Healthcare is an ever-evolving industry, and its future is tangled with technological advancements. Technology is revolutionizing how we approach healthcare, from improving patient care to increasing efficiency and accuracy. With the increasing demand for better healthcare services, it has become necessary to integrate technology to enhance patient engagement.
We constantly search for techniques and trends to make our lives a little easier. This demand has cultivated innovative, accessible, and affordable technological updates. As growing independent physicians, the following advancements will be your stepping stone to success.
Let’s dive into the five cutting-edge technologies that can help you improve your patient engagement and experience.
This Blog Includes:
1. Practice Growth Solutions
Studies have shown us that 72.2% of patients are ready to switch providers if their quality care needs are unmet. What a patient needs from their provider is simple:
- Compassionate and understanding listener
- Easy online appointment scheduling
- A short waiting list
- Easy texting communication
- Digital way to fill forms
- Online access to health records
- Online payment option
In order to improve patients’ experience and engagement, you need to establish a solid online presence and a simple channel to book appointments and communicate. Trillium.health delivers you a platform where you can manage all your patient engagement solutions.
Improve online reputation:
70% of patients will not consider choosing a provider whose rating is lower than 4.0. A provider’s average rating weighs into its reputation. The key factors that can boost your online reputation are the frequency, average rating, and the total number of reviews.
Requesting patient feedback soon after their visit can significantly improve your chances of attracting new patients as well as retaining your existing patients.
Enhance online presence:
An easy way for your patients to reach you is through your clinic website. Hence, having a professional and updated website and provider profiles is essential. It is an added advantage to have online appointment booking to be integrated into the provider profiles.
Boost Search Engine Optimization:
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is crucial to practice growth in today’s digital era. It refers to optimizing your practice’s website to rank higher on search engine results pages, increasing visibility, traffic, and potential new patients.
It’s also important to note that SEO is an ongoing process that requires time, effort, and continuous optimization to achieve and maintain optimal results. Some benefits of SEO for practice growth include:
- Higher rankings on search engines
- Increased online visibility and web traffic
- Boosts clinic authority and brand credibility
- Improves return on investment (ROI)
2. Online Appointment Scheduling
Most patients prefer a digital experience to tedious form filling and appointment booking. Over 67% of patients are content with online appointment booking as they enjoy the freedom to book at their convenience without hassle.
72% of patients say online appointment scheduling encourages them to keep appointments. As it is widely seen that Sundays from 4 PM to 8 PM is the peak time to book appointments, an online scheduling system can help eradicate annual loss (approximately $150 billion per year) from missed appointments.
The benefits of appointment scheduling go beyond patient experience. It helps reduce the workload of your admin staff, increase revenue by reducing no-shows, and promote convenience, efficiency, and loyalty.
3. Automated Appointment Reminders
Confirming scheduled appointments is necessary to avoid no-shows; however, it is time-consuming. With automated appointment reminders, your clinic can quickly confirm or cancel appointments two days before the scheduled visit.
One of the key benefits of automated appointment reminders is that they can help reduce no-show rates, which can be a significant problem in healthcare. When patients fail to show up for appointments, it can result in lost revenue for the healthcare provider and delays in patient care.
4. Bi-directional Communication
Text messaging continues to be the most in-demand form of communication. Be it impromptu communication with the provider, upcoming appointments, or scheduling reminders, over 90% of patients prefer text over emails or phone calls.
And let’s remember the time-saving benefits. With text messaging, you can communicate with multiple patients simultaneously, freeing up your schedule to focus on more critical tasks.
5. Telehealth Interactions
Telehealth has been a game-changer for independent physicians, providing various benefits that have transformed healthcare delivery. Thanks to high-end technology, telehealth has brought us a new era of virtual reality healthcare solutions, improving patient engagement drastically.
A few ways telehealth benefits independent physicians include:
- Easier access to patients
- Remote monitoring and conferencing improved patient engagement
- Increased efficiency with reduced waiting time and flexible scheduling
- Reduce overhead costs
- Enhanced collaboration with other specialists and pharmacists
Embrace the technological advancements in healthcare
Technology has become an essential tool for independent physicians in today’s rapidly changing healthcare industry. By adopting the latest technological updates, independent physicians can benefit from increased efficiency, improved patient engagement, and reduced costs.
