Socialize Your Patient Engagement Strategy

How Social Media and Mobile Apps Can Boost Health Outcomes

Letizia Affinito, John Mack

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317053194
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology & Healthcare Industry
• Index: Business

Socialize Your Patient Engagement Strategy makes the case for a fundamentally new approach to healthcare communication; one that mobilizes patients, healthcare professionals and uses new media to enable gathering, sharing and communication of information to achieve patient-centricity and provide better value for both organizations (in terms of profit) and patients (in terms of better service and improved health). Letizia Affinito and John Mack focus on three priority areas for actions: Improving Health Literacy (e.g. web sites; targeted mass digital campaigns), Improving Self-care (e.g. self-management education; self-monitoring; self-treatment), Improving Patient Safety (e.g. adherence to treatment regimens; equipping patients for safer selfcare). The authors explain the healthcare context to the digital communications revolution; the emerging digital marketing and communications techniques that enable this revolution and the core elements behind a patient-driven digital strategy. Drawing on the authors' research and consulting practices, as well as on the practical experience of managers in medium-large companies worldwide, the book provides a proven framework for improving the development and implementation of patient-centered digital communication programs in healthcare organizations. It is an engaging how-to/how-not-to book which includes tips, advice, and critical reviews that every stakeholder dealing with the healthcare system must have in order to participate in the evolving healthcare system and be more active in making strategic patient-centered choices. Socialize Your Patient Engagement Strategy includes interviews with experts and leading case histories of successful digital communication programs in the healthcare arena. While there are books that focus on specific healthcare communicators within different types of organizations, in their book the authors recognize that effective patient-centric communication crosses all organizational boundar

PART I
Approaching Digital Health Communication

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Chapter 1
Creating and Capturing Patient Value

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LETIZIA AFFINITO

Developing an effective patient-centered digital strategy is one of the biggest challenges in today’s evolving healthcare industry. Starting off on the right foot, for health communication managers, either from healthcare equipment and services organizations or pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and related life sciences companies, requires having a clear understanding of some basic concepts which will help them go through the Digital Health Communication Strategy Process to create and capture patient value.

In this chapter we introduce the basic concepts of digital health communication. After discussing the leading trends and forces affecting health communication in this era of social media and patient engagement, we start by defining digital health communication and then discuss the key steps in the digital communication process—from monitoring patient discussions on the web (primarily social media) to understanding patient needs, designing patient-driven health digital strategies and integrated communication programs, building patient relationships, and, finally, creating patient value.

We’ll begin our journey with a leading case history on digital communication in action at Cleveland Clinic (CC), the first major academic medical center to make patient experience a strategic goal, the first to appoint a Chief Experience Officer, and one of the first academic medical centers to establish an Office of Patient Experience. The secret to CC’s success is its commitment to the “Patients First” guiding principle. CC has a profound passion for creating patient value and relationships through a patient-centered approach. In return, patients reward CC with advocacy, marketing insights, and loyalty.

Cleveland Clinic: Passionate about Creating Patient Value and Relationships

In thinking about patient-centered healthcare, you cannot avoid thinking first of CC. As a groundbreaker of the patient experience as a strategic goal, it was established in 1921 for the purpose of providing patient care, research, and medical education.¹

In 2004, CC designed and implemented the “Patient First” program to focus more deeply on the well-being of its patients. Making the stay at CC “a nice experience” became a central goal. This included the introduction of the new title and role of Chief Experience Officer. Among other reasons, the move stemmed from understanding that an attention to emotional well-being, along with education, compliance, and patient engagement, actually contributed to the success of the entire cycle. The mindset of service opened CC employees to identify issues such as patient anxiety, dissatisfaction with food, missed appointments, and long waits on the phone—all of which could affect the outcome of patient conditions. Eliminating these lapses represented gains in patient satisfaction as well as increased efficiency.

One key to the success of the “Patient First” program is CC’s effort to improve the online experience and engage patients through its website. The biggest part of this effort is the eClevelandClinic services, which includes MyChart, an EMR. Through the medical record, the patient can receive all their test results and information they need about their recent visit with the physician. Patients not yet signed up for MyChart can go to the clevelandclinic.org website and smoothly make online appointment requests and ask questions.

To create an engaging online experience, CC invested the time of employees who are knowledgeable about the Clinic’s brand and its communication key messages. They started by looking at other industries’ best benchmarks and at what other healthcare players were doing. Next, they did their own research before setting up a social media council involving people across the health system—from regional hospitals, from legal to HR, from clinical to marketing and communication (cross-functional team). As a result, they set up a social

One key to the success of the “Patient First” program is CC’s effort to improve the online experience and engage patients through its website.

media policy to govern employees’ behavior in interacting with social media and built a team dedicated to interacting with followers on Facebook and Twitter to make sure patients get quick responses to questions and comments on the two channels. “We track awareness on a quarterly basis,” says CC Chief Communications and Marketing Officer, Paul G. Matsen. According to the results of its internal surveys, social media now represents almost 5 percent of awareness of CC.

In one of his most recent interviews,² Matsen said:

About six years ago we were at 15-million visits to clevelandclinic.org. This year we’ll finish above 90-million. And one of the things that I stress is that mobile has been transforming the Owned digital media space in the past three to five years, and this is going to continue … In August, 69 percent of the visits to our website were made on a smartphone or tablet device. Mobile, combined with social media have really been driving tremendous growth on our website. The growth of mobile is highly significant. So having a great mobile user experience is vital, build that into your planning, and think about responsive design. Even when you’re thinking about your search campaign, consider if they work on mobile devices. A lot of that is driven by the success we’ve had in social media. Many people that access their Facebook and other social media accounts do so on their mobile devices, multiple times each day. If you’re creating great content, you can pull them through to your website. So, if you haven’t designed for mobile from the start you are missing out on a huge part of audience.

Successful organizations providing products and services in the healthcare industry have one thing in common: just like CC, they are extremely patient-centered and greatly committed to communication both internally and externally.

These companies share a commitment to understanding and satisfying patient needs in well-defined target markets. They encourage everyone in the organization to help develop lasting patient relationships based on creating value.

Successful organizations providing products and services in the healthcare industry have one thing in common: just like CC, they are extremely patient-centered and greatly committed to communication both internally and externally.

Today’s patients are making health decisions more carefully and reassessing their relationship with brands, being it a drug, healthcare provider, or even a doctor. It’s more important than ever to build strong patient relationships based on real and enduring value.

This is evident to the pharmaceutical industry—nearly half of pharmaceutical manufacturers are now actively using social media to engage with patients on healthcare-related topics, according to a 2014 report released by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.³

The Rise of The Empowered Patient

Sarah Thornton, a user of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), in a British Medical Journal opinion piece,⁴ criticized the health service for being strong on rhetoric about “patient led care” but weak on implementation. “Despite the strong rhetoric … there has been no consistent strategy for involving patients,” she wrote. “The approach to enabling patients and the general public to have more say about how services are planned and developed has been piecemeal, and the bodies set up to facilitate patient involvement have been transient.”

A new healthcare consumer is gaining ground who, having lost trust in many elements of the healthcare system, is becoming more and more prone to taking charge of his/her own treatments.

Meanwhile, a new healthcare consumer is gaining ground, the so-called “empowered patient,” a patient who, having lost trust in many elements of the healthcare system (that is, the regulators, healthcare professionals (HCPs), and pharma and biomedical companies), is becoming more and more prone to taking charge of his/her own treatments. In addition, as out-of-pocket expenses rise, patients expect to be properly and independently informed about possible treatment solutions or healthcare services.

At the same time, having faster and more direct access to information over the Internet offers consumers the chance to proactively learn more about their own or their loved ones’ diseases and/or disorders, treatment alternative solutions, and to even share their experiences and confront medical issues with other patients throughout the globe.

As a consequence, patients play a crucial role in today’s healthcare, and that trend appears poised to escalate and drive further changes in the industry.

Nevertheless, most healthcare organizations publicizing “patient-centricity” are, currently, going no further than providing patients with access to information and offering them tools to complain.

To make patient empowerment a reality, organizations working in the healthcare industry need to develop a comprehensive systematic approach to communicating with patients. Such a patient-centered Digital Health Communication Strategy must be developed and executed to meet the needs of patients and caregivers so that they and their loved ones can lead healthy, productive lives.

A new healthcare consumer is gaining ground who, having lost trust in many elements of the healthcare system, is becoming more and more prone to taking charge of his/her own treatments.

In order to have a better understanding of “why” and “how” patient-centeredness is important, it is necessary to understand the psychology of motivation in human activities. After years of exploring motivational issues among students and employees, social psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan (2002)⁵ observed that most people are driven by a need to seek self-determination in thought and action in order to influence the outcomes that affect their everyday lives. When the environment reinforces self-determination, individuals are effective and thrive.

Deci and Ryan (2000)⁶ recognized three universal needs that seem to influence the growing of self-determined behavior: the need for autonomy, competence, and psychological relatedness.

The need for autonomy is the necessity to perceive actions as coming from internal motivations, not necessarily from external sources. The need for competency is the will we all have to learn from the environment and acquire and enhance essential life skills. The need for relatedness is the social need to acquire a sense of respect and a strong need to create and maintain social relationships with other individuals. This is especially true when it comes to healthcare.

“Supporting these universal needs lies at the heart of creating an environment that will lead to personal empowerment.”

“Supporting these universal needs,” Deci and Ryan argued, “lies at the heart of creating an environment that will lead to personal empowerment.”

Through patient-centered digital communication, organizations can develop long-term relationships with patients and imbue in them a sense of loyalty. Technology and new media are key elements in this process, but must be used in a way that is transparent and that reinforces the organization’s core commitment to providing patients with responsive and continuous support.

“Supporting these universal needs lies at the heart of creating an environment that will lead to personal empowerment.”

Defining Digital Health Communication

The advent of the Internet and particularly Social Media has added a new dimension to the discipline of marketing and health communication, which has traditionally relied on TV, print, radio, outdoor, and word-of-mouth (WOM). When we talk about “digital” health communication, we are referring to communication delivered via any of the following “channels:”

• basic Internet websites;

• e-mail;

• social media (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and so on);

• online video (for example, YouTube);

• mobile, including SMS (text messaging) and apps;

• any other digital channel that may be developed in the future (for example, the Apple Watch).

While the use of social media platforms in healthcare is evolving, mobile apps are becoming more prevalent and, if well developed and managed, provide easy and efficient ways to help patients manage their health goals and research treatment options. Nevertheless, to date, most efforts in apps development have been in the overall wellness category with diet and exercise apps accounting for the majority available. According to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics report: “An assessment finds that healthcare apps available today have both limited and simple functionality—the majority does little more than provide information.”⁷

Health and technology are converging to become ubiquitous ...