Cut through the Clutter

I had a client lament this week that digital patient education. They felt it was a waste because their patients spent all of their time staring at their phones. The client’s staff felt that they didn’t need to educate their patients about their services since they were already in their office and the front office staff didn’t like it because it was repetitive and boring for them. Their solution was adding cable TV to their waiting room.

This totally made me laugh. Talk about repetitive. Same shows every day talking about the same things having the same commercials giving the same bad advice to their patients. It is great for the employees, they get to be less productive all day watching their favorite shows. It is great for their patients seeing ads for unhealthy lifestyle choices and ads for prescription drugs. And it is great for the office, their competitors get to talk to their patients about why their services are better than where they are currently sitting.

Digital Patient Education is not made for compelling TV. It is not for bold statements that cause reactions from one side or another. It is not for the front office who feel they have the right to turn it off or turn down the sound. It is made to spur conversations between a patient and their healthcare provider. It is geared towards having many topics run in a short period of time to help the patient understand what their providers actually do, to humanize the practice, to give them tips to live healthier after their appointment and to insulate the patient from outside distractions while they are at their time of need.

Good Digital Patient Education (DPE) is commercial free allowing the health and wellness content to rise about the clutter of daily life. Tons of studies and surveys have been done to show that patients are very in tune with what is on the screen. Offices that focus on DPE see higher patient satisfaction surveys, they have better patient engagement, and they have a higher per patient revenue.

If being mediocre is fine for you, go put cable TV or an advertising sponsored digital patient education system in your office. If you want more to actively engage your patients, have better outcomes, and make your waiting room profitable, contact Halo Health (856-520-8655). We are waiting to help you.