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As a healthcare administrator, you know that marketing your medical practice can be a major challenge with a limited budget and resources. By getting creative and utilizing modern technology, however, you may be surprised by the effectiveness of some cost-effective or even free methods for promoting your medical practice.
Today, we’ll outline 8 effective strategies for boosting patient engagement without having to break the bank on ad budgets. While not all strategies will work for every practice, you can review them and consider which ones might work best for you!
One of the best and simplest organic marketing strategies for growing a medical practice is to use social media. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are free to use and can serve as excellent channels to showcase your credibility and knowledge about relevant medical topics.
By creating quality content and using relevant trending hashtags, you can also reach a large number of people who may be interested in your services. Additionally, you can use social media platforms like LinkedIn to connect with other healthcare providers in your community and build referral relationships.
Another great method to grow your medical practice without an ad budget is to focus on patient referrals. When patients have a positive experience at your practice, they are likely to tell their friends and family about it.
You can encourage patient referrals by providing excellent customer service and offering incentives for patients who refer new patients to your practice. Remember, patients may not remember the specific details of a procedure performed on them, but they will remember how they were treated and how they felt after leaving your office.
Medical practices serve their local communities. One of the most effective strategies to raise awareness for your organization is to introduce yourself to the same people who would schedule appointments with you. This can be accomplished through community outreach.
By participating in local events, donating to local charities, and partnering with other businesses in your community, you can increase awareness of your practice and attract new patients. Additionally, outreach initiatives can also help you build and nurture relationships with referring physicians and other healthcare providers in your area.
Unlike digital marketing or advertising, public relations focuses on generating positive press coverage for a business or organization. Securing coverage with local media outlets can help to increase your brand awareness and create a positive perception with members of the community.
Generating press coverage can be accomplished through multiple strategies. Some in-house options could include hosting events, participating in charitable activities, and winning awards. If you do not have time to manage all of this on your own, you could also hire a local public relations agency in your area to assist you.
When potential patients are searching for medical treatment online, they are likely starting with a search engine like Google or Bing. A search like “Emergency department near me” can generate listings of local EDs in someone’s area within seconds.
Though Google does offer paid advertising options to help your organization appear higher on search engine results pages (SERPs), many users view organic listings as more authoritative. By ranking higher in SERPs, you can increase your website visibility and draw more visitors to your site. Additionally, you can use SEO to target specific keywords that potential patients are searching for online.
In practice, though, SEO encompasses multiple strategies and not just a single tactic. From introducing new keyword-rich content to your website to obtaining high-quality backlinks, optimizing the technical elements of your site, and more, you can start to compete for desirable keywords in your area.
While content marketing can serve as part of an SEO strategy in the form of blog posts and updates to core pages of your website, it can also prove an effective standalone tactic as well. With assets like eBooks, whitepapers, and brochures, you can demonstrate your knowledge of important topics while also providing a valuable reference for your patients.
No matter what type of content you’re producing, the most important tip to keep in mind is to be helpful first. Offer real information that can satisfy the person reading it instead of simply using it to promote your own practice.
YouTube has become a powerful platform for medical practices to market themselves. Not only can a medical practice create videos discussing the latest treatments and technologies, but it can also create content that educates viewers on other important aspects of health, such as nutrition, exercise, and preventative care.
Videos on YouTube provide an opportunity for medical practitioners to present information in an engaging and entertaining way. Once uploaded onto a YouTube channel, this content will also become available to a much wider potential patient base than just local referrals alone. A well-curated YouTube channel is an invaluable asset for any medical practice looking to reach potential patients outside its immediate area.
Google reviews are an invaluable tool in the medical field, both for patients and practices. Reviews provide a way for medical providers to interact with current and potential patients on an online platform while also advertising their services. Positive reviews send a message of reliability and trustworthiness to potential patients, who often rely on feedback from other patients when selecting a healthcare facility.
The collected data also provides valuable insight into how clients feel about particular services or even individual staff members, helping medical practices make adjustments and focus their efforts accordingly. Utilizing Google reviews not only allows medical offices to interact with clients but can allow them to market themselves in an extremely effective way.
To start generating more Google reviews, consider placing a QR code on a sheet of paper near your office’s entryway, exit, and at the front desk. Users can simply scan it with their phone camera and follow the link to leave a review of their experience.
Most importantly, once a patient arrives at your practice, the expectations you promote in your marketing materials should match reality. Providing an excellent experience can help generate more return visits and referrals more than any other strategy.
One of the simplest, most efficient, and cost-effective ways to do this is to invest in patient engagement software that allows your patients to interact with your practice prior to their visit. For example, tools like a virtual queuing system, digital intake, and ePrescribing all help patients save time and create more bandwidth for your staff to spend with them.
At ER Express, we are dedicated to innovating the ways that urgent cares, emergency departments, and veterinary practices can engage with their patients and elevate their experience. To help accomplish our mission, we also provide in-depth, personalized marketing strategies to help you reach your goals.
To learn more about our patient engagement software and how we can help you craft a marketing strategy to grow your practice, contact us today.
With each new year, new marketing trends arise in every industry, and the medical profession is no exception. As the public shifts its attention toward new platforms, how can your organization position itself to meet users where they are most active?
Today’s healthcare landscape is more competitive than ever before. With the rise of telemedicine and other advancements in medical technology, organizations are continuously looking for ways to stand out from their competition. In order to stay ahead of the digital marketing game in 2023 and beyond, it is important for medical organizations to leverage effective digital marketing tactics.
Let’s take a deeper look into some of the best practices that can be used by medical organizations as part of their digital marketing strategy in 2023.
In a report by Forbes, 33% of Gen Zers use TikTok as a trusted source of medical information. Whenever we hear that a social media platform is being frequented for medical insights, it’s easy to cringe at the thought or brush it off as something not worth taking seriously.
Instead, the popularity of video-based platforms like TikTok provides ample opportunities for doctors to share credible, highly specialized medical insights with young people. This can serve to both promote your organization as well as inspire teens and young adults to learn more about their health.
In an environment like the social media ecosphere where anyone can post anything, the need for credible information rises. As a medical professional, sharing accurate and factual information can help to increase medical literacy on platforms where online engagement is at its highest.
Videos that you create on TikTok can also be posted to Instagram in the form of Reels. Reels mimic the format and user features of a TikTok video with some minor differences. You will be able to share the same video across multiple platforms without the labor-intensive process of creating unique creative assets for each one.
Long-form video content can help to showcase your organization’s medical expertise and ease patient anxiety about specific treatments or procedures. If you plan to upload a video lasting over one minute in length, place it on your YouTube channel where lengthy videos remain king.
YouTube videos can also be embedded onto your website. Add them to pages with similar information to add more context and offer an alternative way for your visitors to consume the content you’re presenting.
Unlike a nationwide SEO campaign, local SEO involves optimizing your digital presence to rank highly on organic search results within your geographic region. Some key tactics of local SEO include:
Formerly known as Google My Business, Google Business Profile allows you to upload all relevant information that search users need to know about your healthcare organization. You can upload photos of your facility, business hours, contact information, address information, and much more. You can also collect reviews from patients through Google and respond to them with your profile.
Accurate business information can also be imported into other useful Google tools for patients to easily find your office. For example, address information can be pulled into Google Maps so that people searching on the app can find your location and instantly receive driving directions.
Keep all of your business information up to date on all relevant provider directories. These can include ones specific to the medical profession, such as insurance network listings as well as general ones like Yelp.
If you serve a specific region, use local city, town, and county names in your website copy that potential patients in your area might search for. For example, if you are marketing your urgent care based in St. Louis, Missouri, a keyword to target through your website content could be “Urgent care St. Louis”.
With keywords, it’s important not to shoehorn them in awkward places on your website. Mention local city, town, and county names tastefully throughout your content so that you can add more context for search engine algorithms that are indexing your pages.
Another effective strategy for introducing more local keywords to your website is to set up individual location pages on your website. For example, if you have more than one urgent care location, make a page for each one with their respective business information. If you only operate one location, you can create pages that highlight nearby cities and towns nearby a significant portion of your recent patients live.
Email marketing has reigned as one of the most effective channels for medical organizations for years. Why? Many aspects of patient relations are already conducted over email, such as appointment confirmations and reminders.
Create a short, easy-to-use email signup form on your website to collect email addresses from visitors. Once you build a list, you can start sending them helpful content focused on health-related topics, retargeting recipients with advertisements, and send updates about your business, such as changes in hours or new locations.
Within each email, include an engaging call-to-action that motivates readers to engage further. This could take the form of a clickable button to schedule an appointment, to visit your blog for more helpful articles, and many other similar destinations.
Medicine has become an increasingly more contactless experience. Continuing to innovate these features and capabilities for patients can increase their satisfaction and inspire them to return in the future.
Features like virtual waiting rooms, online check-ins, virtual queuing, and digital patient intake forms all allow people to prepare for their visits in places where they are most comfortable, such as at home or in their cars. In turn, this also reduces time spent in the waiting room and places less strain on your staff, automating many of these recurring tasks.
At ER Express, we offer innovative, 100% white-labeled digital solutions to help your urgent care, emergency department, or veterinary practice offer an incredible experience. As part of our commitment to helping you succeed, we also offer free marketing support – including a customized campaign to help generate the results you’re looking for.
To learn more about our solutions for your organization, contact us today to request a demo.
The best way to effectively run a medical practice is by constantly making improvements in order to ensure that patients are receiving the best possible care. Collecting patient feedback is essential for doing so in urgent cares and emergency departments.
Not only does patient feedback provide a direct line for healthcare professionals to gauge how well their services are meeting the needs of their patients, but it also helps gather insight into operational issues that may need improvement. By understanding the experience of the patient, healthcare staff can better identify trends and make adaptations accordingly.
If you’re looking to enhance the way that you collect feedback in order to provide a better patient experience, here are some tips to do so efficiently:
One of the most efficient ways to collect patient feedback is by using an online survey tool. There are a number of simple and accessible online survey tools available, such as SurveyMonkey and Google Forms.
These sites allow you to create your own customizable survey and send it out to patients electronically. Patients can then easily complete the survey at their convenience and you can view the results in real time. These tools also make it easy to analyze the data and spot any major trends to identify where your practice is succeeding or could use improvement.
Another way to collect patient feedback is through the use of an online patient portal. Patient portals are secure websites and/or apps that allow patients to access their medical records in one place and easily communicate with their healthcare providers.
Many patient portals have features that allow patients to provide feedback on their care. For example, some portals have forums where patients can post questions or comments about their experience. This is a great way to collect feedback from patients while they’re already on the portal viewing test results, requesting medications or communicating with their provider.
Today, social media is one of the most powerful tools for any practice. It’s not only effective for marketing, but is also a great way for your urgent care or emergency department to collect patient feedback.
There are a number of ways that you can leverage social media to do so. For example, you can create a hashtag for patients to use when posting about their experience at your practice.
This will not only boost your practice’s online presence, but allow you to see what your patients are saying online. You can also encourage patients to leave reviews on your practice’s Facebook page or Google listing after their visit.
Another option for collecting patient feedback is to use a third-party review site, such as Healthgrades or RateMDs. These sites make it super easy for patients to rate and review their healthcare providers. They also allow prospective patients to find your practice and view existing reviews.
You can also collect patient feedback by sending out surveys to patients after their appointments. This can be done electronically or by mail. Surveys should be short, to the point and focus on specific areas, such as the quality of care, wait times, and customer service. In order to collect the most responses, patients should be given a reasonable amount of time to complete the survey and they should be made aware that their responses will be anonymous.
There are a number of creative ways that you can collect feedback from your patients. The number one rule to keep in mind is that you should make it easy. Patients are far more likely to leave a review if it is quick and convenient for them.
One strategy to accomplish this is by providing a QR code in your office that patients can scan upon leaving. This code would direct patients to your website or a third-party review site where they can provide feedback. You can also provide links on your website for patients to easily leave reviews.
ER Express provides intuitive and effective software for emergency depts and urgent cares that makes your practice’s day-to-day administrative tasks smooth and painless. As a result, you can spend more time with patients and provide them with excellent care.
Our solutions allow your practice to free up more time so that your team can focus on providing the best patient experience possible with more accurate data collection and reporting capabilities.
To learn more, request a demo with us today.
It’s no secret that urgent cares can quickly become chaotic environments. As patient volume and demand increases, staff can quickly become overwhelmed, and patients can suffer the consequences.
To make sure that you can adequately allocate enough time to your patients, having the right workload management strategy in place is essential. However, this is easier said than done.
Today, we’re going to offer some tips to help you better manage your workflow at your urgent care. Let’s begin with the central piece of the puzzle: your staff.
The first step in managing the workload at your urgent care is to understand your staffing needs. You should have an understanding of how many staff members you need to have on duty as well as what their roles and responsibilities are. Additionally, you should have a plan for how to cover shifts when staff members are out sick or on vacation.
Beyond the staffing needs, also consider your staff’s needs. Do your current personnel have any ideas or requests for solutions that could improve their workflow and reduce time spent on administrative tasks? Listen to feedback and determine if there are options that you can pursue to help them, whether interim or long-term.
Once you know how many staff members you need, you can create a schedule that ensures that there are enough staff members on duty at all times. The schedule should be designed to meet the needs of your patients and should be posted in a visible location or available on an internal server so that staff members can easily refer to it.
However, before you craft your schedule, take a moment to review peak times at your urgent care. Schedule more staff members during these hours so that you can see and treat more patients with greater efficiency.
Onboarding is one of the most crucial steps in making sure that employees are well-adjusted to the environment. During the onboarding process, it is important that you train your staff on how to properly handle the workload at your urgent care. They should know how to prioritize patients based on their needs and how to effectively communicate with other staff members. Additionally, staff should be familiar with your policies and procedures so that they can properly follow them.
When managing a practice that can get as chaotic as an urgent care, it’s important that you regularly monitor the workload to ensure that it is being managed effectively. You can do this by tracking patient wait times, observing staff interactions, and speaking with patients about their experiences.
If over time you find that the workload is not being managed effectively, you can make adjustments to your staffing or scheduling as needed.
Because of the ever-changing needs of urgent cares, it is paramount that you’re able to be flexible when managing the workload in your practice. This means that you may need to make changes to your staffing or scheduling based on the needs of your patients or the availability of staff members.
Additionally, you may need to adjust your policies and procedures as new challenges arise or you discover more efficient methods of managing the practice.
As the manager of an urgent care, you must be able to efficiently delegate responsibilities to your staff members so that they can help to manage the workload. This includes assigning tasks, setting deadlines, and providing feedback. By delegating responsibilities, you can ensure that the workload is managed effectively and efficiently.
With the right software, you should be able to offload repetitive tasks and manage your practice more efficiently.
One common feature of medical administrative software is the ability to manage patient queues remotely and digitally. This helps your staff prioritize which patients need to be seen first and make sure that the line runs smoothly. Many softwares also provide wait times so patients know how long they have to wait until they’re seen.
Another important feature that a software can offer is the ability to securely manage medical chart information. This way, your staff can access any information they need in a single secure location without having to sift through piles of documents.
Additionally, many software solutions offer the ability to digitize your registration, intake, and consent forms so that patients can fill these out via their mobile device. On a similar note, your practice should find a software that allows you to communicate with patients via SMS and two-way texting. These features make it easier for your patients to fill out forms and receive communications without the hassle of a phone call or long wait in the office.
ER Express is the premier innovator of medical administrative software for urgent cares in the United States. Our solutions allow you to provide a better patient experience while also freeing up your staff’s time to focus more on providing excellent care.
Our solutions are built based on real needs of urgent care administrators, care providers, and patients with a single goal to help you elevate the quality of your services. To learn more, request a demo today
Are you a medical practice struggling to keep up with patient needs in an increasingly digital environment? Are you seeking an easier, more efficient way to get more patients through your doors?
The good news is that finding success in the current healthcare landscape doesn’t have to be difficult – technology has made tremendous advances and opportunities available for organizations who are willing to take advantage.
Leveraging a stronger digital infrastructure can provide a number of benefits for your practice, from enhancing patient experience and engagement, to increasing provider visibility and attracting new patients.
Let’s examine some specific ways that digital technology can help you generate more visits from patients and increase the overall efficiency of your practice:
Many software solutions will allow your patients to schedule their appointments online via your website. Instead of having to wait on hold and speak to your staff on the phone, patients can instead select a time that works best for them and fill out all of the necessary information online.
This is not only convenient for patients, but also frees up your staff to focus on other tasks instead of having to manually create appointments over the phone.
If not managed properly, the referral process can become quite messy and lead to confusion and frustration for patients, staff and outside providers. Digital software that includes a feature for online referrals makes it easy for outside doctors to refer their patients to your practice.
Online referrals are great time-savers as opposed to the traditional system of exchanging phone calls between practices. Through the use of a secure online portal, referring doctors can easily refer their patients and provide the necessary data to your practice while staying in the loop throughout the whole process.
Regardless of what kind of medical practice you are operating, the ultimate goal is always to create the best possible outcomes for your patients. In order to achieve this, staff need to be able to spend the appropriate amount of time with patients, making sure that they are doing everything they can to care for them and their needs.
Digital solutions in your practice take away the need for your staff to spend unnecessary hours on paperwork, phone calls and other laborious administrative tasks. This way, they can spend time on what matters the most.
The best way to continually improve your practice is to receive and implement solutions based on patient feedback. While online reviews are certainly helpful, many patients won’t leave a review unless directly prompted. Luckily, a digital solution exists that will text patients after their visit asking them to provide feedback. This helps you understand what your practice is doing well and what can be improved upon.
Digital solutions allow you to connect with patients from anywhere via their mobile device. This way, you can meet with a patient virtually and even prescribe them medications without them having to leave their house. Patients can also stay connected to your practice via SMS text reminders about appointments, medications and any important announcements related to your practice.
Now more than ever, germs are on the forefront of many patient’s minds when they are sitting in a crowded waiting room. To help cut down on the time spent in a waiting room, patients can wait in their car or any other comfortable location before they are seen. On top of that, patients can fill out intake forms in advance, reducing the need to enter your building until the doctor is ready for them.
The best way to securely pass along patient information within your practice is not physically handing off charts, but rather sharing them digitally. Software solutions exist to store important records such as patient charts in one secure, digitized location. This makes it easier for staff to access records and ensures that they are kept in a safe and clutter-free space.
From emergency departments to veterinary clinics, ER Express offers digital solutions designed to benefit the modern medical practice. With the right tools, your practice can improve efficiency and patient care while staying competitive in the modern healthcare landscape.
To learn more about our digital solutions, schedule a demo today:
Are you looking to revitalize your veterinary practice through efficient record-keeping, streamlined workflows and higher-performing staff? The cloud is rapidly becoming the preferred choice for many veterinarians due to its ability to streamline operational tasks, improve workflow management and integrate seamlessly with other digital applications, making it an ideal tool for any veterinarian’s office.
With this technology at your fingertips, you’ll have everything that you and your staff need centralized in one convenient location delivered directly from the web – from medical records access and patient histories tracking to appointment scheduling and billing capabilities.
Take a look below at how cloud-based veterinary software can improve your practice.
Using a cloud-based software allows your staff to access any systems or documents they need from any connected device. This can include patient records, intake forms and a number of other records that need to be shared on a day-to-day basis. Having quick and easy access to whatever they need from any device grants your staff more time to care for patients.
In the digital age, more and more businesses and medical practices are opting to move away from keeping paper records. Not only is this more friendly for the environment, but reducing paper records makes it easier for staff to safely and efficiently organize important documents.
Cloud-based veterinary software is able to completely digitize your practice’s records, reducing the need to keep any paper records around. This way, staff can easily find and store any necessary documents without having to sift through piles of physical paper.
Since the pandemic, people have become more wary of the germs that can spread from sitting in a packed waiting room. Even in a veterinary practice, crowded waiting rooms can quickly become hotspots for germs and diseases to spread. Not to mention that sitting in a waiting room for a prolonged period of time with a restless pet is anything but pleasant.
Cloud-based software allows for clients to check-in and get in line remotely using their mobile device. Creating a contactless experience for your clients means less time spent in waiting rooms and ultimately, a more comfortable experience for everyone involved.
Instead of having clients sit in the waiting room and fill out intake forms upon arrival, cloud-based software lets pet owners complete these forms ahead of time from their mobile device or computer. This way, your staff can save time on having to manually enter the info from these forms and can instead have access to the necessary information in one digitized source.
These forms can also be customized to suit your practice’s needs and can include pet identification photos and electronic consent signatures.
As we mentioned above, people are more conscious than ever of the potential for diseases to be spread in crowded areas such as waiting rooms. Cloud-based software gives your practice the freedom to create an entirely contactless experience for your clients.
From checking-in to filling out forms to waiting from their desired location, nearly every step of the patient experience can be done safely and remotely. This in turn makes pet owners at your office feel more comfortable and more likely to return to your practice.
Staying in touch with pet owners is one of the most important ways to keep them loyal to your practice. With cloud-based software, doing this is easier than ever.
Your staff can use the software to automate text messages to patients about important announcements surrounding your practice, appointment reminders or any other information to keep them in the loop. On top of that, the software’s built-in two-way texting allows clients to communicate via SMS as well. This way, your staff can save time on manually sending out text reminders and communication with patients is as seamless as it can be.
ER Express offers the highest-performing, most complete cloud-based solution for veterinary clinics and is trusted by countless veterinarians to better manage their practices.
To learn more, schedule a 15-minute call today.
Does your position require you to manage an emergency department (ED)? This can include being the one responsible for supervising staff, tracking protocols and organizing patient care. If so, you know how chaotic the ED can become at times. You also know that the top priority in the ED and healthcare in general is prioritizing the patient’s care.
Finding ways to prioritize patients can be a major challenge in any healthcare setting, but especially so in an emergency department where resources are limited, waiting rooms are full and time is of the essence. By offloading many of the recurring, redundant administrative tasks, your team can spend more time with patients when they need it most in an emergency situation.
In this article, we’ll be discussing some ways that you can streamline many of the recurring auxiliary tasks at your ED and maximize your department’s efficiency so that you can spend more time with the patients.
While there may be occasional lulls in the emergency department, you and your staff can very quickly become inundated by a sudden rush of patients seeking immediate treatment.
During your emergency department’s usual peak hours where an influx of patients are arriving, you can use a digital solution to block out these hours so that your staff is not overwhelmed with high volumes of patients that are seeking treatment for low-acuity concerns.
This also allows you to more easily expedite care for high-acuity referrals that need attention immediately and keep the flow of patients steadier throughout the day.
One of the best ways to improve patient outcomes in your emergency department is to get feedback directly from the patients. With the right software solution, patients can be kept in the loop via automated texts during each step of their stay in your ED. Afterwards, you can grab their feedback with a quick automated follow-up text survey and encourage them to write your ED an online review.
Referring providers can also be kept in the loop with certain softwares by receiving an email with their patient’s disposition status as soon as they are checked out. This helps to remove communication barriers and make sure that everyone, internally and externally, is on the same page.
With so much being done from mobile phones nowadays, the software used in your emergency department should be responsive to changing screen dimensions and provide a consistent experience for users across devices.
This would ideally also allow providers to access medical documents and other software systems from a tablet or smartphone device to save on trips to a desktop computer. Being able to carry a tablet from room to room in the ED is a huge time-saver for your staff and allows them to spend more time caring for patients.
If your emergency department utilizes a mobile check-in software solution, this would allow patients to schedule, reschedule, and cancel from their mobile devices. By giving patients to communicate and manage their appointments from their phones, your staff would spend less time manually answering calls.
Using check-in software would also provide advance notice of patient arrivals and set up a queue for your staff, helping to organize your waiting room and prioritize patient care.
In the age of data, there are a number of ways to attain useful metrics and use them to enact beneficial changes in your emergency department. The management staff in your ED should review data collected by your ED’s software on a consistent basis to identify and analyze trends in your workflow.
When are patients starting to increase or decrease in volume? Where are your staff spending the majority of their time? How quickly are patients being seen?
Knowing this information helps you make more informed staffing decisions at times that are emerging as new peak hours, leading to more available staff assisting patients when the department gets busy.
ER Express’ software solutions are optimized for emergency departments to increase efficiency, manage patient flow, and most importantly, improve the overall patient experience. Our solutions provide complete departmental workflow optimization software for emergency departments, including all of the features above plus more.
To learn more about how our solutions can help your emergency department, schedule a 15-minute call with us today.
As anyone who works in the healthcare industry can tell you, emergency departments (EDs) are known for often being crowded and stressful environments. Patients coming in at all hours of the day and night seeking immediate treatment can easily cause significant backups and waiting times, causing frustration for both staff and patients.
These issues make managing emergency departments quite a difficult task. Luckily, there are a number of digital solutions such as online check-in tools that can make the management of EDs much easier.
To ease the strain put on emergency departments during peak hours, EDs are using online check-in tools to help manage their operations more effectively. Here are four ways that these tools can help in the management of your emergency department:
Let’s take a closer look at each of these benefits in turn.
Because of how busy and chaotic emergency departments can easily become, reducing waiting times is one of the most important goals for any ED. Online check-in tools can help to reduce waiting times by allowing patients to reserve their spot in line before they even arrive at the ED. This way, ED staff can better predict how many patients they will need to accommodate and plan accordingly.
Similarly, online check-in tools can help emergency department staff manage their patient flow more efficiently. An extremely useful feature of many online check-in tools is the ability to track the amount of time spent in the ED by each patient. By tracking how long each patient spends in the ED, staff can better identify bottlenecks and make changes to the flow of traffic accordingly.
This information collected by online check-in tools can also be used to improve the triage process so that patients with more urgent needs are seen first. This will not only make your ED more efficient but also ensure that those in immediate need of treatment receive the care they need as quickly as possible.
In the current healthcare landscape, the more data that can be collected, the more efficiently any medical practice will be able to run. In addition to reducing waiting times and improving patient flow, the data collected by online check-in solutions can also be used to improve emergency department operations in a number of other ways.
For example, analysts inside the ED can use the data collected to identify trends in patient visits and make accurate predictions about future demand. This information can then be used to determine staffing levels, stock supplies, and plan for future capacity needs that will help them prepare for the future. The more data that an ED’s online check-in tool is able to collect, the more equipped the staff in the ED will be to handle any number of obstacles that come their way.
Finally, online check-in tools can also improve the overall patient experience. When it comes down to it, providing a positive patient experience is a top priority for any ED or medical practice in general. Online check-in tools are a great way to make your patient’s experience in the ED as positive as possible.
These tools are useful because patients who are able to reserve their place in line electronically often report feeling less anxious and more in control of their situation. In addition, having accurate information about expected wait times can help patients make better decisions about when to seek care. Both of these factors can make patients feel more at ease during an oftentimes stressful situation.
Overall, emergency departments that implement an online check-in system often see significant improvements in their operations. By reducing wait times, improving patient flow, and providing valuable data, online check-in tools can help EDs be managed as smoothly as possible while providing a better experience for staff and patients alike.
ER Express offers intuitive solutions that are suited to benefit the modern emergency department. ER Express’ online check-in tool provides valuable efficiency-increasing features and insightful data that can be used to continuously improve operations in any emergency department.
To learn more about how ER Express can improve your practice or ED, schedule a demo today.
We’re long past the days where the only way for consumers to share their experiences with businesses (or medical practices) was through word of mouth.
In the current age of digital media, where nearly everyone has immediate internet access – as well as the ability to register their pleasure or displeasure with their experience – patients have the ability to boost or diminish an urgent care or emergency department’s reputation with just a few clicks.
Online reviews and social media testimonies have a huge impact on whether potential patients consider booking an appointment at a certain practice. That is just one of the many reasons why patient experience is more important than ever in today’s healthcare landscape.
Having a reputation for a great patient experience in your practice can both satisfy your current patients and inspire confidence in prospective ones, ultimately generating more revenue for your organization.
From the moment a patient walks through your doors till they leave with a diagnosis, prescription, and/or treatment plan, there is no shortage of touch points. Each one presents an opportunity to make their experience a positive one. Or conversely, leave them questioning whether they should look elsewhere for care.
Were they greeted in a friendly, respectful manner? Did the information they provided (either as a new or repeat patient) follow them to their current visit? Was there continuity even if they were seen by a different healthcare provider than last time? Were they seen within a reasonable amount of time? And if they had to see more than one provider in the practice, was the “handoff” performed seamlessly?
Here are just a few of the specific reasons why patient experience is so important in today’s healthcare industry:
Creating a positive patient experience in your medical practice is essential for attracting and retaining patients. In order to grow and thrive, healthcare organizations need to be able to attract new patients while simultaneously retaining the ones they already have.
Having long wait times, unattentive staff and creating a generally bad experience is the easiest way to lose existing patients and scare away any potential new patients. That is why fostering a positive patient experience is essential for your practice to accomplish both of these goals.
When it comes down to it, the ability to reduce costs and maintain a profit is what keeps medical practices afloat. Part of creating a positive patient experience is having a well-run and efficient office and staff. Being able to run your practice efficiently not only creates a positive experience for patients but also reduces costs for your organization.
On a similar note, the more patients that walk through your door, the more revenue your practice can generate. Creating a positive patient experience will help to retain existing patients and attract new patients, resulting in greater revenue and stronger financial health for your practice.
At the end of the day, the ultimate goal of any healthcare organization is to provide the best possible medical outcomes for their patients. When patients have a positive experience with your practice, they are more likely to follow through with their care plan and take their medications as prescribed. This can lead to better health outcomes and lower costs for both your practice and patients down the line.
Happy employees lead to happy patients! When staff members enjoy coming into work each day, it is reflected in the quality of care that they provide. This, in turn, leads to improved patient satisfaction scores and increased employee retention rates. In essence, a positive patient experience is a win-win for both your staff and patients.
From providing better health outcomes to reducing costs for your practice, there are countless reasons why providing a positive patient experience is important for healthcare organizations. These are just a few of the most important ones. By focusing on providing a great experience for patients, healthcare organizations can improve their bottom line while also improving the quality of care that they provide.
ER Express’s multiple software solutions help urgent care facilities and emergency departments engage with patients and provide them with a better, modernized experience that will encourage them to revisit your organization and recommend it to others.
To learn more about how ER Express’s solutions can help improve your practice’s patient experience, schedule a demo with us today.
In the past few years, healthcare has undergone rapid transformations in all facets of the industry. Social distancing has changed how people think about shared spaces and how offices have adapted to address these concerns.
The patient experience specifically has drastically changed, with a large amount of the appointment process taking place virtually. Modern healthcare expectations for a great patient experience now involve a substantial amount of pre and post-appointment engagement online from a patient’s mobile device.
One of the most convenient modern features you can provide to patients at your urgent care is an online check-in process. This gives your patients the ability to notify your staff when they are ready for their appointment without having to spend time in the waiting room. Online check-ins are a great way to practice social distancing and keep up with the expectations of today’s healthcare industry.
In this article, we’ll be covering some of the features that make for a great online check-in system so you know how to choose the best one for your practice.
Reserve their Place in Line
An online check-in system should allow your patients to reserve their place in line from a remote location. This is a great way to keep your waiting room organized and ensure that no one has to wait for too long before seeing a physician.
Less Time Spent in the Waiting Room
When it comes down to it, the purpose of an online check-in system is so that your patients are able to spend less time in the waiting room. Being able to check-in and reserve their place in line remotely is one of the best solutions to minimize time spent in the waiting room.
First-Available Times to Encourage Off-Peak Scheduling
Some online check-in systems are able to display to patients when the next available time for an appointment is. This is an incredibly useful feature in helping to avoid crowded waiting rooms and backups at peak times throughout the day.
User-Friendly Mobile Interface for Patients and Form Completions
Not all patients are going to be computer whizzes and able to easily check in and fill out forms from their phones. By choosing a check-in system with a user-friendly mobile interface, your patients will be able to check in and complete their forms with minimal issues.
SMS Messaging to Maintain Patient Engagement
Keeping your patients engaged with your office in between appointments is a great marketing strategy to keep your practice top of mind. Check-in systems that allow SMS messages to be sent to your patients are effective in patient retention and satisfaction. These messages can be updates from your office, the latest news in your practice or just check-ins to let your patients know that you’re thinking of them.
Send Automated Alerts to Patients
When emergencies happen in your practice, you want your patients to be kept in the loop. Check-in systems that send automated alerts to patients can be useful when there’s a last-minute office closure or any other emergency that you need to communicate to patients as quickly and easily as possible.
Patient Survey and Feedback Forms to Improve Performance
As a medical practice, you’re always looking for new ways to improve your patient’s experience. Using a check-in system that sends out surveys and feedback forms to patients after their appointment can help you collect the necessary data to make important changes in your practice.
Control Time Slot Availability
If there are certain times of the day that work best for your practice, you can control the availability of these time slots with certain check-in systems. This is another feature that helps reduce waiting room congestion and improve the general patient experience.
Analyze and Export Patient Data
For efficiency within your practice, it can be useful to have a system that lets your staff export and analyze patient data all in one place. Using a check-in system with this feature can help improve the organization of documents and data in your practice.
ER Express are the developers of Check-In Express – the most complete, innovative, and engaging online check-in tool for urgent cares looking to improve their patient experience and practice operations. If you’re looking for a check-in system with the best features to improve your practice, Check-In Express is the right one for you.
To learn more, request a demo today.
We are excited to announce that ER Express is now fully integrated with ezyVet! This powerful collaboration streamlines your practice management by seamlessly connecting ER Express’s online check-in and digital intake tools with ezyVet’s comprehensive veterinary software. Request a demo today to see how this integration can elevate your clinic’s efficiency and enhance the overall experience for your staff and clients.
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