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How the Pandemic Has Changed Healthcare

Written by Jeff Tormey on . Posted in Women's Health.

COVID-19 dropped like a bomb and radically shifted the landscape of our daily lives. While some of these changes have shifted back to their pre-pandemic norms, many of the changes in the healthcare industry seem to be sticking around. From digital consultations to greater interest in medical patient portals, here are the ways the pandemic and quarantine have permanently changed American healthcare.

The Telemedicine Boom

When looking at the pandemic and healthcare, perhaps the most significant and lasting change is interest in telemedicine. Telehealth is nothing new, but it was a severely underutilized tool. Once the pandemic hit and offices had to limit their capacity, many patients were happy to opt for a virtual consultation where they didn’t even need to leave the house. While there will always be cases where seeing a patient in person is best, the truth is that there are many appointments that can just as easily be attended digitally. Patients are happy to get the same level of care without needing to alter their schedule as much.

Virtual Patient Support

Up until 2020, patient portals, medical websites for practices, and secure medical messaging platforms were severely underutilized by patients. Most practices had them, but only the rare patient with a love of technology would bother using them. Since March of 2020, these have become essential components of the patient experience. They are authentic patient engagement solutions, making it easier for patients to communicate with your practice, get the answers they need, schedule appointments, and set up automatic reminders.

Practice Management Software

Having a well-running practice has always been important. However, in light of the pandemic, maintaining a smooth flow is more important than ever. Patients need to get in and out without much waiting around, and you need to minimize patient overlap wherever possible. Patient management software assists you with everything from scheduling to maximizing reimbursements. While some things are destined to return to their pre-pandemic state, interest in virtual solutions and automation for the healthcare industry is certain to remain. Healthcare technology came up against COVID-19 and came out of the battle stronger. And with more Millennial and Gen Z patients, these trends are only going to increase with time. To learn more about how medical technology, outsourcing, and automation can improve your practice, work with Guideway Care. Schedule your free demo today.
long-term engagement

Easy Patient Engagement Tips for Women’s Health Clinics During National Breast Cancer Month, October 2017

Written by web_developers on . Posted in Connect, Women's Health.

If you are responsible for patient engagement or marketing at a women’s health clinic, there are two things that are probably true:

1. You spend a lot of time with finding creative ways to get your patients to schedule appointments for breast cancer screenings.

2. You are among the very last people that need be reminded October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM).

Because NBCAM is among the most successful of the many national health awareness months, it may be reminding some of your women’s health patients to schedule breast cancer screenings—especially if it’s been awhile since they’ve had one. For your other patients that are not getting the NBCAM message, now is the ideal time to take advantage of some excellent resources to improve your women’s health patient engagement now and throughout the year!

Get Free Content and Marketing Ideas from Breast Cancer Awareness Organizations

NBCAM’s supported by multiple organizations is one of the reasons why it is so effective at creative awareness. Many offer free content and resources to easily integrate into your women’s health patient engagement and marketing strategies. Among them are:

• American Cancer Society: The ACS offers some useful PDF downloads that provide statistics, information about causes, risks, prevention, detection, diagnosis and more. You can use this highly-qualified information to supplement other content you use to engage patients.

• Susan G. Komen Foundation: The Foundation’s Tools & Resources page lists more than a dozen links to resources that give you serious food for thought.

• National Breast Cancer Foundation: If your women’s health clinic has the financial capabilities, the NBCF National Mammography Program can partner with you to provide free mammograms and diagnostic breast care services to underserved women. This is an excellent public relations opportunity to create exposure for your clinic.

• U.S. Department of Health & Human Services: The HHS’ Healthfinder.gov page for NBCAM serves up superb free content for your newsletter and social media feeds.

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Use Social Media for Women’s Health Patient Engagement

If you aren’t yet using some of the more popular social media technologies—such as Twitter and Facebook—to engage with your patients, let NBCAM be your introduction! As mentioned previously, Healthfinder.gov’s page for NBCAM gives you free content to use in Tweets. Another way to engage your women’s health patients (and to attract other followers to your social media accounts) is to share or retweet interesting content. Start with following Twitter accounts for the same organizations mentioned earlier:

• @AmericanCancer (American Cancer Society)

• @SusanGKomen (Susan G. Komen Foundation)

• @NBCF (National Breast Cancer Foundation)

• @healthfinder (HHS Healthfinder.gov)

Finally, don’t forget the hashtags for both adding to your Tweets and to find other relevant content!

• #nationalbreastcancerawareness

• #nationalbreastcancerawarenessmonth

As Guideway Care Central/Western Regional Director, Chris Stearns is not only one of our healthcare IT experts, but he also provides specialized focus on Orthopedic Surgery and Women’s Health. Guideway Care 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 Guideway Care to help acquire, manage and engage patients through complex episodes of care.
cervical awareness

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 . 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.

Guideway Care proudly supports Cervical Health Awareness Month. For more about our company and our patient management software solution, Sequence, please contact us.