4 Ways To Boost ROI With Data-Driven Patient Engagement

By Gary Druckenmiller, Evariant

The era of “build it and they will come” in healthcare is over. With the rising cost of medical services and influx of convenient care options, patients now treat their health decisions like any other serious investment. In the face of increasing competition and consumer expectations, hospitals and health systems need to restructure their strategy in order to engage patients and consumers effectively.

Creating a truly outstanding patient engagement strategy requires control over many components across the health system. While your hospital has well-oiled operations and physicians with care expertise, a huge piece of the patient engagement puzzle is well-timed personalized communication. This is where marketing's role is often overlooked and underestimated – as excellent communicators, they are uniquely poised to support patient engagement efforts with a data-driven strategy.

The benefits of improved engagement are numerous – empowered patients, fewer hospital visits, and improved health outcomes, to name a few. A recent study by Deloitte revealed the measurable impact of patient engagement on hospital revenue: Higher engagement leads to higher patient satisfaction, and hospitals with excellent HCAHPS scores have a net margin of 4.7 percent, versus just 1.8 percent for their lower-rated counterparts.

Clearly, patient engagement offers powerful benefits to hospitals that can harness it correctly. However, many marketing teams have yet to create a patient engagement and retention strategy with considerable depth, leaving them mystified over the initial steps. Before digging into how to improve patient engagement, let’s take a moment to understand how data-driven insights drive strategy. Beginning with the right insights pinpoints those consumers most likely in need of your care.