The retail and hospitality industries have already embraced the digital space to make shopping and booking accommodations even easier. Now, the healthcare industry is taking similar steps to offer tech-related options to patients. Sites like ZocDoc help patients find local doctors and dentists, letting them easily book appointments, receive reminders and reschedule. Some practices are even posting PDF versions of insurance and medical history forms online so that patients have the ability to fill them out before they even enter the waiting room. And, of course, Walgreens and CVS are reinventing the way patients refill prescriptions. But more and more individual practices and medical professionals are adopting tech to help manage their relationships with patients. According to CIPROMS, here are some of the tech tactics docs are using:
- 66% offer an app that allows patients to securely log in to see test results, send private messages to their physician, etc.
- 64% send a text message about 30 minutes before a scheduled appointment to let patients know if the doctor is running on time
- 60% use a mobile device to look up information about a drug before telling the patient about it
- 35% offer free WiFi so that a patient can connect to the Internet while they are waiting to see the doctor
In just 10 years, the amount of people booking hotel accommodations online rose from 1% to 50+%. Do you think medical practices will experience the same shift and increase in scheduling appointments online? Will they begin to employ social sharing and social/check-in discounts for services?
