Health care Industry.
The future of the health care industry is best understood if we take a look at how we got where we are today. What have been the hurdles? How is the industry overcoming those hurdles? What kind of changes will be in the future?
The rudimentary approach of marketing in the Health care Industry
Over the last few years, health care industry is welcoming the digital marketing in their line of business due to its various advantages. While it was possible in the earlier days to reach out to the customer through the traditional way of marketing. Formerly traditional marketing played a vital role in the healthcare industry; as we used to visit a doctor on the recommendation given by the family and friend zone even though his/her clinic is miles away. Healthcare marketing is not new for us, we already know it in various form like:
- Organizing Health camps by hospitals.
- Radio ads
- Doctor promotion via scrolling on T.V sets.
- Testimonies
- Banners on public transport.
Rapid Evaluation of Technology
By well-organized processes and addressing traditional challenges, technology is bringing a vast change across all sectors, and health care industry is one of them. From using tablets and smartphones to access patients’ records to using telemedicine to expand reach to the rural areas, technology is making its way into every direction of healthcare and addressing big challenges.
Nowadays technology has impacted the health care industry extensively and intensely. And focusing on shaping how it will look in the future and creating awareness about the technologies and making sure that investing in technology can yield higher returns by developing incentives for the use of technology. It has helped the development of this industry and enhances life for innumerable people. The condition of India in terms of healthcare has been quite gloomy.
Rise of Digital Concepts in Health Care Industry
According to research, more than 70% of patients are using the smartphone in India. Due to the increase in smartphone users, it is impossible to ignore the rise of digital marketing. These increasing numbers are witnessing the quickly increasing growth due to various aspects like – price reduction because of high competition and easy to access the content and language localization, government encouragement through ‘Make in India’, and cheap internet services on mobile phones.
‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ has opened the floodgates for several Industries like the health care industry and the digital world as well so that doctors and patients can easily communicate and collaborate with each other in real-time.
Nowadays the healthcare industry is focusing on digital ads, mobile apps, and social media.
Healthcare is making the move from paper-based to electronic health record systems. By going digital, healthcare is ready to move beyond the constraints of traditional medication by using a new digital infrastructure to make sure efficient service delivery. Digitilzation allows bringing information that contains all the details of patients’ health, which successfully reduces the chance of any error. A serious advantage that shows the ability of digitization in healthcare is eHealth, which is a part of the ‘Digital India’ program by the government of India.
‘Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Scheme (AB-NHPS)’ or ‘PM Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY)’ is one of the biggest schemes started by the Indian government and digital marketing helps a lot in its success.
Ayushman Bharat aims to provide healthcare facilities to over 10 crore families covering urban and rural poor. The scheme offers an insurance cover of Rs 5 lakh, which will cover almost 50 crore citizens. PMJAY-Ayushman Bharat is the biggest government-sponsored healthcare scheme in the world.
With concepts like ePharmacy, e-Diagnostics, e-Insurance, e-Referrals, this program would provide strong ecosystem support with access to information— anytime, anywhere to the patients and service providers as well. The Information of health records is then expected to be linked to the Aadhar number of citizens.
Getting an appointment, lab reports and blood availability in any government hospital becomes easy with digitalization. Patients can easily do registration and other formalities by simply identifying themselves through the Aadhaar number. After that, they can select the hospital and department, select the date of appointment and get the SMS for the same.
Statistics of digital marketing in the healthcare industry
- More than 75% of patients book appointments online and access their test reports as well.
- Roughly around 47% of patients schedule their appointment using a mobile device.
- Youngsters are more likely to discuss healthcare problems on social media than olds.
- Around 90% of youth say that they would trust information shared on social media and say it definitely affects their thinking regarding healthcare.
- According to a survey, more than 20% of people had healthcare apps on their mobiles.
- The search engine generates more traffic to hospital sites in comparison to the other sites.
Conclusion
The health care industry has the capability to considerably increase its reach and effectively interact with customers through digital marketing techniques. By incorporating digital marketing into existing marketing plans, health care marketers will develop an understanding of customers and patients to make targeted messaging and extend their reach across search, social media, and mobile.
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What impact do you think digital marketing has made in the healthcare industry? Please share the comments below.