Can The Digital Revolution Improve Healthcare?
The digital revolution has brought amazing changes and improvements to the way customers interact with their favorite brands.
Nowadays, all a user needs to do to get the advice or product they require is to order it online with only a click of the finger.
Additionally, if someone feels lonely, it takes no more than a few seconds to open their preferred social media platform and engage in a conversation with same-minded individuals about the topics they care about.
Trending #hashtags on Twitter, for instance, can help you get into the online community rapidly, from talking about the #RoyalHoneymoon or trying to #SaveLucifer.
Besides, it’s fair to say that without the encouraging comments from many fitness apps, a lot of people would still struggle to keep in shape.
In short, nobody has enough fingers to count the many ways in which the digital revolution has improved our lives. Socially, professionally, and mentally, the progress is significant. But have you ever considered the medical impacts of the digital revolution?
Indeed, using digital technologies, healthcare specialists have worked hard to design a system that can better address the needs of millions of patients.
Can the digital revolution make healthcare better? The answer is yes – and here’s how it works!
Promote your health center
Like any other business, a health practice needs to establish its online presence to help attract future patients.
Something as simple as Google My Business can ensure that the practice can appear on Google Maps, which is especially useful for smartphone users as they can look for the closest health center to their location or the best way to get to their appointment and avoid traffic.
Admittedly, a map presence is not enough to appeal to digital users. You also need a professional website. Indeed, when a lot of patients are worried about hygiene and rating standards, your website can serve as a business introduction.
You can use it to introduce your premises, share your vision and reassure nervous patients – this can be useful for a dentist, for example.
You can also address specific searches by creating a Google Adwords campaign to direct visitors to a landing page.
This can be extremely helpful for complaints that need to be treated as an emergency, such as infections, for instance.
Keep your practice organized
A lot of traditional medical practices in Europe still work with paper files. The NHS in the UK continues to use extensively paper files in small locations, even to the point where a patient moving town and changing doctors will have to wait until his or her record make it physically to the next practice.
Needless to say that when the files are accidentally misplaced, the major part of the patient’s information is forever lost.
That’s precisely why it’s crucial to implement a Practice Management Software that not only record patient data but also ensure that nothing can be misplaced between services or even health centers. Additionally, digital management means that you can track all interactions and streamline processes to make the experience smoother for your patients.
Ultimately, when a lot of patients are still nervous about going to the doctor, it’s fair to say that making things as easy as possible can only be beneficial.
Help patients to keep it real
You only need to open your favorite search engine to understand how people engage with health issues. Many online searches relate to a variety of health complaints, but the results can rapidly escalate into more serious issues.
However, the abundance of personal blogs and unqualified content means that patients could put their health at risk by following the advice of untrained sources.
That’s precisely why healthcare professionals need to create effective medical content. At the core of your content, you need to identify what your patients need and more importantly how you can help to educate them.
In an urban environment, there is a lot of competition between medical practices, meaning that you need to make the most of your website to define your brand personality and your specialist topics.
Additionally, you can also use the content to improve your professional reputation – this is precisely why you want to have experts about niche topics in your practice.
The digital revolution can raise awareness for rare diseases
Rare diseases are often ignored – or misunderstood – by many patients. For a patient, being diagnosed with a rare condition can be scary and very lonely.
It’s usually difficult to explain to their friends and relatives what they are going through. But using the digital presence of your healthcare center, you can encourage positive storytelling and story-sharing to help patients build a trusted community.
Indeed, the main reason for patients to turn to the community in times of distress if because they don’t want to feel lonely anymore.
You can make it your mission to help create an online community using the digital revolution to bring patients together and help them talk about their experiences.
Additionally, using digital storytelling, health practitioners can collect health-data that can be significant for research.
Last, but not least, storytelling is only the first step towards charity. You could change someone’s life for the best if you help them to share their experience.
Stay accessible for all patients
Finally, not every patient can afford to see a doctor. For people who are on a zero hour contract, going to the doctor means losing a lot of money.
Besides, for families with young children, it can be challenging to make time to take your baby to a health specialist, especially if you just want a quick opinion on how to best deal with benign topics such as a rash.
As a professional doctor, you can offer your services digitally, through an app such as Push Doctor. The UK-based app enables patients to book a video consultation with a qualified general practitioner.
The patients can even receive prescriptions and a referral to a specialist through the app. Of course, the app doesn’t replace a face-to-face appointment, but it can be helpful for repeat prescription or small health concerns.
The bottom line is that as everything is going faster, users want to find the same digital facilities at their doctor’s than they get from their local retailer.
At an age when patients live with their smartphones in hand, it’s time to address their habits with modern medical practices using the best of the digital revolution.
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