The focus may be changing
Those outside of healthcare often refer to it as the “recession-proof” industry. If they only knew. Everybody we talk to is looking at lower revenues, in some cases significantly lower.
We might argue – and reasonably so – that having an effective Web presence is a cost of doing business. Can you imagine running a hospital or physician practice without one? But as budgets tighten and competition for resources (and lots of other costs of doing business) increases, we may have to change our focus if we want to see the evolution of improving Web strategies in healthcare continue.
Or, maybe I should say, we need to create some focus.
I talked to a lot of people during the recent Healthcare Internet conference, and was amazed at how many didn’t really have a plan for their Web site. I have to wonder what else their organization does on that scale without a plan. Many could not articulate how their site supported organizational strategies. And the research that we saw in more than one session reminded us that way too many are not tracking real ROI, or just don’t know how.
I don’t think we can afford that any longer.
If driving revenue is a key organizational goal, how is your site doing that, and how much are you driving? If cutting costs or becoming more efficient is a key organizational goal, how is your Web site helping? What steps in the process are you automating, what phone calls are you avoiding, etc., and what is the savings from all of that?
If you were at the conference, you heard the theme of next year’s gathering in Las Vegas: ROI and improved operational efficiency. Of course, we’ll have many sessions on much more than that. But we are looking for anybody in the industry who has a good story to tell, results to show, challenges overcome, or a different view. You don’t need to wait until the Call for Speakers. Drop me a note at nlinkon@greystone.net and let’s talk about it. We’d love to have you share with others in the industry.
Let’s face it, we all could use the help!
I’m looking forward to next year’s conference because ROI is our biggest weakness right now. I know we have a ton of people visiting our site. I know what service lines they’re visiting. I know which service lines are up and which are down. But, I have no way to tell if the visitors on our site are the ones walking through the door.
The biggest challenge is that our organization has so many ways in. We have a general information / physician referral call center, we have decentralized scheduling at the office level and I do not currently have online appointment requests across the board. Even when I get the online requests worked out hospital-wide, the big question will be how to track those patients who visit the site and decide to pick up the phone to call an office directly.
It’s daunting, but it has to be a priority for us heading into the new year because it’s the only way we’ll be able to grow our department in the coming months.
Andy, you identified all the issues that most of us struggle with. But, if you have any intake forms (appointment requests, etc.), even if they just go to somebody’s email, you have the beginnings of a tracking system. Capture that information and compare it to your patient database, and you’ll have actual revenue from people who came in through the Web.
If you want to take it to the next level, the phone numbers you embed on your site are unique. In other words, if somebody calls your Call Center using that phone number, you know it’s from the Web. Use a unique URL in an ad or a direct mail piece, and you can close the loop through an integrated marketing campaign.
Happy to talk about this stuff at any time. And I’m looking forward to next year’s conference, too. Can’t wait to see all the fantastic stuff people are doing to track and demonstrate ROI and value.