The Importance of Trust in Health Education

Where do consumers go to find information?

Don’t overthink it—the simple answer is Google. In fact, the last time Google released data in 2012, the search engine giant reported more than 1 trillion searches every year. It’s only safe to assume that number has grown significantly since then.

But where are these consumers getting their health information? Where are they learning about disease education and prevention?

Oh sure, they may still be Googling medications or symptoms, but how many actually trust the varied results found on the internet? Or more importantly, if they do research a medication they want to try, how many are doing so without consulting their doctor first?

When it comes to disease education, prevention and medication, consumers still turn to the most trusted source—their doctors. And if that’s where consumers go for specialty information, shouldn’t you focus your marketing efforts at the point of care?

Consider this PatientPoint research data:

• 65% of patients believe their doctor only allows a brand to advertise in their office if they feel it is the most effective product available.
• 62% believe their doctor has personal experience with the brands advertised in brochures and allows advertising only for those they consider best for patients.

The bottom line is that patients still trust physicians to make the right decisions for their health—including disease education, prevention and medication. Therefore, as a brand marketer, if you want to reach more consumers, you have to reach more doctors. More importantly, the doctors have to trust your brand.

There’s that word again: trust. It really is a core component to the marketing world, and it’s what the entire point-of-care industry is built upon. Patients trust their doctors to prescribe medication that is in their best interests, and doctors trust brands and health education providers to offer solutions that improve health outcomes, efficiency and patient satisfaction.

As we all know though, it takes a lifetime to build up trust and only a second to lose it all. It’s something that must be pursued daily, with no shortcuts.

At PatientPoint, we are honored to work with leading brands to help them connect and build trust with their customers in the point-of-care industry.  We take our role very seriously. It’s why we reference only medical, professional, government, and not-for-profit organizations as sources when researching health topics and consult medical reviewers to provide oversight of all our editorial content.

This approach ensures patients and physicians receive balanced and objective health education that they can trust. It also has proven results (which we’ve shared before, but are worth repeating):

• Nine out of 10 patients report learning a tip they can take action on right away.
• 96% of patients agree the education and technology solutions PatientPoint delivers makes health information easy to understand.
• 98% of healthcare providers believe our programs are a valuable patient education tool.

When patients and physicians trust the education they receive, it spells good things for brand marketers, too. Sponsors experience nearly five-to-one ROI and can average 12% new prescription lift with education solutions at influential points of care and engagement.

Now those are results you can trust!

Linda Ruschau

Chief Client Officer at PatientPoint

Linda Ruschau is the Chief Client Officer at PatientPoint, the trusted leader of patient and physician engagement solutions at the point of care. She brings over 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical marketing, point-of-care expertise, client service leadership and business acumen to the role. As one of its first employees, Ruschau helped PatientPoint pioneer the point-of-care industry in exam rooms, waiting rooms, clinical areas and throughout a patient’s hospital stay. She is now one of the company’s longest-tenured leaders. Ruschau can be reached by email at linda.ruschau@patientpoint.com or telephone at (513) 936-6819.