In this episode, we dive into the digital patient journey, focusing on mapping success. Over the past few weeks, we’ve had numerous conversations with systems and providers across the country who are looking to rebuild their websites and make their digital front door easier to access. Many face budget or approval constraints, so we’re here to bridge that gap by focusing on interim action items such as content and technology adjustments.
Sometimes, it’s necessary to redo your website entirely. However, if a full redesign isn’t feasible right now, here are some steps to improve the patient journey in the meantime:
Activity:
- Outline Key Service Lines:
- In your office, write down your primary service lines that you are looking to drive patient volume.
- Take your cell phone, get in your car, and try to find and book an appointment for a specific service line. Identify where it was difficult.
Key Discussion Points:
- Optimize for Micro-Moments: Be there when patients need you most. Use symptom-specific or other search-friendly terms to go beyond just service-line messaging.
- Simplify the Path: Remove friction from online scheduling and information gathering. How many clicks does it take to schedule an appointment?
- Expand Beyond Your Website: What other platforms appear in your search? Explore third-party directories and ensure your presence there.
- Mobile-First Thinking: Ensure seamless experiences across all devices. For example, implement click-to-call functionality and other development solutions to simplify user interactions.
- Competitor Deep Dive: Analyze the digital patient journeys of your competitors. Review their strategies for each service line. Make a list of improvements needed for each of your organization’s service lines.
While a new website might be the best move eventually, these steps can help enhance the patient journey and improve your digital front door experience even without a complete overhaul.
Connect with Jenny:
- Email: jenny@hedyandhopp.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennybristow/
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Jenny: [00:00:00] Hi friends. Welcome to today’s episode of We Are, Marketing Happy, a healthcare marketing podcast. I am your host, Jenny Bristow. I am the CEO and founder at Hedy & Hopp. We are a full service, fully healthcare marketing agency. And today we’re here to talk about the digital patient journey specifically about mapping success.
We have had a very large number of conversations in the last few weeks with systems and providers across the country who are wanting to redo their website. They’re wanting to make the digital front door easier for patients to access, make it easier for folks to be able to find them online but the problem is a lot of these folks do not have budget approval to move forward with a full website redo.
So what we’re doing is really coaching them and helping them kind of build a bridge. You don’t always need a complete website redo in order to improve the digital patient journey. There’s a lot of interim steps [00:01:00] that you can do revolving around technology implementation and content strategy that can really help you move that project forward and move patient access forward without necessarily having the budget or time to commit to a large website redo. Now I will be the first to say that sometimes it is time to redo your website, right? Sometimes your website is outdated. Sometimes it’s not mobile friendly.
Sometimes your information architecture is a disaster because it’s been just Frankensteined over the last how many years and you really need to clean it up. So this is not an episode saying don’t redo your website. This is really an episode saying friends, if you cannot redo your website until 2025 or beyond, then here are some things that you can do in the interim to help really improve that patient journey. So let’s get started. So first I have an assignment for you. While you’re sitting at your desk, whether it’s at a home office or actually in the office, take some time and write down your primary service lines. So perhaps you [00:02:00] have an organizational strategic plan where there are certain service lines that you’re really wanting to drive patient volumes or improve patient access.
Write those down. Then take your cell phone and only your cell phone. Go to your car in your driveway or your parking lot and try to find that try to find each service line individually, pretend you are a patient and you just walked out of an appointment with, let’s say, primary care provider and they said, you know, “Hey, you need to go follow up with a cardiologist. Here are some recommendations, but you also can go, you know, to somebody else that you find online.” Whatever it may be. And you’re on your cell phone trying to find it. Spend some time and actually understand what that experience looks like. Do not use your own brand name/ organizational name.
Instead, use your service line name. Again, let’s say it’s cardiology or dermatology or whatever it may be. Use near me phrases in Google. Like you’re actually searching and trying to find something or [00:03:00] a provider that you could book an appointment with really put yourself in that patient’s headspace about what they would be Googling to try to find a provider to book an appointment with and map your journey.
Figure out number one, do you show up on the first page? Are competitors showing up? above you. Do competitors have more reviews than you do, et cetera. Just take notes of the overall experience. And that is a really great starting point. Just understanding the landscape through the lens of a patient trying to find care.
So that’s the first assignment. And then you want to step back and we want to remember a couple of things, friends, right? First of all, 88 percent of appointments are still booked by phone. We want it to be online. We want that fancy find an appointment button to work, but right now still only 2.5 percent of appointments are booked that way.
So while as an organization, you may want to get to the point that you’re offering that solution. And I strongly recommend it if your [00:04:00] EHR you know, allows you to integrate that way. Absolutely. Let’s focus on doing that. But you don’t have to start there. We can still improve things for patients and 88 percent of those folks are going to prefer to call as of today anyway.
So the first tip that I’d give you as you’re kind of digesting all of the search results that you saw and where you may or may not have shown up is to really thinking about optimizing for micro-moments. Think about those search terms you typed in. Let’s say for example, it was, you’re focusing on dermatology.
Was it just dermatologists near me? Think more about symptoms or other search friendly terms. Terms maybe like, weird mole. How can I get a weird mole checked near me? Right? Like you need to dig into your search terms with your SEO team member on your team, or, you know, go and just explore using some tools like Semrush to really understand what people are searching for.
It isn’t [00:05:00] always going to be. The big picture service line or physician title terminology. For example, with cardiologists, we actually found that folks very rarely use the term cardiology. They searched for heart doctor, which really pained those cardiologists to hear that, but we have to show up where the user searching and where they are showing up.
So number one, optimize for micro moments. Number two, simplify the path, reduce the friction, right? So let’s say you were able to find your website and those search results while you’re sitting in your car and you were able to click through the service line page. How many clicks did it take you to actually get to where you could call to schedule an appointment?
Figure that out. And then figure out within your existing website ecosystem. How can you make that shorter? Is it something as simple as adding a call to action button? Call now to schedule an appointment or click here to schedule an appointment. If you can offer that sometimes as easy as kind of thinking about your content through the lens of creating shortcuts could be really beneficial.
Next, I’d really [00:06:00] recommend for you to go beyond your website. Right. If we’re trying to really improve patient volumes here, it doesn’t have to be your website. In fact a large percentage of folks will never even visit your website. They’ll either click on your Google Local Business listing or other online directories that are listing providers.
So make a note of while you’re doing those searches, what other websites showed up that were online directories that you can be listed in a lot of organizations like, and we do as well offer overall web visibility optimization services. So it’s not just your own website. It’s also making sure your organization and providers really are showing up where they need to on third party directories.
And then finally, I would say really think about mobile first if you’re on your cell phone and your car and it says call here to schedule an appointment, is functionality built into your website where you can actually click and it will call or do you have to like copy and then go to your phone to call and then call? These are really simple [00:07:00] dev tweaks on the backend that can really improve the ability for folks to leverage that information from their cell phone. So go through and make note of that. Are there simple things that we can do from a development and content perspective to be able to shorten that journey, make it easier on a mobile device, to be able to call the schedule and appointment things that you can do within your own ecosystem today that are not necessarily going to be the budget or timeline of an entire website redo. And then the last thing that I would share something to consider is spend a little bit of time doing a competitor deep dive. Again, we’re not necessarily looking at like what social media platforms are they on? What’s their content strategy? We are only thinking about digital patient journeys. How are folks able to find them online and schedule appointments for those same service lines? Because I guarantee if I am trying to find a dermatologist appointment and they have 300 plus five star reviews and your organization only has eight because you haven’t spent the time or energy on it, they’re going to get my phone call. And so really make note of that [00:08:00] within each service line, it may be a different lift that you need to do. Some may be more review oriented. Some may be more you know, content and just access oriented to show up in those search engine results. So make a list of kind of what you need to focus on per service lines.
You have a little bit of a direction versus trying to do the same level of energy across all of the different service lines. So hopefully this was helpful. Again, sometimes doing a completely new website is the right move. A lot of the folks we’ve chatted with recently haven’t redone their website since pre-COVID and there are a lot of improvements and changes that need to happen in which case, awesome. But if you are struggling to get organizational buy in, if you’re struggling to get the budget approved to move forward with that, do not think that you can’t improve your digital patient journey and front door experience.
So hopefully these tips helped. As always like and subscribe. Thank you so much for tuning in today and we will see you on a future episode of We Are, Marketing Happy. [00:09:00] Cheers.
