The patient experience at the point of care is rapidly changing. Today, medical groups continue to implement more consumer-centric workflows and digital engagement platforms to manage operational, clinical and financial processes. While the COVID-19 outbreak accelerated the adoption of these tools among providers, it was not the initial catalyst. Prior to the pandemic, many healthcare providers had already begun to adopt digital engagement tools to manage operational, clinical and financial processes. Phreesia’s patient intake platform was designed to support these trends, which has allowed us to quickly adapt to the current industry environment and to deliver valuable applications to our provider network and the broader market. We recognized the urgent need for intake products that could support telehealth visits, screen for COVID-19 risks and minimize contact during in-person visits and shifted our efforts to helping medical groups stay safe, stay open and continue to see patients. As we navigate a new normal in a post-COVID-19 world, we believe digital engagement tools will become even more critical to ensuring that the POC stays relevant to Life Sciences manufacturers and healthcare marketers.
The evolution of the patient experience during COVID-19 has brought POC marketing to a tipping point. Today, amid tremendous disruption to the U.S. economy and healthcare industry, marketers are questioning whether the POC is still an effective environment to engage with patients. The answer is yes, but to be effective, healthcare marketers must adopt new standards for success that consider the realities of a post-COVID-19 environment and how patients and staff are adjusting to a different kind of intake experience.
Below are five important changes that we believe the POC marketing industry must address:
- The POC is no longer tied to physical locations—it’s wherever patients choose to engage with their providers and seek care
- In-person visit volumes are fluctuating and have created tremendous uncertainty for advertising exposure and impression volume, making one-to-one engagement tactics more valuable
- Increased provider sensitivity to shared surfaces will decrease the effectiveness of many traditional marketing tactics
- Patients are more receptive to personalized content that’s tailored to their individual health needs
- Disruptions in patients’ access to care has created a greater need for support programs
The POC was moving beyond the walls of the physician’s
office well before 2020, but COVID-19 has led to specific workflow changes that
are likely to become the norm and as a result, will impact the future of POC
marketing. Medical offices have implemented contactless, or “zero-contact”
workflows to help minimize exposure and reduce contact between patients and
staff. Many of our clients have eliminated the waiting room by asking patients
to wait in their cars when they arrive for their appointment and to check in
using their mobile devices. They’re also removing shared surface spaces and
assigning the majority of their non-provider staff to remote work. Telehealth
has also brought significant change to POC marketing. Prior to COVID-19, the
telehealth market was dominated by specialty services offered through employee
benefits plans. But as healthcare organizations look for ways to provide care
and limit contact between patients and staff, a growing number of them are offering
virtual visits. The result of these
operational changes, both contactless workflows and telehealth, is a more personalized
intake experience that relies on patients using their mobile devices to engage
with providers outside of the traditional office setting.
Even as medical groups rebuild their appointment schedules and patients begin
to return to their providers’ offices, it’s clear that the overall the nature
of in-person visits, including opportunities to engage with patients during
those sessions, has changed. As more providers adopt telehealth and
zero-contact workflows, we’ll need to find new ways to measure impression volumes
that were traditionally based on the in-person visit. We can no longer rely on
patients’ idly reviewing screens, thumbing through magazines or picking up
brochures and pamphlets in the waiting room. We’ll need to deliver targeted,
one-to-one engagements to patients’ mobile device, while also ensuring that the
content is restricted for their personal use only.
In addition to facing a new intake experience, patents today are inundated with new information about their health. As COVID-19 guidance and recommendations continue to evolve and patients navigate through a constant stream information, medical marketing must be personalized to patients’ specific health interests and concerns. Those solutions that are tied to office operations, rather than a specific office location, will stand out. Healthcare marketers can leverage self-service digital platforms, such as patient intake software, to engage with patients about their health. At the same time, the one-on-one nature of these personalized engagements have a far greater chance of catching patients’ attention. The point-of-care offers us an opportunity to reach patients at a critical point along their healthcare journey—the moment when they are most attentive to their health concerns and just before they speak with their provider about those needs.
COVID-19 also caused a tremendous disruption to patients’ access to care. The initial outbreak forced many medical offices to close or to reduce operations, delaying care for hundreds of thousands of patients. Sadly, it also exacerbated social determinants for many patients, including employment, health insurance and education. Today’s patients need more than just information about new therapies, they need to learn about diseases and to understand the importance of resuming treatment protocols that may have been interrupted, such as vaccine schedules, infusions, preventive health screenings and diagnostic testing. We also need to ensure they’re aware of the numerous patient support programs available from life sciences manufacturers. These programs can be invaluable in helping patients gain access to and stay on therapy, yet fewer than one in five patients are aware they exist. Increasing visibility of these programs is critical for improving patient adherence, as well as to ensure that qualifying patients can access the right therapies to achieve their health goals.
As we enter a new media planning season, healthcare marketers and life sciences manufacturers need more detail and strategic insight into how the POC can become an integral part of their digital and mobile strategy. Patient utilization data demonstrates the value of mobile and how it enables provider to deliver safe care via zero-contact workflows and telehealth services. We must also personalize content and create directed, one-to-one engagements to cut through the noise and influx of health information aimed at patients to address their specific needs and priorities. Finally, we should incorporate disease education and patient support programs into digital engagement campaigns when they can improve health outcomes for target patient populations. As the patient experience becomes increasingly mediated by the converging forces of digital adaptation, patient centricity and pandemic response, we must find a way to align our digital engagement strategies at the point of care to every patient’s needs.
Click here to learn more about Phreesia’s digital engagement solutions.
One of my favorite things about PatientPoint is that we’re always finding innovative ways to improve patient engagement. Leading the charge on the technology side is David Guthrie, Chief Product Officer at PatientPoint and one of the most interesting and best hires we’ve ever had.
Prescribed to Death, National Safety Council
Mist, Vermont Department of Health
Impossible Questions, Partnership for Drug Free Kids 
Pill Case, First Call
Behind the Door, Huggies
To help combat opioid addiction, PatientPoint® collaborated with Shatterproof – a nonprofit organization focused on ending the stigma of addiction and improving addiction treatment – to create a powerful opioid education program at the point of care. It launched nationwide in October 2017 across the digital PatientPoint engagement platform, reaching an estimated 15 million patients and caregivers each month in waiting rooms, exam rooms, and in the physician back office. The content is designed to increase the awareness of opioid addiction and encourage doctor-patient discussions about other treatment options.
Let’s start by understanding where pharma marketing is on the analytics adoption curve.
I sat down with Charlie Greenberg, a respected healthcare industry veteran and an expert in point-of-care (POC) marketing, to discuss current trends in healthcare marketing. It’s a topic Charlie knows well, having worked for more than 30 years in the industry with giants like Saatchi & Saatchi, Wyeth, and Merck. Charlie currently serves as a media and marketing consultant, so he spends a great deal of time thinking about the ways brands can improve their reach and maximize their return on investment.
Reinforcing your brand message with a dynamic media mix
The pharmaceutical industry is one of the most powerful sectors in the United States. The United States government has long realized how much of an influence the industry has had since its origin over a century ago and has regulated the industry as such.
The results demonstrate that patient engagement solutions at the point-of-care can provide pharma with an opportunity to drive better physician-patient discussions, insert their brand into those discussions and ultimately help educate on better treatment decisions. This is an unprecedented and unique ability to impact both audiences at that magic moment when treatment decisions are being made.