Containment and control remain the highest priorities to slow down the Coronavirus situation. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are urging hospitals and clinics to expand their use of telehealth services to help triage the sick. The Coronavirus legislation is beginning to wave some of the restrictions for Medicare telehealth coverage in outbreak areas. This gives telehealth widespread adoption with a new use case to reinvent itself as a key delivery mechanism for care.

Telehealth has an opportunity to showcase its benefits in enabling healthcare providers to care for and treat patients that are in-home isolation (confirmed cases) as well as for presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 that are in self-isolation. Not only this will reduce person-to-person infection risks across local communities and for healthcare professionals using virtual appointments, but it will also give healthcare professionals as many tools as possible in treating patients.

With the addition of wearable digital health tools, remote patient monitoring will be made more comprehensive in providing optimized care for patients. As most people who contract COVID-19 will have mild symptoms and make a full recovery, having a healthcare delivery mechanism for care for this patient population that is remote to treat a highly contagious virus will ensure healthcare facilities are not overcrowded for those that are experiencing severe symptoms.

With such a rapidly evolving situation, many people are scared and they are seeking clinical guidance and information via digital methods for suspected symptoms (possibly due to social distancing reasons), therefore being able to quickly schedule a virtual appointment or to communicate directly with their provider via patient portals offers quick, convenient access to care.

The potential of telehealth outweighs the limitations that once existed. Leveraging telehealth to provide access to and deliver healthcare services during the situation of a highly contagious virus offers opportunities beyond virus containment and control, extending towards cost savings, efficient healthcare delivery, healthcare that’s accessible to more people and potential to improve the quality of healthcare to name a few.

As the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) continues to spread across the US and other countries and the administration announces free testing for the Coronavirus, the markets are also experiencing unusual volatilities. Also, we are seeing fears continue to grow amongst the public with state emergencies being declared, school district closures, and officials advising people to stay home to name a few that are all changing and challenging everyday life as we know it.

With this rapidly changing situation and the unknowns that come with a fairly new virus, this is causing many questions and concerns. The public is turning to healthcare providers and payors with their questions looking for guidance and information as well as to further develop and maintain trust in the healthcare system supporting them. Trust has become so critical at this moment in time.

This is more than ensuring sufficient volumes of hospital beds, ventilators, and medical staff are prepared to support those who may be hospitalized, or need access to testing, etc. In the age of digital this too has an important role to play in supporting patients and members effectively. It assists in gaining and maintaining trust. In this blog, we explore a couple of key methods to deploy.

Digital for Communication

The use of digital as a main method of communication is fast becoming imperative to keeping patients informed and out of medical clinics. Developing a comprehensive digital communication plan with frequent updates and information is crucial in this unprecedented time. Sharing information on what social distancing is and why it’s important, what does self-isolation involve, triage information on who needs to be hospitalized, information on how prepared your healthcare system is or offering clarity on whether benefits cover services for tests and treatments related to COVID-19, as well as information on home health programs and telehealth services should you have these are all key to provide at a minimum.

Offering frequent updates as the situation evolves ensures patient and members feel informed and develop trust at a time of uncertainty, so they feel prepared as well as confident in the healthcare system supporting them.

Digital for Triage and Treatment

We have previously shared, digital in the form of telemedicine has continued to grow expansively as effective remote monitoring and treatment method, as well as the use of wider telehealth services. The importance of chatbots has grown to support assessment and triage for those who are experiencing symptoms to the correct level of care. Effective website search tools are enabling patients and members to quickly find relevant information without digging deep into a website.

The first case of using a robot for treatment was seen in Washington state and is an example that can be used across the globe. Artificial intelligence is also playing a key role with the Coronavirus pandemic and this will be the next in the series to keep you informed.

Digital has many uses and can be quickly adopted during this time to support patients and members appropriately during the pandemic that is continuing to surge. Please be safe and continue to do our part in the containment and control of COVID-19.

The administration has announced they are now planning for a potential 18-month COVID-19 pandemic as the situation continues to evolve and the severity of the virus is becoming more apparent. Confirmed cases are doubling over short periods of time and forecasted projections are uncovering multiple waves of the virus are yet to come.

All this is leading to persistent updates on the virus becoming the norm for most of the public as angst across the globe continues to grow.

Many of the real-time updates are available as a result of artificial intelligence (AI) being leveraged in understanding the impact and severity of the virus. However, AI has several uses in supporting all areas of the fight against the pandemic and some of these have been outlined below.

• AI is assisting in detecting the spread of COVID-19 with predictive models forecasting where it is likely to be spreading to next and projecting likely number of cases and deaths.
• Researchers are deploying AI to better understand the Coronavirus. AI is mining through vast amounts of research and discover patterns and effective treatments.
• AI is helping to accurately diagnose the virus to detect and monitor patients with the virus.
• Doctors used a robot to treat the first person admitted to the hospital in the U.S with the Coronavirus. It also has additional uses in delivering food, medical supplies, etc.
• Chatbots also play a crucial role to support assessment and triage those who are experiencing symptoms to the correct level of care. It is also alleviating overburdened call centers in healthcare.
• There is an AI-powered mobile app that is performing at-home risk assessments to direct possible Coronavirus patients to a testing facility.
• Interactive maps are monitoring patterns and identifying relationships. Insights analyzing the outbreak are frequently being shared as further information is known.

This accelerated use of AI is enabling us all to learn so much more about the Coronavirus despite the short time period that is has been around. These insights allow us all to prepare, as best as possible, for the emergency that is unfolding. AI alone will not solve all answers and we will still need to work together as a population to do all that is in our individual power to slow the spread of the COVID-19 with actions that flatten the curve to support the healthcare system capacity.

We are all in this together. Please continue to take stay safe and to follow advised precautions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are urging hospitals and clinics to expand their use of digital, specifically telehealth, services to help triage the sick. Furthermore, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) legislation is waiving some of the restrictions for Medicare telehealth coverage in outbreak areas. Moving forward, both of these methods have the potential to reduce person-to-person infection risks and give healthcare professionals as many tools as possible in treating patients.

Digital, overall, has become critical to keeping those scared and panicked about COVID-19 out of over-crowded health facilities via telehealth tools.

This blog post explores five digital strategies that can be implemented by healthcare providers to offer a holistic, integrated approach outside of the traditional in-person clinical services being offered for testing and treatment of the Coronavirus.

1. Increase the use of telehealth services, provider hotlines, and other remote patient monitoring tools to expand access to care and enable timely treatment while limiting the risk of spreading the virus
2. If you are using a chatbot on the public-facing website, ensure it has information on the Coronavirus to aid quick delivery of information as the patient is seeking support
3. Offer information on how prepared the healthcare system is at identifying, isolating and caring for patients with the Coronavirus. Ensure you cover how you are typically providing care for infected patients in isolation at the hospital as well as those who are isolated in-home or self-quarantined and need support. Highlight expertise in infectious disease with featured experts
4. Provide educational content on how the Coronavirus differs from the flu, offer simple explanations as to what it is, FAQs, how to protect yourself, travel guidance, updates on the impact of the virus and treatments, etc. Offer this information across the website, mobile app, patient portal, SMS and email updates, as well as, across social media so patients and the community remain informed and up to date
5. Link to support services/resources such as CDC, World Health Organization (WHO), U.S. Department of State China Travel Advisory, etc. The CDC has several communication resources including information on clinical and home care guidance. The WHO has frequent situation reports and the latest travel advice amongst other key information

The above will offer a comprehensive approach in supporting, protecting and caring for patients and communities while the COVID-19 continues to be widespread across the country and globe. These steps will become key in helping to assist with the prevention of the virus and for containment.

As the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID- 19) continues to evolve across the nation with greater numbers of confirmed cases for the virus, and greater precautions are being taken for containment and control activities, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has urged hospitals and clinics to expand their use of telehealth services.

Telehealth services assist with triage for the sick and keep those panicking out of over-crowded health facilities. Thus, digital has quickly become one of the key strategies in sharing information on prevention, and as a method for treating and caring for patients.

Healthcare payors can also play a key role in supporting individuals and their communities. This blog post explores the various digital strategies and tactics that can be adopted to offer a holistic, integrated approach to supporting members and their communities.

Here are a few best practices to keep in mind:

• Share important coverage information that can be easily accessible from the homepage of the public-facing website, member portal and mobile app.
• Provide educational content on what the Coronavirus is, including; prevention and treatment information, press releases or related articles, and FAQs.
• Link to support services/resources such as CDC, World Health Organization (WHO), U.S. Department of State China Travel Advisory, etc.
  • The CDC has several communication resources including information on clinical and home care guidance.
  • The WHO has frequent situation reports, the latest travel advice, and other key information.
• Offer SMS updates to members for the latest information for those who have opted in. Reach your high-risk group of members quickly with key information that can assist with prevention and screenings.
• If you are using a chatbot on the public-facing website, ensure it has information on the Coronavirus to aid with quick delivery of information as the member is seeking support.
• Offer clarity on whether benefits cover services for tests and treatments related to COVID-19 because this will be at the forefront of your members’ minds.
• Be sure to include frequent updates on the Coronavirus via email and/or in any e-newsletters that are sent to members as well as via social media posts, so they remain informed.

As the full impact of the Coronavirus is still being determined, there must be continuous information updates and support available.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic continues to spread across the United States. The global number of confirmed cases is increasing as reported by the World Health Organization, and it is more important than ever to continue efforts for comprehensive containment and control of activities to slow the spreading of the virus and to limit the number of cases.

Healthcare providers and payers are responding by taking several measures to prepare, support and protect individuals and their communities via communication strategies that are frequent and transparent to reduce panic, in addition to providing the appropriate levels of care.

Digital platforms, tools, and tactics that can offer great assistance at this moment in time are listed below with best practices

• Websites
  • Public-facing
    • Offer updates directly from the homepage
    • Web pages dedicated to the basics of COVID-19, how to protect yourself, FAQs, how your healthcare organization is preparing or coverage for testing and treatment, and links to external support services such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  • Patient/member portals
    • Dedicated information as mentioned in the above section
    • Telehealth services
  • Mobile apps
    • Provide adaptations of information that is on websites
    • Offer push notifications for updates to those who have opted-in
  • Healthcare providers can offer telehealth services including remote patient monitoring and care.
  • Chatbots to assist in answering frequently asked questions and appropriately routing to the correct level of treatment that is needed. If you have a symptom checker tool it will be imperative to make updates to include COVID-19.
  • SMS can be used for those who have opted-in sharing information such as health guidance. In addition to reaching patient/member populations that may be at higher risk to ensure they receive timely information and are prepared with what to do or coverage for testing and treatment.
  • Email whether a dedicated Coronavirus ‘update’ type of email series or part of the e-newsletter to share updates, in addition to targeting specific segments of patient/member populations who are at higher risk with relevant information.
  • Social media can be leveraged to ensure there is an integrated approach. Individuals are keen to remain updated via multiple channels on the very latest developments as close to real-time as possible.

There is a place for digital channels, tools, and tactics to support healthcare organizations in responding quickly and with an integrated approach to offer timely contextualized information and support with fast-spreading epidemics.

Regardless of industry, all organizations seek a 360-degree view of customers. But within healthcare, this is often a complex and challenging task. A 360-degree view of customers offers a holistic, comprehensive view across all channels of engagement and accounts for each interaction with customers. This view is created by integrating data across multiple disparate sources. With regulatory data security and HIPAA compliance in healthcare, creating a single comprehensive view through system integration creates an additional challenge to plan for and accommodate.

CRM systems offer a feasible solution for leveraging data across several enterprise sources accessing minimal protected health information (PHI) data with a strong focus on meeting privacy and security requirements.

There are five benefits to be gained by creating a 360-degree view of the customer and some of these include:

1. Optimized marketing efforts. Knowing how customers have responded to specific marketing campaigns previously and the clinical area services/health plans they are using can assist you in identifying appropriate campaigns to target them with additional services of interest.
2. Enhanced customer service. Having the history across all engagement channels from customer service call center, patient portals and mobile apps can assist in resolving customer questions, concerns, and issues from the historic behavior that is seen.
3. Personalized experiences. Creating a true omnichannel experience that is unified and unique to each customer will ensure they always have the right message/services, at the right time on the platform of their choice.
4. Improved data quality. Integrating data across several sources to create a single source of truth will help reduce redundancies and duplicates in data. Understanding the data quality scope of the single system will allow your organization’s teams to work towards improving the quality and to be alerted should it drop.
5. Holistic reporting. For the first-time obtain a clear view into the customer to understand the lifetime value of a customer, identify and set the appropriate level of marketing attribution, and much more.

These benefits can help healthcare organizations create customer loyalty and drive competitive advantage. With a 360-degree customer view, tools that use artificial intelligence to meet specific organizational goals become easier to adopt and leverage.

Within healthcare, HIPAA compliance and data security will continue to remain a top priority and challenge in creating a single integrated view of the customer but with the CRM tools available today and consulting expertise to assist with these efforts, this is possible.

Please leave a comment below on whether your healthcare organization has achieved a 360-degree view of its customers or whether this is something you are working towards and any challenges being experienced.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems have integrated with marketing automation tools across various industries for quite some time. It is often seen as a powerful driver in supporting acquisition and marketing strategies. This trend has slowly grown in popularity within healthcare, with some organizations well into its adoption, and others barely starting.

Within healthcare, a CRM system for marketing purposes still raises data security concerns. Data must be protected and come with the encryption of any sensitive information. As well as meeting HIPAA and other compliance requirements. A marketing CRM system requires very limited sensitive information from the original data sources, that are needed to support marketing journeys and reporting. Whatever your organization is using or plans to use, it is imperative to keep data security at the forefront as you implement a CRM system.

A successfully deployed marketing CRM will track and manage interactions and communications with prospects and existing patients/members, as well as identify opportunities for leads that require nurturing.

There are many benefits to reap by using a marketing CRM

• Increased customer loyalty and retention. Establishing and maintaining long-term relationships with customers enhances the overall member/patient experience. Sending appointment reminders and annual checkups, weekly/monthly newsletters for a specific clinical area that supports patients in staying healthy post-treatment, etc., helps to create added value over time.
• Support lead generation and patient/member conversion. Knowing where leads have originated from and being able to nurture them with relevant messaging, at the right cadence and via the right channel can make all the difference in conversion. For example, if a website visitor completes a form online to download a specific clinical guide and opts in to receive marketing information, you can follow up with related services or events they may be interested in. Offering click-to-call for appointment setting or links to online appointment scheduling within emails or marketing landing pages creates convenience with clear next steps.
• Comprehensive insights for reporting and MROI. A central CRM system for marketing purposes tracks campaign performance across channels and tactics. This offers a unique holistic view of marketing return on investment (MROI). With comprehensive reporting, you can identify the type of marketing attribution you want to apply, whether multi-touch or if first or the last touch is sufficient.
• A greater understanding of patients/members. With a deeper understanding of patient/member behavior, healthcare organizations are able to better identify upcoming needs. They also can increase operational efficiency. Leveraging this for patient outreach for appointment reminders, disseminating health and well-being information through to personalization based on other related services and events can all add value for consumers.
• Optimization of marketing strategies and tactics. Marketing can continue to be refined and optimized based on previous behavior. Increase the likelihood of success with automated emails during time periods that you receive higher click through rates. In addition, targeting smaller groups/segmenting of your patients/members allows for a targeted message that seems personal. By automating marketing related tasks such as email sends it will allow for greater efficiency for the marketing team.

The above is not an exhaustive list. I hope this post encourages you to explore marketing CRM as a viable option for your healthcare organization. Or if this is something you are already leveraging then some ideas on how to expand your efforts.

It’s widely known that leveraging customer relationship management (CRM) systems for marketing purposes can be extremely valuable for organizations. It can assist with efficient communications, supporting patient/member journeys, building and growing relationships, and enhancing the customer experience to name a few of its benefits. As consumers are demanding more from the healthcare industry, irrespective of the size of your healthcare organization leveraging a CRM system to support marketing activities can be a key contributor to your organization’s success. It is often a crawl, walk run approach and isn’t just for the larger healthcare providers and payers, all healthcare organizations can leverage this in some form.

What’s most important is to ensure the marketing CRM has data from across several sources so you have a single source of all contacts and can build a profile of the interactions for these contacts. The marketing customer relationship management system should have minimal PHI data that is stored securely and encrypted. Not a great deal of detail is needed but just enough to know key interactions and specific events that are of importance.

Connecting a marketing CRM system to advertising software that allows you to send emails, newsletters, event invitations amongst others, is the mechanism in which value will be driven to the right individuals with the right message at the right time.

With so many use cases in healthcare for leveraging a CRM for marketing purposes, I’ll be sharing a comprehensive list to assist you in determining where to start or how to expand from your current use. Not all healthcare organizations are at the same level and I hope this blog post gives your organization ideas that you can implement.

• Support the acquisition of new patients by leveraging data from across your website and any third-party data you have to offer relevant services based on known data. For example, if a prospective patient has completed a form on the site for a downloadable guide for a specific condition, send them a follow-up email with the related services such as an appointment with a specialist or second opinion.
• Re-engage existing patients that have attended appointments in the past and are due for an annual appointment. Offer the ultimate convenience of a reminder and quick access to the key information they need to make an appointment.
• If your organization frequently hosts events, use previous event history data to identify similar related events they may be interested in. Send an email to create awareness for related events and increase participation.
• Various service lines and administrative areas may want to run campaigns to support specific business objectives they have such as increase appointment setting, raising awareness of a particular event, etc. and being able to segment by specific business rules to target relevant individuals will offer greater success.
• With having a marketing CRM that tracks key interactions and events, analyze this data to improve how you target prospective or existing members/patients by the timing of marketing tactics that are deployed as well as the type of message that receives the greatest desired response.
• Leverage data to personalize website experiences enhancing the experience and conversion goals. If a returning website or portal visitor come back to a website display health article and blog post content that correspond with the previous history.
• When a patient logs into a patient portal from a mobile device frequently follow up with an email with a quick link to installing the mobile app.
• Having the marketing history in one location will support you manage the frequency at which you make contact. This can be limited to a certain number that cannot be exceeded in order not to bombard patients/members with numerous marketing tactics.

The above healthcare use cases require patients/members (or other contacts within your organization’s CRM system) to be opted into receiving marketing communications and acceptance of privacy policies on websites and mobile apps.

As shown above there are multiple ways in which to deliver enhanced experiences and value to patients/members with timely messages that can build and grow relationships. I would love to hear how your organization is leveraging a CRM system for marketing purposes and the successes being experienced.

With the multiple audiences that healthcare organizations typically have, it is often difficult to identify how to incorporate them all into marketing activities and databases. The audience varies drastically depending on the type of healthcare organization. A customer relationship marketing (CRM) database is essential to connect all the audiences.

These audiences can include:

• Prospective patients and members
• Existing patients and members
• Physicians
• Employers
• Agents
• Brokers

Creating or expanding a CRM database can seem like a high investment cost and resource undertaking. However, it’s essential to build and grow relationships in order to support acquisition and retention strategies, as well as efficiency in business interactions, enhanced experiences, and much more.

Connecting marketing software to the CRM database or whether you are using a single tool that does both, is where marketing and communication strategies can be executed using the contacts with your CRM database. The creation of automated marketing campaigns based on triggers for specific rules, or marketing journey email series or newsletters to name a few, take the manual effort out of marketing activities. However, success often depends on the contacts within the CRM database and the quality of the data in order to then have the ability to send highly segmented and targeted campaigns.

There are a number of things to consider and the tips below will help your healthcare organization determine a suitable path forward.

• Carefully select the data sources for the CRM database so each of the relevant audiences is included. The more your healthcare organization includes, the more comprehensive the database will be. But ensure that they are audiences that you intend to send segmented marketing campaigns to. Some of the data sources you may consider are listed below:
  • Patient/member including encounter or claims related
  • Patient/member portal usage
  • Provider
  • Employer
  • Marketing and website leads
  • Call center
  • Website live chat
  • Third-party data
• When integrating data sources, it is important to incorporate the minimal amount of necessary information excluding PHI data where possible. If your organization uses PHI data as triggers for automated campaigns, make sure data stays secure. For instance, use the relevant security controls and encryption to keep PHI data secure.
• Ensure your organization has a strategy on how to deal with duplicate contacts. This ensures the quality of the data within the customer relationship marketing database remains high. Identify which fields will assist in identifying duplicates and any associated business rules that should be applied.
• For the contacts your organization has within the database, determine the workflows for additional data from across touchpoints and interactions that will help build out comprehensive profiles. So, for example, what business rules will be applied to turn a prospective patient/member into a lead? if there is a new encounter what information should be updated on the member profile? Again, only include additional information that is essential and will assist in supporting marketing efforts.

Many Paths to a Comprehensive CRM Database

There are numerous paths to follow to ensure your healthcare organization has a comprehensive CRM database to assist in executing marketing strategies that help build and maintain relationships. I hope the above tips on types of data sources to include and ensuring completeness and up to date information on profiles assists your organization with its CRM journey.  I will be producing a series of posts on the topic of CRM databases and marketing and its effective and ever-increasing use in healthcare. Stay on the lookout for the next article!

Artificial intelligence (AI) has not only created much-anticipated hype but also has many working applications. Although it is in its infancy in healthcare marketing, there is great enthusiasm and potential for its use to innovate and disrupt creating cost savings and greater returns on investment.

90 percent of healthcare executives predict that they will see a return on investment for AI sooner than expected, with 50 percent stating that it will come in less than three years according to an OptumIQ survey.

Not only is AI enabling robot-assisted surgery, virtual nursing assistants, administrative workflow assistance, fraud detection, dosage error reduction and much more; but there are much wider applications that support the healthcare industry. Today, more than ever, there are AI tools being used within the marketing and digital functions to nurture prospective patient-member relationships, establish loyal long-term relationships, and build brand value through marketing tactics.

In this blog, I explore five uses of AI that can be leveraged for marketing strategies and tactics to help your healthcare organization achieve the desired results.

Limiting churn

Leveraging AI to identify patterns of behavior tied to customers whose actions are non-responsive to campaign tactics, online schedule an appointment flow abandonment, missed appointments, etc. where customer churn is likely, will help identify clusters of customers for segmentation use in follow-up marketing campaigns. Identifying these customers early on when this behavior is first occurring can help your teams to target these groups of customers with unique communications to reengage and prevent churn.

Increase engagement for marketing efforts

Behavior clustering to identify contacts/customers within your customer relationship management system for marketing preferences such as the timing of tactics being sent and tactic types that have the highest responses can also help with segmentation. Target specific groups of customers based on marketing preferences will improve the likelihood for desired responses and actions

Provide better engagements at events

The above approach can also be used to increase event attendance. If your organization has an active event calendar for consumers, patients, caregivers, medical professionals, and others, behavior clustering can help identify additional events to promote based on the previous behavior of others who also attended the same event.

Personalize digital experiences

Customer relationship management systems or content management systems can be used to analyze patterns in behavior across multiple channels and for specific segments dynamically change the display of webpages, mobile apps screen views, and email messages to create and deliver unique, personalized experiences.

Improve paid media return on investment (ROI)

Customer relationship management systems and marketing automation tools can leverage AI to adjust paid advertising spend based on certain criteria such as changing from one media buy type to another based on specific metric performance at a lower cost per mile (cost per thousand impressions).

There are many examples of how to use AI in healthcare and in particular within marketing functions. I hope the above list has inspired you to explore leveraging these at your organization. Should you need support in building out the infrastructure needed, please contact us.

In this final post of the Find a Doctor blog series, I will be sharing best practices to ensure your organization’s Find a Doctor tool is easily found by consumers, physicians, and academics. In previous posts we have uncovered the challenges users typically face with these tools, best practice on the type of content to include that converts, and best practices on search and filtering that offers an enhanced user experience. With this final blog post on Find a Doctor tools, the comprehensive information and tips shared will offer your organization concrete ideas on where to start in redesigning and enhancing your organization’s current Find a Doctor tool.

Having a tool that can be easily found by search engines, through paid media marketing activity or even within your organization’s flagship site or mobile app, is often overlooked but vital in ensuring its success. If users are unable to find the tool, it simply won’t be used to its highest potential.  Below we share some tips and best practices to adopt.

Search Engine Results Page

Having search engines return results with your Find a Doctor tool included is crucial in driving traffic to your site and in particular targeted traffic to those who wish to use this specific tool. There are a number of search engine optimization (SEO) standards that can be easily implemented to ensure search engines are able to crawl through your site and identify its relevance to the search performed, these include:

• Proper XML sitemap listing all URLs
• Navigable directory for search engines to Crawl
• Consistent URLs and canonical URLs
• Comprehensive title tags and meta descriptions
• Consistent headings
• Name, Address and Phone Number that is immediately available and visible
• Rating and all reviews that make up the aggregate rating present in their full form
• Structured data for reviews
• Structured Data in the JSON-LD format
• Using Image Title and Image Alt tags
• Unique body copy

Marketing Efforts

As users are performing searches in search engines, PPC paid media campaigns will populate towards the top of the page with users clicking ads hoping to find relevant information. Running targeted PPC campaigns will help drive targeted traffic especially if your organization’s Find a Doctor tool doesn’t appear on page 1 of the returned results list or even above the fold. Researching keywords and related terms to leverage as part of your campaigns with ad copy that is informative will help get your ads noticed and drive additional traffic to the Find a Doctor tool.

Flagship Website & Mobile App

Not all traffic to the Find a Doctor tool will come from search engines but users who on your organization’s flagship website or mobile app will also want to easily navigate to it. Including a link with in a prominent place in the global navigation for quick, convenient access to the tool will ensure users are able to locate the tool and reduce any frustrations of having to dig deeper into the site to locate or use internal site search. Whether your audience is on your flagship website or using your organization’s mobile app this still applies. It is also important to consider the cross-linking strategy that you apply for this tool within your organization’s website. The Find a Doctor tool should be fully integrated with prominent cross-links from clinical service areas, health library, locations, etc.

There are many important elements in redesigning the Find a Doctor tool and we have dived deep into this topic over the last few posts. There are many ways to approach a redesign or to make continuous optimization improvements.  The best-in-class Find a Doctor digital experiences tend to include most of the elements that I’ve shared to date and should allow your organization to attribute appointments and new patients to this key conversion tool in order to monitor ROI.

I would love to hear what you are doing to redesign or optimize your Find a Doctor tool. Are you hoping to implement some of the best practices shared? Is data holding your organization back or resources? Please share below.