Are you being proactive with your online presence? Your social media outreach? Or are you simply standing on the sidelines?
Reputation and trust are a healthcare provider’s most important assets. This is especially true today, as the digital revolution creates increasingly demanding and well-informed stakeholders for physician practices and hospitals.
Maintaining the reputation of your personal brand and practice’s brand is essential for success. Implement the ASAP-Measure approach to get started:
Businesses and organizations, including physician practices and hospitals, often understand the importance of reputation but are struggling with establishing a process to manage online reputation risk. Many mistakenly believe that reputation management requires little else than common sense, good business practices and doing the right thing.
Are you being proactive with your online presence? Your social media outreach? Or are you simply standing on the sidelines?
Reputation and trust are a healthcare provider’s most important assets. This is especially true today, as the digital revolution creates increasingly demanding and well-informed stakeholders for physician practices and hospitals.
Maintaining the reputation of your personal brand and practice’s brand is essential for success. Implement the ASAP-Measure approach to get started:
- Activate
- Survey
- Address
- Personalize
- Measure
Businesses and organizations, including physician practices and hospitals, often understand the importance of reputation but are struggling with establishing a process to manage online reputation risk. Many mistakenly believe that reputation management requires little else than common sense, good business practices and doing the right thing.
“The best way to manage your online reputation is to be proactive about it,” says Dr. Kevin Pho, a practicing, board-certified internal medicine physician, national media commentator, acclaimed keynote speaker and co-author of the book “Establishing, Managing and Protecting Your Online Reputation: A Social Media Guide for Physicians and Medical Practices”.
“We need to enable physicians and other providers to take charge. Patients still trust us and want to hear what we have to say,” adds Dr. Pho.
ACTIVATE your online profile to differentiate yourself and become more visible. When your profile is complete, patients and referring physicians who search for a doctor by procedure, condition or specialty are more likely to find you. Patients are twice as likely to make an appointment with a doctor whose profile is complete.
Online reputation challenges can arise from any day-to-day decision making, but physicians, practice managers and hospital administrators every now and then make decisions without closely considering the reputational impact. No provider can afford to offer anything less than the best clinical, physical and emotional experience to patients and families. SURVEY your patients to gain feedback and use patient survey data on your website to support your cause.
“Even though most online reviews are likely to be positive, remember that they also reflect the patient’s overall experience in your care,” states Dr. Pho.
Often times, reviews focus on non-clinical issues not directly related to the doctor. One has to be prepared and proactive in addressing patient reviews - both positive and negative.
Once patient feedback is received, ADDRESS patient concerns quickly. This gives you an opportunity to solve the problem, and in solving the problem, you also learn to provide better service. On the other hand, there are times when concerns are addressed expeditiously and some patients are still not satisfied. As long as you are doing your part by actively engaging with patient feedback, you are covering your bases.
Healthcare providers need to act as good stewards of their brands. But how?
“We can’t lose the PR battle online,” says Dr. Pho. “Social media gives us the opportunity to tell our stories and is a valuable way to connect with millions of patients.”
Let your enhanced online profile tell your story, make an impact and help keep your patients for a lifetime. PERSONALIZE your profile using the patient care philosophy. Showcase your hard-earned education and years of dedication and experience. Allow yourself to shine as the well-deserved professional you are.
Be proactive. Spread the word. Build your brand and put yourself in better position to protect it should a reputation crisis surface. Numbers do the trick. Your online profile speaks volumes - and with Dr. Pho’s advice, why not supplement your online platform by getting more involved in the social media realm? Patient surveys, their experiences and testimonials are popular reads. There’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and more.
How do you MEASURE success? If you measure everything, you will have great insight into all of your efforts. From an increase in calls to profile views and patient experience survey ratings, these metrics will provide you with the tools needed to evaluate and effectively manage your reputation.
Bottom line: Activate your online profile (and your social media voice), Survey your patients, Address any concerns, Personalize your profile in order to differentiate yourself and MEASURE everything.
Do it ASAP and do it routinely. The value it will drive to your practice (or hospital) is limitless!
