Outcomes With Better Patient Management Bariatric surgery is moving quickly, with new procedures evolving and better long-term success rates. Providers are quite aware that one of the simplest ways to improve outcomes and increase the volume of surgeries they perform is to more effectively manage patients and guide them through the entire funnel. As Sequence Health’s Regional Sales Director, Nathan McCormack ensures that new clients are paired with patient management and healthcare marketing solutions that support their objectives. Please contact us to learn more about how Sequence Health can partner with you to give you the power to dramatically boost patient engagement and measure outcomes today.
Easy Ways Your Bariatric Surgery Center Can Support American Heart Month in February 2017 Written by web_developers on February 1, 2017. Posted in Bariatric Surgery, Connect. Although we provide patient management solutions for all types of hospitals and clinics, a significant percentage of partners are bariatric surgery centers. With February being American Heart Month, we thought it would be best to position our tips for supporting American Heart Month in the context of bariatric surgery center marketing and patient management—however, they can easily be used by general healthcare providers and many other specialties or centers of excellence. [tweet “…tips for supporting American Heart Month in the context of bariatric surgery center marketing…”] Linking Bariatric Surgery, Diabetes and American Heart Month It is not hard to connect the dots between bariatric surgery, diabetes and promoting heart health in conjunction with American Heart Month. But don’t just take our word for it! For instance, the American Heart Association last year published a release, Bariatric Surgery May Reduce Heart Failure Risk, in which it found bariatric surgery “can significantly reduce the risk of heart failure in obese patients.” It further explained that the “reduced risk of heart failure may be due to bariatric surgery’s effects on other risk factors of heart failure, including diabetes, hypertension and atrial fibrillation.” The American Diabetes Association is quite aligned with the American Heart Association’s position. According to its Living With Diabetes Web guide for related complications, “people with diabetes have a higher-than-average risk of having a heart attack or stroke. Additionally, it said “there’s a big link between diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. In fact, two out of three people with diabetes die from heart disease or stroke, also called cardiovascular disease.” Promote Your Bariatric Surgery Center’s Heart Health Programs Your bariatric surgery center likely already has programs, online content and print collateral that advocate lifestyle improvements that can directly or indirectly improve heart health. For example, the National Health Information Center’s American Heart Month Toolkit offers several suggestions, including: • Quitting smoking and avoiding secondhand smoke • Controlling cholesterol and blood pressure • Drink alcohol only in moderation • Better weight management Create a Branded Blood Pressure Wallet Card (and Other Great CDC Ideas) Speaking of print collateral, the Centers for Disease Control’s Strong Men Put Their Hearts First page provides a wealth of ideas and resources for supporting American Heart Month. One of their standout resources invites guests to print and distribute a CDC-branded blood pressure wallet card for tracking blood pressure. This is a superb concept for bariatric surgery center marketing teams to create their own branded versions—and to perhaps improve upon with input from your bariatric surgeons and nurses! Bonus tip: Do a small-batch print run that mentions American Heart Month and give these out in February and then do another run for the rest of the year. Any extra American Heart Month versions can be saved for next year! Go Red for Women! Go Red for Women is the American Heart Association’s national movement to end heart disease and stroke in women. Its Get Involved page shares multiple ways that your bariatric surgery center and its patients can show support, including an opportunity to join a heart disease research study. Use Social Media for #AmericanHeartMonth Awareness Along with using social media to share and find useful information related to American Heart Month (including trending hashtags such as #cervicalhealthmonth and #goredforwomen), it’s also an excellent opportunity to expand your networks. For instance, if you don’t already, here are some worthy Twitter accounts you might want to follow: • @American_Heart, the official Twitter page for the American Heart Association • @GoRedForWomen, the official Twitter page for Go Red For Women • @MillionHeartsUS, the official Twitter page for Million Hearts, a national initiative to prevent one million heart attacks & strokes Not sure what to write in your Tweets? Healthfinder.gov has created a list of American Heart Month sample tweets that can get you in the right direction! Sequence Health proudly supports American Heart Month. For more about our company and our patient management platform Sequence, please contact us.
Five Easy Ways Your Women’s Health or Cancer Treatment Center Can Support Cervical Health Awareness Month in January 2017 Written by web_developers on January 3, 2017. Posted in Connect, Women's Health. Now that the winter holidays are over, it’s time to get back into the swing of things with marketing and promoting your healthcare facility. This is particularly true if you hospital or clinic offers women’s health services or has a cancer treatment centers, because January is national Cervical Health Awareness Month. The National Cervical Cancer Coalition estimates that approximately 13,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year. However, because cervical cancer is preventable—especially in conjunction with cervical cancer screenings—the American Cancer Society reports that the cervical cancer death rate has declined by more than 50 percent in the past 30 years. Additionally, the American Cancer Society relates the decline to greater numbers of human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines given to children, which is linked to most cases of cervical cancer. Your women’s health or cancer treatment center likely already has strategies for creating awareness about cervical health and encouraging cervical cancer screenings. However, with January being national Cervical Health Awareness Month, there are some excellent tips and resources available that can help you continue those objectives and support this important cause. Here are five to stimulate some of your own ideas! Update Your Website with Calls to Action for Cervical Cancer Screenings Creating banners and other call to action graphics that encourage cervical cancer screenings at your facility is perhaps the first and most important step to take, especially if you position them to include Cervical Health Awareness Month messaging. Likewise, if you have patient management software that enables you to port Website visitors directly to your appointment setting page, your call-to-action graphics can make it even easier for them to find and schedule a cervical health screening. Create Content to Promote Cervical Health Awareness and Cervical Cancer Prevention If you have the resources, consider generating other types of online and print content, such as infographics that quickly explain what cervical cancer and HPV are and how they can be prevented and treated. Another suggestion would be to collect testimonials—especially video testimonials—from people that were able to use your cervical screenings for early detection and your cancer treatment center. Include Cervical Health Awareness in Your Newsletters and e-Mail Campaigns One of the most difficult aspects of producing a monthly newsletter or other type of regularly published e-mail campaign is finding subjects that will be of interest to your recipients. Events such as Cervical Health Awareness Month are ideal in this situation because you can offer short, simple messages if space is tight…or you can provide more expanded information if you have space to fill. Use Social Media for #CervicalHealthMonth Awareness Along with using social media to share and find useful information related to Cervical Health Awareness month (including trending hashtags such as #cervicalhealthmonth, it’s also an excellent opportunity to expand your networks. For instance, if you don’t already, here are some worthy Twitter accounts you might want to follow: • @infoASHA, which is heading a Thunderclap to end cervical cancer • @StopHPVcancer, which is the National Cervical Cancer Coalition’s Twitter • @_cervicalcancer, which is the account for CC Awareness, a cervical cancer awareness organization Visit the National Cervical Cancer Association’s Website for Content and Ideas The NCCC’s Cervical Cancer Awareness Month page provides even more ideas and several outstanding print and online resources, including: • Free fact sheet download, Ten Things to Know About HPV • Free eBook, HPV & Cervical Cancer: Stories from Survivors and Supporters • Cervical Cancer Awareness Month posters Likewise, the American Cancer Association also has a Cervical Health Awareness Month page that shares an equally superb collection of resources. Sequence Health proudly supports Cervical Health Awareness Month. For more about our company and our patient management software solution, Sequence, please contact us.
Is Your Hospital Website Secure Enough for Google in 2017? Written by SQHealth-admin on December 30, 2016. Posted in Connect. With 2017 only a few days away, there will soon be a very clear distinction between all hospital Websites: those that have TLS/SSL encryption security and those that don’t. This distinction is not just a matter of whether or not your hospital Website uses TLS/SSL because of its implied security benefits, but it may soon have influence on your SEO rankings and how confidently Google’s Chrome browser presents your Website to visitors. “But, wait, how do I know if my hospital Website—or any Website—is secure?” you might be asking yourself right now. It’s simple: • Open your Chrome browser • Type in your hospital Website address • Let the page load • Look for the icon that appears in the address bar to the left of the URL Do you see a green lock icon in the address bar? If yes, and if the Website is yours, congrats, your hospital Website is secure! Do you not see it? Well, as you can guess, your Website is not secure. Another way to check is to look at the complete Website address (URL) after it loads. Do you see a “https://”? If so, it should be secure (but this is not a hard and fast rule, as it depends on whether or not the security certificate is valid). Otherwise, if you only see the more common “http://”, then you can be certain that it not secure. In this context, you are likely in one of two very distinct camps of hospital Website administrators and online healthcare marketers: those that understand what any of this means (and what to do about it) and those that don’t. If you are in the latter camp, you’ll want to read this. But even if you are in the former and haven’t yet made a decision or taken action, you might also want to read on! Google Chrome to ‘Shame’ Unsecured Websites in 2017 Although Google first announced that it would start giving more SEO juice to secured Websites in 2014, it was uncertain about how much impact this new Google ranking signal would actually have. As virtually anybody that is responsible for their hospital Website SEO knows, there is never any one specific ranking signal that makes or breaks your Page rank, SERP positions, etc.. Rather, it’s a combination of factors and often some unknown algorithm change that you don’t discover until well after the fact! Although still very much up for debate, SEO analysts indicate that the TLS/SSL impacts on ranking are typical in that although it might not hurt you if you don’t integrate it into your hospital Website SEO strategy, there is evidence that it can help you if you do. However, on January 1, 2017, Google will enact a very explicit change that could make a direct impact: It will begin “shaming” Websites that don’t have TLS/SSL certificates by adding a “NOT SECURE” notice to where you’d normally just see the small icon that indicates security status. This will initially only affect Websites that collect passwords or credit card information, but will eventually affect all “http://” Websites. At any Website, visitors are more likely to turn away or not return if they feel that their online security is at risk. Obviously, that not only hurts the SEO, but also the overall ability of the Website to fulfill its goals and objectives. But for hospital Website visitors, that sentiment is likely to be even stronger, no matter if they are just casually browsing to compare you to another hospital they are evaluating or if they are intending to make an appointment or share other personal information. Securing Your Hospital Website: What are TLS/SSL and Certificates? Naturally, you want to do everything you can to make your hospital Website visitors feel secure in their online experiences and to relate them positively of your brand. Fortunately, making your hospital Website secure enough for Google Chrome in 2017 is not too difficult to achieve. Without getting into a lengthy examination of how the Internet bridges a visitor to a Website or what the “TLS” or “SSL” acronyms mean or how “TLS/SSL certificates” work, the simplest explanation is your hospital Website visitors’ connections are either encrypted (secure) or they are not. If they are encrypted, it means that nobody can see the data that is passing between them and your Website. “TLS/SSL” is the technology that enables a secure connection; a “TLS/SSL certificate” is what actually binds the visitor and the Website securely. But What About Mixed SSL Content? “Mixed SSL content” means that you have some pages with TLS/SSL security and others without. If your hospital Website has mixed SSL content, you’ll need to update it so that the entire Website is secure. Otherwise, you can expect to get the unwelcome “NOT SECURE” label. How to Convert Your Hospital Website to TLS/SSL If you are now convinced that converting your hospital Website to TLS/SSL encryption is a best practice that you want to adopt, doing so can be a relatively simple process: 1. Request that the company hosting your site provide you with a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). 2. Visit your domain provider (e.g., GoDaddy) and purchase an SSL for three years or more. 3. Upload the CSR when prompted. 4. Download the SSL certificate, and send it back Web hosting provider. At some point during this process, you may be asked about what type of SSL certificate to generate. You will likely be given with three options, each with increasing benefits: • Domain Validated (DV) Certificate: Verifies your ownership of the domain • Organization Validated (OV) Certificate: Proves that you own the domain and that your organization is legitimate (verification process that you are a legitimate business) • Extended Validated (EV) SSL: Offers the highest level of assurance to your customers (applicants must pass an extensive vetting process) When choosing a certificate, be sure to find out if it covers one domain or multiple sub-domains. Once you acquire and install your TLS/SSL, you will now be able to provide a much more secure experience for your visitors and avoid any negative SEO or Chrome impacts. 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. If you already host your hospital Website with Sequence Health, we can guide you through the process of selecting the best SSL certificate. For more information about hosting and other healthcare Website services, please contact us.
Top 2016 Google My Business Listing Changes for Online Healthcare Marketers Written by SQHealth-admin on December 22, 2016. Posted in Connect. If you are responsible for your hospital, clinic or other healthcare facility’s online marketing or patient acquisition, you are likely trying to tick off those lagging to-do’s from 2016 as you prepare for the upcoming new year. And just as likely, getting your Google My Business listings up to spec is on that list. Although usually in the “low-hanging fruit” category of easy but often overlooked tasks for online healthcare marketers, updating your Google My Business page (or pages) is a job that’s never done because there are often frequent changes and updates to what you can and cannot do. Here is a list of key changes and new features from 2016 that will help you prioritize your workflow in these final weeks of 2016 and develop your strategies for 2017. Google My Business Description Can Only be Edited in Google+ (August 2016) When patients and customers search online for local hospitals, doctors and clinics, they often rely upon the results from regular Google searches and Google Maps, which includes your: • Address • Contact Info • Hours (including holiday hours!) • Introduction (description) • Photos Up until August 2016, you used to be able to manage introductions in your Google My Business administration panel, but now it may only be done in Google+. So, if you haven’t updated them in a while—or have tried to but found that you were unable to in the My Business admin panel—be prepared to do it a little different than you have in the past. Get help: Visit Google’s “Edit your business listing on Google” page Manage Multiple Google Listings Via Bulk Upload Spreadsheets (February 2016) Although a relatively simple procedure, updating your healthcare facility’s Google listing can be tedious if you are managing multiple listings. This is particularly true for online healthcare marketers that manage hospitals with large campuses and have listings for specific departments or even multiple campuses. Likewise, the same applies if you are managing listings for multiple doctors or clinics. However, in February, Google simplified the process by allowing you to make changes with a bulk upload spreadsheet. Then in April, they rolled out a new easy-to-use process for enabling all of your listings for download. They continued to improve the process through the year by enabling bulk updates for: • Logo, profile and cover images (March 2016) • Spreadsheet change reviews (July 2016) • Editing attributes (e.g., “has Wi-Fi”) (December 2016) So, rather than having to go the the admin panel for each listing, finding the field that you want to change, and then having to enter updated information, you can now do it all from the convenience of a single spreadsheet that also lets you verify all information for all listings at a single glance! Get help: Visit Google’s “Manage Google updates” page, “Create your bulk upload spreadsheet” page and “Enable listings for download” page Manage Google Updates Automatically (August 2016) The importance of this feature is that it helps resolve a problem that many online healthcare marketers might not know even exists! The problem: Google can change or unpublish your listing if it discovers incorrect information in it from third-party sources or direct users. In such instances, your “Google Updates” status will indicate: • If new data was added • If data was removed • If data was replaced The solution: First, you’ll need to detect the change, which requires you to regularly monitor your listings. Second, after you’ve detected a change, you can manage the updates in bulk, using the aforementioned spreadsheet download/upload process. Insights Now Available for Photos (December 2016) Using analytical tools such as Google’s Insights is essential to any online healthcare marketing strategy because it enables you to not only learn how visitors found your healthcare facility’s listing and Website, but perhaps as importantly, what they do after they arrive at them. Content is ultimately what is attracting and retaining those visitors, which too often is narrowly considered in terms of the text on a Web page. However, a solid healthcare content marketing strategy should also include analysis—insights—for other crucial engagement metrics, such as: • Driving directions requests • Phone calls from the listing (e.g., how many, what times) As of this month, you can now capture and analyze performance metrics for your listings images—which means that if your listing doesn’t have any photos, getting some uploaded and making that part of your ongoing content strategy should become a priority. Get help: Visit Google’s “View Insights from your business listing” page Improved Local Search Ranking Guidance (March 2016) Last but not least, in March, Google announced its “Improve your local ranking on Google” guidance. Although neither a new change nor a new feature, it is no less important, as it is a very simple yet powerful document that explains: • What information is needed to maximize how often your healthcare facility’s local listing is found • How Google determines local rankings 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’s patient acquisition solutions can make your healthcare facility’s patient acquisitions smarter every step of way. Contact us today to learn more about Sequence, our innovative patient engagement platform.
Four Keys to Successfully Rebranding Your Healthcare Marketing Efforts Written by web_developers on June 2, 2016. Posted in Connect. “It’s a good thing to be forced to be innovative,” Avice Meehan, Senior Vice President, Chief Communications Officer, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Innovation in the way outcomes are achieved and measured within the healthcare industry is forcing companies to rethink how they approach healthcare marketing efforts. As healthcare companies are looking for a way to fill gaps in their existing technology, the MDnetSolutions leadership team realized we had a competitive advantage in the race to provide relationship and workflow management technology to care teams looking to improve and document quality care. After two years of intensive product development, market research, and internal upgrades, we have a new identity and a new message to share. MDnetSolutions is now Sequence Health. See our brand come to life as we walk through the four keys to a successful rebrand. Embrace your past, know your place in the market and define the cornerstone of your foundation. With 12 years’ experience supporting patient engagement, lead tracking, and patient care compliance for bariatric health providers, we already had the foundation to answer the urgent demands for patient management technology. LeadTracker, our flagship patient management software, along with our digital marketing, Medical Call Center, and NurseLine support services, allowed providers to grow their business and track a patient’s journey through the steps of care. Our vision was always to enhance the patient and provider relationship. The new challenge: to take this vision beyond the bariatric service line. Understand why there is a need for change and define your new value proposition. The Need for Change: Healthcare companies, from the enterprise level to private practices, and the service providers catering to them, have been affected by shifts in the healthcare industry. Greater transparency in communication and care delivery is a result of the new demand for accountability for both the provider and the patient who has an increasingly important decision-making role in their quality of care. As technology continues to evolve and care teams are connected by interoperable systems there is a high demand for solutions that connect the data points and capabilities of expansive platforms currently in place. Electronic medical record (EMR) systems gather data, but often lack the context and capability to promote real-time updates to the patient’s steps of care. Our Solution: That is where the original concept behind LeadTracker came into play for MDnetSolutions. The dashboard gave care team members a high-level view of their patient population as well as individual views of each patient’s progress through a care pathway. This platform, along with the MDMessenger feature capable of sending and receiving automated engagements, successfully enhanced efficiency and compliance throughout the steps of care. The value proposition was in high demand in service lines beyond MDnetSolutions’ bariatric clients. Although LeadTracker couldn’t meet the growing demands across the healthcare industry, a more robust platform would offer the same value proposition, allowing clients to enhance the technology they already use, maximizing the return on their IT investments. Invest in your people and your solutions, realizing your full potential. Two years of intensive product development, including the acquisition of Care Transition Systems IVR survey delivery service, and the expansion of MDnetSolutions internal talent team, allowed the company to grow to meet demand. The right people, with the right talent and unbridled passion for exceeding expectations came together to create an end-to-end solution. The new Pathways platform and messaging capabilities, along with a la carte support services including the NurseLine, Medical Call Center and agency-style Digital Marketing and Creative departments, gave the team a way to test the market and fine tune the capability to exceed demands. What did our market research reveal? Our new platform and growing support services no longer looked like the MDnetSolutions our clients and partners knew. We were better. We evolved. Through a sequence of deliberate events, we rose to meet the demands of healthcare providers outside of our original scope, providing smart solutions to service lines including orthopedic and cardio. Share your new message, identifying the value of your history and the vision of your new brand. We are Sequence Health, and we are smarter every step of the way. Sequence Health now offers a streamlined end-to-end patient engagement and care coordination solution that can stand alone or work in tandem to support existing technology. We provide best-in-class support services to enhance our IT solutions, allowing our clients to thrive at the crossroads of innovation and intervention. We are truly smarter every step of the way. More importantly, our new vision is to ensure that our clients are equipped with patient engagement and care coordination tools to promote healthy outcomes that are also smarter every step of the way. For more insight into industry trends and how Sequence Health is addressing the demands for innovations across the healthcare industry, call today. 888.986.3638 Sign up for our Live Webinar to participate in a demo of the Sequence platform and learn more about smart patient engagement solutions from Sequence Health. Follow us on social media by using the hashtag #WeAreSequence and tell us how you are making the patient experience #SmarterEveryStepoftheWay.
Content Strategy: How it Works and Why You Need It Written by web_developers on January 13, 2016. Posted in Connect. No Comments on Content Strategy: How it Works and Why You Need It Want Content that Converts? Forget the 5 Ws of Writing – Content Strategy is How it Works Everyone knows the bare bones of a good story. Whether it’s a joke for the break room, background for a business plan, or just a quick social update, the “who, what, why, when, where” is vital to sharing a story that has the potential to compel your audience. Creating that potential is where content strategy comes in — and that’s also where much of the content out there falls short. @meghscase, author and contributor for the Content Marketing Institute, summed it up best saying, “Content strategy is about providing the right content, to the right people, at the right times – for the right reasons.” So what does that mean for marketers? Simply talking about your topic (or product, or cause, or service) does not grab your readers’ interest. But using those story staples to cue your readers into taking the next step does. Let’s assume your content isn’t working and you want to know why. You’ve invested time and money into analyzing the best-performing keywords, hired someone to write with them, designed a beautiful site where the copy can live, and yet the conversions just aren’t there. Read More: Healthcare Content Marketing Strategy So what’s the issue? If you haven’t given your audience the proper cues to pull them into the conversion path, they simply do not know how to buy in. Shoving a call to action button above the fold doesn’t solve it either. Finding that balance between what-it-is and get-it-now can be uncertain, but it doesn’t have to be complicated if you follow this stair-step logic: Step 1: Decide what you really want the reader to do (the right content) Whether that’s sign up now, get more info, donate today, or buy our product, knowing the single result you want to achieve will help you decide how much up-front info your reader needs and what the tone should be. Step 2: Identify your real audience (to the right people) It may not be who you assume. Do the research and see who comes to your site, who stays, and who converts. If you’re seeing a difference between who you thought you were talking to and who actually buys in, try some A/B testing to whittle down to the content that converts. Step 3: Think about how much info your reader needs to buy in (at the right time) This is the challenge. It’s tempting to pop a text link or an action button in the first paragraph but if your reader doesn’t yet know what they’re interested in, much less why they need it, then you’re wasting good space. Don’t stress; simply re-read your content — if it sounds like a used car sales pitch, take out the first two actions and revise. Step 4: Understand why you’re writing (for the right reasons) The mad dash to create unique content and stay ahead in the search results has, unfortunately, resulted in content that just isn’t relevant. Use the prior three steps as a lens to help determine the purpose of what you’re writing and how it will help your business. If it doesn’t, don’t bother — spend those marketing dollars somewhere that will help give you the best results. (A follow-up CRM campaign to those who’ve already converted, alternative advertising to those like your current customers, and boosts for existing content that works are just three options to consider.) The bottom line is that you know way more about your product that your readers ever will. Give them content cues that make them feel informed, empowered, and enabled. In return, you will get more conversions and click throughs.