Why Multi-Channel Messaging is Key to Improve Communication in Healthcare

Our health is of paramount importance, and modern medicine allows us to live longer, survive previously incurable diseases, and live healthy lives even when afflicted with significant health issues. But It feels like we’ve taken one hit after another over the last few years.

From bushfires to COVID, floods, and now a bumper flu season, public and private health systems have been put under an incredible amount of pressure. While the health system deals with these issues, communicating effectively with customers is key.

Information overload and a slick and seamless two-way communication system are mandatory when patients and practices are discussing health. So, how do healthcare providers stay in touch with patients and offer a better way to interact?

Staying connected

The key to staying in touch with patients and providing a better level of care and service is meeting and interacting with patients on their home turf.

From email to voice, WhatsApp to SMS, patients and customers use an ever-expanding variety of communication channels throughout the day. But, they only use the channels they feel most comfortable with. For example, not everyone has push notifications turned on for their personal email, and they’re unlikely to be checking it every hour on the off chance that something important will arrive. Chances are that they do have push notifications switched on for instant messaging apps like SMS, Messenger and WhatsApp, though.

Multi-channel communication platforms mean you can fit square pegs into square holes and deliver a seamless interaction with patients before an appointment.

Unified communications

Multi-channel communication platforms allow healthcare providers to reach patients on their preferred channels.

Think of it from the patient’s perspective – could there be anything more frustrating than speaking multiple times to multiple people about a single health issue and having to re-tell the story each time, factoring in new information from the previous conversation? It would be maddening.

Cloud-based, always-on, personalised communication portals allow healthcare providers to keep the conversation going. Front-end staff can not only track ongoing conversations across channels but can continue them across multiple channels at any time of day without requiring a tiresome reiteration of previous conversations.

Just look at Infobip customer Oladoc: the digital healthcare platform was able to improve appointment show-up rates by 10 per cent, increase revenue by 5 per cent and reduce costs by 25 per cent thanks to personalised SMS and automated reminder calls.

Information overload

With a massive flu season on the go and a pandemic in the very near background, making sure that patients are well enough to attend a practice is critical.

While the rest of society has largely moved on from masks and social distancing, health practices are still operating with extreme care to protect our most vulnerable. With that in mind, reminders about mask requirements are critical, right?

Additionally, automated appointment reminders help reduce cancellations and missed appointments and help practices avoid associated costs. On the flipside, if there are delays in seeing specialists and GPs due to appointments running over time, text messages are a simple and effective way of notifying patients that there is likely to be a wait. They can then change their arrival time to suit.

Finally, messages are a simple and effective way of reminding patients to bring important diagnostic information or to avoid a practice if they are suffering from something particularly transmissible.

Taking it to another level

Elevating the level of patient care through the clever use of messaging in healthcare also delivers other, less obvious benefits.

For example, consider how helpful a patient might find reminders about when they should be taking a newly prescribed medication or generalised illness management information like a new physiotherapy exercise for someone rehabbing an injury.

Further examples of messaging as a healthcare communication channel are the use of texts to send prescription reminders to patients. And for people suffering from chronic health issues, messaging can be used to help self-manage the issue. This can reduce the impact of the condition by communicating medication adjustments and changes to treatments. Further, messaging could be used to create a two-way-support network and network maintenance, delivering better self-management over the long term.

Healthy Benefits

When customer service and customer experience (CX) are key differentiators between one service and another, and patients are invested in a seamless and painless interaction with healthcare providers, making sure that talking with them is hassle-free is a priority.

Healthcare app Marham is a prime example. Infobip helped the app improve its SMS delivery rates and implement a voice component to their customer service; this led to a 50 per cent decrease in complaints, an increase in appointment attendance and overall better brand trust.

Efficiently communicating important information to patients doesn’t need to be hard. Multi-channel cloud-based communications platforms provide the tools for healthcare professionals and services to meet patients on the channels they prefer with the information they need at scale.