Featuring: Craig Kartchner, AVP of Marketing and Customer Experience, HonorHealth. 

The world of healthcare marketing has evolved significantly in recent years, with digital channels becoming increasingly important for patient outreach. However, simply having a website or social media presence is no longer enough to stand out in a crowded market. To truly revolutionize your healthcare marketing, you need to adopt an "always-on" approach to patient outreach. This means leveraging technology and data to deliver personalized, targeted messaging to patients at every stage of their healthcare journey. From appointment reminders and follow-up communications to proactive educational content and wellness tips, an always-on approach can help you build stronger relationships with patients and drive better outcomes.

In this article, we'll explore some key strategies for implementing an always-on approach in your healthcare marketing and how it can help you stay ahead of the competition. This topic was discussed during a Hello Healthcare podcast interview featuring Craig Kartchner, AVP Marketing and Customer Experience at HonorHealth, and Alan Tam, Chief Marketing Officer at Actium Health.

Benefits of Always-On Patient Outreach

Always-on patient outreach has several benefits over traditional healthcare marketing strategies. By leveraging data from electronic health records (EHRs), healthcare providers can tailor their outreach efforts to each patient's unique needs and preferences. More timely and relevant communication can lead to improved patient engagement and better health outcomes.

In addition, always-on proactive patient outreach can help healthcare providers address health issues and risks in patients before they become serious. By using patient data in real-time for proactive communications, healthcare marketers can help improve patient outcomes by guiding high risk patients the care they need earlier in the process.

How a CRM Strategy Fits with Patient Outreach

A customer relationship management (CRM) strategy needs to be part of your always-on automated marketing strategy. While CRM systems can help healthcare marketers manage patient data, track patient interactions, and automate workflows, it lacks the intelligence and automation to identify and deliver the next best action for each and every patient. In terms of driving patient volume and service line revenue, mass-marketing campaigns have proven time and time again that it just doesn’t work. Employing an automated, always-on patient outreach strategy using AI and propensity models is where you’ll find success. By proactively identifying and prioritizing outreach to your highest risk patients to fill your appointment inventory, you will further delight patients, build greater trust, improve patient outcomes, drive relevant patient volume, and increase service line revenue.

6 Key Components

An effective always-on patient outreach strategy should include the following key components:

1. Patient Data Management. Effective always-on patient outreach requires accurate and up-to-date patient data. Healthcare marketers should invest in CRM systems and other tools to ensure that patient data is easily accessible and actionable.
2. Communication Channels. Always-on patient outreach relies on multiple communication channels to reach patients. These may include phone, text messaging, email, and social media. Healthcare marketers should choose the channels that are most effective for their patient population and tailor their communication strategies accordingly.
3. Personalization. Healthcare marketers should leverage patient data and AI-powered propensity modeling to deliver relevant, personalized messages to each patient.
4. Automation. Automation can help healthcare marketers scale their always-on patient outreach efforts. Automated outreach can handle routine interactions with patients, freeing up healthcare marketers to focus on more strategic projects.
5. Propensity Modeling. AI-powered propensity modeling is a technique that can be used to predict a patient's risk and likelihood of needing specific medical services. Use these propensity models to tailor your outreach efforts accordingly. Propensity models are built using the patient data in your EMR. For example, a propensity model might predict which patients are at high risk for breast cancer and prompt healthcare marketers to reach out to those patients with educational content and support.
6. ROI Reporting. Real-time analytics and dashboards can help healthcare marketers measure the effectiveness of their always-on patient outreach strategies. By tracking patient engagement and health outcomes, healthcare marketers can identify areas for improvement and optimize their outreach efforts.

Overcoming Challenges

Implementing always-on patient outreach strategies can be challenging for healthcare marketers. Here are some common challenges and solutions:

• Data Privacy and Security. Patient data privacy and security are critical concerns for healthcare providers. To address these concerns, healthcare marketers should implement robust data security policies and procedures, including encryption, access controls, and data backups.
• Patient Engagement. Getting patients to engage with always-on patient outreach efforts can be a challenge. Healthcare marketers should focus on delivering personalized and relevant messages to patients at the right time and use multiple communication channels to reach them.
• Employee Training and Buy-In. Effective always-on patient outreach requires a well-trained and motivated staff. Healthcare marketers should invest in staff training on the use of EHRs, CRM systems, and other tools used in always-on patient outreach. Additionally, healthcare marketers should make sure that staff members understand the benefits of always-on patient outreach and are committed to its success.

Looking Ahead

Always-on patient outreach strategies have the potential to revolutionize patient engagement in healthcare. By leveraging patient data, communication channels, and automation, healthcare marketers can deliver personalized and scalable outreach efforts that improve health outcomes.

Looking to the future, we can expect to see continued innovation in AI and machine learning technologies to support always-on strategies.

Overall, always-on patient outreach is a promising approach to patient engagement in healthcare that has the potential to improve health outcomes and reduce costs. It is highly recommended for healthcare providers to implement always-on patient outreach strategies as part of their marketing efforts.

This interview took place at the Healthcare Internet Conference (HCIC), in partnership with Actium Health. HCIC is the premier conference for senior and executive digital health decision makers focusing on the business and transformation of healthcare. Learn more about the HCIC annual conference.