Today, if a company does not have an online presence, it does not exist.
Although this phrase is perhaps more applicable to the business sector than in the health sector, the truth is, in the management of your medical clinic, it is crucial to incorporate strategic planning into the management of your resources. You need to ensure the security and stability of your clinic, and this implies that the digitalization of hospitals and clinics is a necessity for its success in the medium and long term.
The patient takes the lead
Although it is easy to deduce that patients want to take an increasingly active role in their treatments and in their health care, the statistics do speak for themselves.
According to a recent survey conducted by Salesforce, 71% of patients would like to find an efficient way to access, coordinate, and track decisions regarding their healthcare. In addition, they especially value the possibility of doing it from a mobile device. However, only 23% are satisfied with the digital solutions offered by most health service providers.
Automatic reminders
It’s undeniable that most users lead a very busy lifestyle and have little time to pay attention to their schedules. In these cases, automated reminders from their healthcare platform about their virtual appointments and consultations greatly facilitates the integration into patient’s schedules, not to mention the time saved by rescheduling missed appointments.
This technique not only favors the patient, allowing them to take care of their health more proactively, speeding up their treatment and reducing waiting times, but it is also beneficial for preventing the health system from becoming overwhelmed.
Allowing patients to cancel a visit that they cannot attend ensures that other people can take advantage of the time slot that the visit would have occupied and that, if they had not received the cancellation, would have been left empty. And this, in turn, also allows health professionals to manage their working time more efficiently.
At Docline we know the importance of this, and this is why we apply it to all the consultations we schedule: we send notifications to patients (via e-mail and SMS) before each visit, in which we include a link that redirects to the video consultation or private electronic prescription.
Links to each professional's portal
At Docline, we offer the possibility of embedding a link (URL) on a clinic’s website so that patients can access a separate portal for each professional.
With a single click, patients can reach the landing page of each expert and view their resume, learn about the languages they speak and their training, assess the services they offer and their rates, etc., to learn a little more about the professional before booking a consultation with them. Through this space, patients can also access their doctor’s calendar, write them a message and request an appointment directly with him or her, without having to go through intermediaries or make uncomfortable calls.
The role of reception staff
When we think of the internal management of a clinic, we rarely give reception staff the importance they deserve, but the truth is their work is essential for the proper functioning of the entity and goes far beyond being courteous to patients and answering phone calls.
A priori, it might seem that the use of a telemedicine platform is incompatible with the work of a receptionist or that the most advanced software is capable of replacing this figure, but nothing is further from the truth: both factors complement each other and work together with the mission of achieving a more efficient management of the clinic’s resources.
Although these programs greatly facilitate the work of managing appointments and systematize a large part of the tasks, it is highly recommended that there is always a person behind the operation who verifies and checks that everything is in order. In addition, an automatic bot can be an excellent complement to respond to requests that arrive outside of public service hours, but it is more complicated to replace the empathic and affectionate response of a person, combining both elements a quick response can be given to patients while making them feel comfortable throughout their experience within the clinic.
Ideal for communications
These programs, in addition to managing appointments, work to carry out communication and internal marketing tasks aimed at patients, but above all are focussed on all clinic professionals being able to save time and, consequently, reduce costs.
However, it is vitally important to choose a management program that is intuitive and easy to use, not only for patients, but also one that is designed so that reception staff can use it without any hiccups.
Although it is increasingly common to find patient management programs, it’s becoming increasingly common to see underuse in these because of the steep learning curve. This translates into poor management of appointments and the presence of dissatisfied patients, which, in turn, means a considerable loss of money and consultations for the clinic.
The best results with the digitalization of your clinic
When you’re ready to take the plunge, you should invest your time into making sure you’re choosing the right platform for you.
With Docline we make it easy. Our software can be fully integrated with yours, or you can use our product directly. We even train your staff in how to use the platform and in less than a day, you’ll be up and running.