Part 2 of blog series “Value of Effective Content Management in Healthcare”, please click here to read post 1 if you have not yet. 

In today’s post, we will be covering the essential role of the patient in healthcare. 

If you are part of a Healthcare Delivery System such as a hospital or clinic keep reading to learn more about how intelligent information delivery, and the role of artificial intelligence in improving information management and delivery for the patient. 

The Patients: What are Patient Searching For Online? And What Do They Expect? 

Patients expect a lot. Patients will search for things online and expect to easily be able to find the relevant and precise information that they’re looking for. 

“An estimated 7 percent (70,000/min) of Google’s daily searches are health-related, according to Google Health Vice President David Feinberg, MD, The Telegraph reports.”

The Basic Elements of What Patient Search For Online

The fundamental elements of engaging a new patient involve ensuring that information is correct and easily accessible online. The typical information patients may be seeking about your specific organization include locations, addresses, phone numbers, a physician directory, directions, and parking.

Patients are also searching for more general information about their own health and the health of their loved ones. 

According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project Internet study, “80% of Internet users, or about 93 million Americans, have searched for a health-related topic online. Most frequently people went online to look up information about a specific disease or medical problem (63%) or a particular medical treatment or procedure (47%). They were also interested in diet, nutrition and vitamins (44%) and exercise or fitness information (36%).

Other popular health topics include prescription or over-the-counter drugs (34%); alternative treatments (28%; health insurance (25%); depression, anxiety or stress (21%) and a particular doctor or hospital (21%).”

Providing relevant and easy to find (search engine optimized) digital is a great opportunity for health and life sciences organizations to become a trusted resource when people need them most.

Patients are Doing Their Research BEFORE Scheduling Appointments 

Clinics and Hospitals 

Patients are often taking the initiative to find medical information online. According to Google, one billion health-related searches are conducted every day on Google.com. 

Search engines are the first stop for 8 out of 10 people seeking health information, but often people are not able to locate the most current or accurate Websites according to Susan Fox quoted in an article on NBCNew.com. 

The difficulty and often times impossibility of finding accurate, credible, and relevant health information online leads to real frustration for both patients and physicians. Patients, their loved ones and caregivers, just want to understand what may be going on, how to make it better, and who can help. It is the perfect time for individuals and organizations that provide care and or treatment, to help reduce the fear, ease frustration, and provide at least a pathway to get answers through high-quality search engine optimized content.  

“Health-related Google searches also appear to increase among emergency room patients weeks before visiting the hospital, according to a Penn Medicine study. More than half of patients searched for clinical information related to the medical issue they ended up going to the hospital for, including symptoms or a potential illness.”

For physicians and clinicians, there are many issues that occur when patients are unable to find high-quality information online and instead are presented with misinformation (unvalidated and overly biased information produced by manufacturers). This misinformation leads to the physician/clinician spending time trying to understand and convince the patient that what was read online may not be the right option versus spending that time discuss what the best options are given the patient’s unique circumstances.    

Many healthcare organizations produce significant amounts of educational content.  Unfortunately, the content is often not optimized for search engines and in fact may still only be available on paper.  

With recent advances in technology available to both the organization and the patient, we can now solve one of the biggest and growing problems in healthcare – getting the right information to the right person in the right format at the right time (information personalization).  

“The search-engine giant has faced criticism for its role in spreading misinformation about vaccines on its video-sharing website YouTube. In January, YouTube updated its method of promoting videos by training algorithms to cut down on recommending videos that promote misinformation. Google also created “knowledge panels,” which provide authoritative information when medical conditions are searched.”

Shouldn’t your organization have a say in the information your patients are seeing before they come in and during their time as your patients?

The most advanced technology companies have built and optimized the building blocks for precise and relevant information delivery – we call it intelligent content. Viable Synergy through our Innovation Station platform can now make it as easy to find accurate and precise health information on health organizations websites, intranets, and patient and physician portals, as it is to find “a grocery store near me” on Google, your next favorite book on Amazon, or just the next binge-worthy TV show on Netflix.   

Keep reading to learn about Viable Synergy and  Innovation Station and intelligent content delivery platform

Viable Synergy

Viable Synergy enables health and life sciences organizations to leverage the latest technology to intelligently deliver & manage content to empower patients and their loved ones to find the relevant and precise accurate and credible information at the right time. The essential information they need to help them along their health journey, reducing fear for the and frustration for clinicians and physicians & improving productivity and reliability within the healthcare organization.  Learn more about Viable Synergy’s Innovation Station below.   

Innovation Station, an AI platform by Viable Synergy

Innovation Station provides a unique and effective solution to develop, manage, and distribute accurate healthcare information to the right person at the right time. The Innovation Station platform is cloud-based and secure. This means that an individual’s privacy is protected while enabling the information to be accessed through any internet connected device.  Innovation Station is hosted in a HIPAA compliant environment. To learn more about Innovation Station as a solution for your healthcare system please click here. 

quoted source: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/google-receives-more-than-1-billion-health-questions-every-day.html