What can hospitals learn about patient engagement from specialty pharmacies?

As the pace of the evolving healthcare industry continues to accelerate, I was thinking the other day about what lessons in patient engagement from other healthcare industry segments could improve hospital patient engagement?  I define that as meaningful patent engagement for managing population health, changing health behaviors, keeping members in network in risk sharing agreements and improving the patient experience for value-based agreements seem to me to be mission critical business issues.

It occurred to me that specialty pharmacies have been engaging patients for a long time now, and there are lessons that could be applied to hospitals, and other healthcare providers as they learn how to meaningfully engage patients.

Special pharmacy by its very nature requires them to be highly engaged with the patients due to the nature of the drugs, dosage side effects, back box warnings, limited distribution, FDA adverse event reporting etc., but that doesn't mean that there are no lessons to be learned.

Lesson one: Reach out and touch someone. If you want a patient to be engaged you have to establish personal connection. That means a human connection all of the time, not just when the patient is in the hospital or the doctor's office. Without a human connection to the organization, engagement never has a chance.

Lesson two: Do what you tell the patient you are going to do right now. Saying you are going to take an action on a patient's behalf to call their doctor, send information, refer to an specialist, resolve a billing issue is right now not days later.

Lesson three: Invest in staff training so that when "reaching out and touching someone" it's done right the first time, every time. It's done with consistency and when it's not there is an immediate intervention to correct the situation. And I don't care of someone has been with you one week or 30 years. If they can't get it right when they engage a patient or coworker, they have to go.

Lesson four: The same high standards you have for interaction with patients are the same high standards you have for your employees interacting with one another. That means the right training, creating the right culture and having the right performance measurement. If your employees are not engaged and happy, then your patients can never be engaged and happy.

Lesson five: Computerize the encounter. Not just scripting but an integrated approach using current patient medical information utilizing branching logic in response to questions and follow-ups. It is not only more effective and efficient, but can enhance the encounter medically, personally and result in better outcomes

Lesson six: The same person interacts with the patient on a regular basis. Constant turnover of changing  someone interacts with destroys any potential for engagement. It creates uncertainty, doubt, fear and is negative because the patient feels that "And I have to tell my whole story again?" anxiety. People go on vacation, take days off, get ill, and life happens. Patient's get that. It's all the organizational stuff that you have to keep from getting in the way to reduce your turnover.

Lesson seven: Understand who you are taking too, what they want from you, and how they want the engagement to take place will define to a great extent your engagement strategy. Patient engagement is a one-on-one personal encounter, and one size does not fit all. Yes you have process and systems, but they need to be adaptable, and ever-changing.

There are more of course, but these are the seven lessons I thought are most important in transferring knowledge on patient engagement from one segment of the healthcare industry to another.

Meaningfully enagage or be left behind.

Michael J. Krivich, MHA, FACHE, PCM, is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 5,000 monthly pages views read in over 52 countries worldwide on Healthcare Marketing Matters. These views are my own. He is founder of the michael J group, a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association. Like us on facebook at the michael J group, and connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Pheed.

Is your healthcare brand architecture out of alignment?

What has many product lines? A multitude of names and logos ? An undifferentiated brand combined with a confusing brand architecture? And different looking marketing communications pieces within the same organization describing service lines, technology and clinical programs?

Hospitals, home healthcare agencies and specialty pharmacies to name a few. Managed care, medical device and pharma have it under control. Hints it's a major contributor to profitability; that ability to have a clear differentiated band in the market.

Too many times in healthcare, especially in hospitals, home healthcare agencies and specialty pharmacies, I have seen an absence of brand architecture. The logo and name of the hospital or other provider in multiple colors in different places in marketing communication materials. No standardization of key brand messaging.

Today, nobody flies under the radar screen. Healthcare organizations that understand the importance of brand image, brand architecture, brand equity and the impact dollar wise to the bottom-line, are growing organically and venturing into new healthcare services. Using the power of their brand to bring implied program or service credibility because of their brand reputation. They have it under control and guard it jealously.

It's all about the brand

In the new healthcare environment, your brand is becoming more important than ever. In a dynamically evolving healthcare marketplace where the healthcare consumer is on their merry to making purchase decisions. Where quality and price mean something. Healthcare consumers need a clear understanding and representation of your brand. If your brand is out of alignment, then you are losing revenue and credibility in the market.

This is also about marketing leadership. I speak to your ability to influence and change the organization of your employment. Educate. Inform. Teach. Do whatever you have to as a marketer too influence and lead your organization. Too much is a stake. Become a leading revenue marketer by creating a strong and enduring central brand.

Marketing is about generating revenue. You can't generate the revenue you need to grow and prosper because your brand or in some cases, multitude of brands are out of alignment in the marketplace.

The clock is ticking. The choice is yours. Fix your brand architecture now, or follow similar organizations to the ash heap of history.

Michael Krivich is an internationally followed healthcare marketing blogger with over 4,000 monthly pages views in over 52 countries worldwide. He is founder of the michael J group, a healthcare marketing consultancy dedicated to creating value through strategic marketing for hospitals and health system regardless of payment mechanism, either fee-for-service or value-based to increase market-share, revenue , brand and demonstrate actual return on marketing investment. Michael is a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association.

Are You Improving the Physician Experience to Increase Volume and Revenue?

Any number of healthcare organizations are looking to increase admissions to drive revenue and volume by physicians. Some providers are returning to the days of employing physicians, and that seems to be making a big comeback for health systems ACO development.

Anyhow, sales staffs are popping up all over like weeds-in-a-field, complete with goals and objectives, territories and sales quotas for specific docs, along identified disease-states. In most cases, they are managed by people who have never sold anything in their life. The first time the sales person comes back to the organization with, "This needs to change" request, it all breaks down, because nobody internally wants to really change anything. Besides, with all the Stark considerations, we really can't do too much anyway.

What's wrong with this picture?

If you are really serious about growing revenue and volume, you must, not need too, you must, make changes in the physician experience in your organization. No matter that the healthcare consumer is in the beginning stages of learning how to be empowered. No matter that the payment model is changing from a production-based, to a quality-based. No matter, that you are employing physicians. If you want to grow volume and revenue, you need to change the physician experience with your healthcare organization.

Face it. Nothing happens unless you have a physicians order. No test. No surgery. No home health care. No specialty drug. No nothing.

To increase volume and revenue in this economy, where patients are putting off or delaying healthcare diagnosis and treatments, you need to break the mold. What will bring you the greatest Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI), running ads that tell consumers are how great you are because you just got an award? Which as a side note, research is now showing the consumer doesn't believe then anyway. Or, focusing considerable time, resources and energy on improving the physician experience across your entire organizational touch-points?

Its about their experience in admitting, treating and referring patients to your emergency room, hospital, pharmacy, surgical center or a home care agency, to name a few of the providers docs deal with on a daily basis. How easy is it for them to practice medicine in your facility? How many complaints do they get from their patients about you? How do you lessen the hassle factor for them to do what they want? Namely, practice medicine. Everyone is out there with the send to me, me, me, message.

More than your own perceived features and benefits.

Be ready to make changes in how you do things. When your physician liaison, account rep, or insert title here person comes back, and says he or she is finding obstacles that physicians are encountering in admitting or practicing medicine in your organization, be ready to make meaningful changes. If not, you're just wasting your time and money, sending out people to increase volume and revenue from a physician or multispecialty group. Nothing worse than over promising and under delivering.

And really, that's as far as I am going. If you don't know how to do this, then you need to hire me.

Are You Using Your Patient Educational Materials in Your Marketing Efforts?

When you consider all the time, resources and effort spent, in developing patient educational materials, by specialty pharmacies along the therapies of RA, MS, HIV/AIDS, Oncology and Transplant, payers, PBMs, pharmaceutical manufactures, disease-specific associations and hospitals, one would surmise that an opportunity exists, to use them in broader channel marketing efforts.

Pharma and disease-specific associations have great and innovative marketing programs around patient education. After that, specialty pharmacy's, PBMs, and hospitals, not so much. I think that their use in marketing campaigns will depend greatly on the quality of the materials. And in some cases, they are pretty poorly written and designed. Sometimes lacking all together.

But are all healthcare segments, especially specialty pharmacies, missing an opportunity to truly differentiate themselves in a lookalike marketplace?

I know. We all think we are the best at what we do, offering considerable expertise, advice and education to improve the health, compliance, adherence and healthcare IQ quotient of our patients. Is that really the case, or, is it just to show payers that you are engaged in direct patient education, supplementing the investment in out-bound call center infrastructure, using computer based clinical information systems, etc.

Patient education is a great medium to reinforce your brand, your brand promise and create customer evangelists. But that of course assumes, that you are doing original work in patient education. And not, just throwing together one-page disease information sheets, or using information from associations or pharma. Just because you throw some patient education materials in a med box, pass them out at a health and wellness fair, or use another other channel for distribution, doesn't mean that you are accomplishing anything. Other than your materials possibly reaching the recycle bin.

This is by no means a knock on any association or pharma materials, for they are great sources of information and advice. They just lack an organizational imprint of who you are, your brand and brand promise, to be able to showcase the breadth and depth of your knowledge and expertise. And that imprint doesn't mean putting your logo on the materials.

Besides the pervasive fear of competitors seeing what you are doing, patient education materials need to be on your web site, in easily accessible and downloadable formats. You can use QR codes in your mobile marketing, that take individuals to the patient education section. Reference them in your communications programs. Build a marketing strategy around them to differentiate you from other providers.

Be the first and everyone else looks like a "me too".

Sometimes, the simplest marketing strategy is the one that creates customer evangelists, improves health and well-being and positions you as a leader in your healthcare vertical.

Don't discount the importance of patient educational materials in your marketing and what they can do for you.

You can continue the conversation with me on:

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/krivich0707
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mkrivich
Web site: http://www.themichaeljgroup.com

For more information, or to discuss your strategic healthcare marketing, customer experience management, marketing/sales integration or start-up needs, you can learn more at my web site the michael J group; email- michael@themichaeljgroup.com; or phone by calling me at 815-293-1471.

The Re-Emergence of Centers of Excellence

Are you ready?
Ready for the re-emergence of Centers of Excellence under healthcare reform?
Centers of Excellence for the longest time were really nothing more than someone in a hospital or a group of doctors telling everyone that they were a Center of Excellence (CoE) for Cardiology, or Oncology, or Neuroscience, or Women's Health to name a few of the more "popular" CoEs. With little objective data- outcomes in areas such as financial, quality, satisfaction etc, many healthcare institution simply said they were a CoE for a particular service line. A little paint here, new wallpaper there, designate an unused hospital floor or wing the area, maybe even generate some fundraising and donation opportunities to name it after someone of community note and presto, a Center of Excellence.

Okay, that was probably a little overboard for some organizations took CoEs seriously and did have objective financial and quality measures which they communicated the benefits of to Board, payers, physicians and community. They built a brand that was sustainable. But as with most things over time, the concept was short lived and unsustainable as practiced across the healthcare industry.

I digress a little.....

Foolish me, thinking that this kind of practice has declined. Recently some of the smaller for-profit companies in the specialty pharmacy industry are doing the very same thing and making the very same mistake the hospital industry made in creating CoEs. Just because you say you have a CoE, doesn't mean it is one. When physicians and nurses are not involved in creating the care protocols (and that means more than one nurse and two doctors), just because you say something doesn't necessarily make it so. When its driven by Sales, the nightmare is beginning. Delivering a medication on time is expected and not a single CoE measure.

Now the game has changed
Due to healthcare reform, I am predicting that Centers of Excellence will be making a big come back. Healthcare organizations going forward over time will be paid based on quality, not quantity. That means quantifiable quality and best practice medicine. Indicators yet to be developed that are standardized so that all hospitals or clinics stating that they have a CoE for any service line, disease state or treatment will have to meet. Your reimbursement will depend in it.

Marketing needs to be at that internal product development table for the reemergence of CoEs. Pick what you do best.

What to do
First and foremost, learn from your past mistakes. And please, please do not use "world class" in your communications. Hint - if you are not treating individuals from around the world, you are not world class. Few healthcare organizations can make that claim. And the majority of you out there are not the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic or the University of Chicago to name a few.

Develop those outcome indicators based on current research and best practice for a service line or treatment and other quality, financial and patient satisfaction indicators. Identify your target market segments and messaging about what you are doing for physicians, payers, patients and community. Talk in real terms not fuzzy you love use because we are a CoE.

One last point, make your marketing plan strategic first, tactical second, and sustainable thirdly for over a long period of time. Use traditional and online channels. And most importantly of all, bring value; for the healthcare consumer of the near future will be buying based on price and quality. The sooner you start demonstrating quality and price, the better off you will be.

Mike Krivich is a Fellow, American College of Healthcare Executives and a Professional Certified Marketer, American Marketing Association. He can be reached at michael@themichaeljgroup.com or 815-293-1471.