As the world has changed and evolved with the global COVID-19 pandemic, so has healthcare’s information and content management. In the beginning, the focus was on “the Content.” This then became the “the Right Content,” followed by, “the Right Content for Everyone,” which eventually turned to “the Right Content for the Right Audience!” And now, we are looking at the era of “the Right Content for the Right Audience at the Right Time!”
Like the ever-changing world of digital, the meaning of content has changed greatly over time. From shapes and words to rich interactive media, the overall concept stays the same. For patients and members to make the best decisions, they need the information at the appropriate time. For instance, “How to wash your hands properly” or “How to make a mask out of a used Bra” would’ve been, at best, a funny meme a few months ago; but now, this type of content is the most consumed content in the world. Thus, the relevancy and importance of the information is no longer defined purely by its content or their audience, but also by the time and speed they are created and delivered.
Crisis (Mis)Communication
In a crisis, the human brain is wired to gather as much information as quickly as possible to deduce the best course of action. This has been crucial to our survival over millennia. However, in the absence of information, the brain creates its own narrative. Then, we not only base our actions on that narrative, but we also share it with others who, in the absence of other credible information, will follow suit or worse contribute to it. Throughout history, we find numerous examples of made-up information going viral, from as far back as publications in 1665 toting the healing power of raisins to cure the plague.
Although we laugh at the idea today, we are not far from it. Today, in the absence of clear and concise information about the COVID-19 virus, people are getting sick from alcohol or bleach poisoning. The social hyper-network becomes the firehose for our insatiable brains in times of crisis and makes any narrative spread faster than wildfire through the masses.
Getting the Right Content to the Right Audiences
All that makes it absolutely crucial to get “the Right Content to the Right Audience at the Right Time.” What that means is we need to gather, review, evaluate, and curate the information and provide it on a trusted channel in REAL-TIME to prevent misinformation to fill its void.
Today, we understand that healthcare systems and organizations need to have a digital content platform capable of handling this Realtime Full-Lifecycle information and content management. Being able to provide credible, important information to patients and members is just as vital as having ventilators, ambulances, and ERs.
How to Get Started
As a healthcare organization, you are the most reliable source of information for your members and employees. Therefore, you must have the information available to them when they need it the most.
When assessing a platform that can help you deliver this information, consider the below criteria:
- Content Creation:
- Content Authoring: How is the platform authoring experience? Are all the authoring tools at your authors’ disposal? Level of automation and searchability?
- Content Acquisition: Integration with other systems for data and content. Elasticity and reliability of integration points.
- Workflows:
- Curation: How is the content curated and syndicated? Automation, AI? How reliable and agile is it?
- Review: Review and verification workflow automation. Use of AI and other tools to expedite the workflow.
- Analytics: How easily and quickly can you measure Distribution and Engagement? How actionable are the measurements and reports in real-time?
- Personalization: What are the personalization and targeting capabilities of the platform? How adoptable is its segmentation and audience management in real-time based on the analytics collected? AI, automation?
- Scalability and reliability: Can the platform withstand the sudden peak? How elastic is the system to manage the peak and valleys of content demand in crisis situations?
- Maturity: Has the platform been in use long enough in healthcare or other similar industries with a proven track record? Does it support multichannel and cross-channel experiences?
Some other nice-to-have features include chatbot support, intelligent and elastic search and syndication, out-of-the-box/turnkey solution support, and finally large development and support community and ecosystem.
With all of this in mind, one platform to consider for your real-time content readiness is Adobe Experience Cloud. Check out our recent webinar on the State of Digital Health: Payer and Provider Perspectives in 2020 or contact us if you want to learn more.
