Patient engagement supports more communication between doctors and patients, so the patients are actively engaged and are updated on the information about their symptoms, illness and treatment options. One of the most successful practices is to engage your patient by implementing more automated and targeted patient campaigns.

So how do you go about doing that?


TABLE OF CONTENTS


1. Define your goals and target market

The first crucial step before starting any campaign, is to have a clear set of goals. Without them, you have no way of knowing whether or not your work is worthwhile.

You can start off by listing the main objectives of your campaign.
For example:

  • Increase the number of new patients who visit the clinic

  • Promote new services

  • Increase patient returns (patient retention)

  • Increase awareness about your clinic

  • Improve patient outcome

  • Increase revenue


Once you have decided on the objectives that you want to focus on, now is the time to drill down into the details of the goals.


To ensure your plan is practical, reasonable and efficient, you should adopt the SMART goal criteria.
SMART stands for :


S- Specific
The goal has to be clearly defined, so that you can focus your efforts on achieving it

M - Measurable

The goal needs to have quantifiable metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) so that you can measure progress and determine if the goal has been met.

A- Achievable

The goal should be within the ability of your clinic and your team, taking available resources and potential obstacles into consideration


R- Relevant 

The goal should be aligned with your campaign objective and your clinic’s vision and mission


T - Time-bound

The goal needs to have a timeline for when the campaign starts and ends, so as to establish a sense of urgency to achieve it


For example:


Clinic A wants to increase the number of patients returning to the clinic by 10% before 31 July 2021, and plan to do this by setting up various patient campaigns that automatically send SMS reminders to targeted patients.


So now that you have a clear and SMART goal, let's dive deeper into what type of patients to target.


Generally, chronic illness patients will return to clinics for follow up or refilling of  their medication.

Hence, you can start by targeting Non Communicable Disease (NCD) patients, such as patients with Diabetes Mellitus (DM), Cardiovascular Disease (CVD), Chronic Kidney Disease, Chronic Respiratory disease and many more.



2. Determine your Campaign Type

The next thing you need to determine is the type of your campaign.  It is vital to decide your campaign type so as to ensure that you are reaching the right people at the right time from the start of your campaign

There are two main types of patient campaigns :


i. Awareness
Awareness campaigns focus on educating patients about diseases, treatments or how to reduce their risk of contracting certain diseases. They can also be used to inform your patients about your services, news, and healthcare trends.


For example:

For diabetic patients, you can inform them about the importance of diabetic control and remind them to take their medication on time. 

Studies show reminders could tremendously increase patient compliance and adherence.


ii. Action
Action campaigns typically aim to encourage patients to commit an action such as scheduling an appointment or visiting the clinic to refill their medications.



3. Setting up your campaign

With Klinify’s Patient Campaign feature, you can set up campaign rules that will automate the sending of SMSes. Hence, you can set up campaign rules targeting NCD patients.

You can set the rules to send an SMS after X months, if patients had been prescribed selected medications.


For example, if your goal is to increase patient returns for DM and CVD patients, you can set the campaign rules to ‘send SMS to patients 3 months after their visit, if the following drugs have been prescribed : metformin, glucovance, diamicron’ .




Klinify’s Patient Campaign will then work in the background, identifying those patients for you and automatically sending SMS reminders based on the criteria that you set.
Hence, it will save you the time and effort of identifying patients and reaching out to them, and you can focus on the thing you do best, which is saving lives.



4. Personalize your message

Klinify’s Patient Campaign allows you to customize the message to your patients for every campaign that you create.


Personalized and continuous communications from doctors will improve patient satisfaction as patients will feel supported and cared for which can help to build rapport, hence hence helping to cement your position as their favourite go-to doctor.


Based on our case study, Klinify’s Patient Campaigns increased patient return rates by 16%, and increased clinic revenue by RM60,653 in just three months.

The best part is, once you create the campaign, the automation can help you reach the right patients at the right time, hence helping you save time as well.


Ultimately, Klinify’s Patient Campaigns aim to help you improve patient outcomes, increase clinic revenue, save time and give you peace of mind.


If you are interested to sign up for our Patient Campaigns feature, just let us know here!