Author: RobynNazarRN
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Studies Evaluate the Impact of Patient Portals
Although patient portal technology is relatively new, the importance of this development in the medical field has already prompted several peer-reviewed case studies to examine in the overall efficiency and impact of of patient portals on healthcare delivery.
Patient Satisfaction
A 2005 study conducted by Tang and Langsky on the My Wellness Portal provided through the Oklahoma Physicians Resource/Research Network found that:
- 60% believed it improved patient-provider interactions
- The majority of patients found the portal to be “valuable”
- Patient portal users reported feeling more connected to their providers than non-users
Phone Volume in Office
Leiderman, et al. (2005) performed a study on the University of California Davis Health Systems patient portal system which allows patients access to prescription refills, appointment request and test results. The results of the study showed that:
- Clinics with the patient portal had 18% percent less call volume
- Calls to the office with portal clinics were completed 6x faster than non-portal clinics
Doctor-Patient Interactions
In a study of Kaiser Permanente’s KP HealthConnect, Chen et al. found that after the implementation of the patient portal:
- In-office visits decreased by 26%
- Scheduled telephone visits increased by 9-fold
- Total number of doctor-patient interactions increased by 8.3%
Provider Productivity
In the second part of Leiderman, et al. study researchers found that patient portal interactions freed up provider schedules and time allowing for additional patients and visits in the office. This resulted in
- Approximately $100 increase per day per provider in patient profits (not including patient-portal revenue)
While there are still relatively few studies available, experts speculate that the implementation of meaningful use, rapid development of patient portal technology and the ongoing integration of EHR systems into patient patient portals will likely greatly increase the interest in this type of technology and broaden the scope of available data.
Medical Web Experts is a leader in the development of custom patient portal technology. For more information please contact us at 1-866-932-9944
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Utilizing a Medical Content Writer for Your Website or Blog
What is a content writer?
A medical content writer is a professional writer who specializes in making the content of your website or blog attractive to potential clients as well as visible to search engines through SEO techniques. At Medical Web Experts we have medical content services on staff who are also licensed healthcare professionals in order to maintain the integrity and accuracy of the medical content on your website.
Content writers and website development
Whether you are creating a new website from scratch or making updates to your old website, a content writer will work with you to make sure all of your pages are written professionally, appropriate for SEO, and error free. You can choose the extent that you want your writer involved in the content development, ranging from suggestions and minor edits to a total creation of your web content.
Maintain your blog with a content writer
Having a blog as a part of your medical practice website is an essential part of remaining competitive in the healthcare business as well as for SEO. However, most medical practices are far too busy to keep up with the recommended 1-2 original articles per week on their blog. A content writer can help you maintain your blog by writing a pre-determined amount of articles per week. The writer can work independently, accept article topic suggestions, or schedule regular interviews with a practice member and utilize the interview content for articles.
How much do content writers cost?
The cost of a content writer depends on your individual contract with Medical Web Experts. Some SEO and web design packages may include content writing services. To contact us for more information about our services click here.
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Benefits of Medical Video Production (Part 2)
Learn how your medical practice can benefit from the power of YouTube and medical video production.
(continued from Part 1)
Free Marketing
While not every medical video production on YouTube video goes viral, the people who watch your video will automatically provide you with free marketing. Viewers email, “like”, subscribe and promote in a variety of other social media outlets which helps spread your message and create a natural building of links on the internet. These types of links created by social media sharing are very powerful marketing tools which will help increase your overall SEO and online ranking for your medical practice.
Tap Into Your Demographics
Like Google Analytics for your website, YouTube also uses analytic tools to help you gather data about the audience who is watching your videos. For example, your analytics for your medical video production will tell you how people found your video, who is watching them, and what other types of topics these viewers are interested in. This type of information can be incredibly valuable for your medical practice in determining how and where to make your next online marketing move.
Medical Web Experts specializes in creating customized video productions for medical practices. For more information visit the Medical Video Production section on our website.
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Benefits of Medical Video Production (Part 1)
Learn how your medical practice can benefit from the power of YouTube and medical video production.
Did you know that YouTube boasts the second highest search volume on the internet next to Google? In fact each month there is an astronomical 13 BILLION video clips viewed each month by people from all around the world. This huge (and largely untapped) resource for marketing can be utilized by your medical practice via a medical video production in order to help grow your business in increase your overall online presence.
1. Demonstrate Your Services
Many people think that You Tube is used only by young people entertaining themselves with music videos or TV clips. However, the reality is that there are 35 million searches each month for “how-to” type videos which means that a large portion of the audience is looking for answers to a specific question.
As a medical practice, you can demonstrate your authority in a particular area by making a video on a procedure, treatment, or therapy which answers a specific question that views may have. In fact, a very effective strategy for this type of medical video production is to create a series of videos (published on your YouTube channel) addressing a series of questions/topics related to your expertise.
By providing these types of answers through a video format you not only are demonstrating your practices knowledge and expertise, but you are “branding” yourself as an authority in your field.
2. Humanize your Practice
No matter how good the text on your website may be, it can never have the same “humanizing” effect as a video. Videos allow the viewer to feel like they are receiving a personal interaction with the medical professional, gives them added confidence in your authority, and makes them feel connected to your practice even before they pick up the phone to make an appointment.
Click to view part 2
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Top Hospital Website Designs
If you are in the market for hospital website design and are looking for some inspiration you have come to the right place. After sorting through hundreds of websites we have narrowed it down to 5 websites that exemplify an elite level of hospital design. Chosen not only for their stylish designs these websites also excel in ease-of-use, conveying relevant information and incorporate a solid SEO structure for an effective hospital internet marketing campaign.
- Mount Sinai Medical Center Heart Institute
This elegant and professional website design, created by Medical Web Experts, stands out among hospital websites. Rich colors, soft corners, fast-loading pages and easy navigation makes this website ideal for attracting new patients. Furthermore, the designers incorporated a sophisticated SEO strategy built into its layout, linking, and page designs which direct high volumes of internet traffic to the website.
- Seattle Children’s Hospital
This sleek web design uses a mix of media and color scheme to stay true to the young clientele, without sacrificing professionalism. The scroll-over drop down menu and slide-show news updates make the site visually appealing and provides easy-to-use navigation. Plus, healthcare provider written blogs which appear on the home screen builds trust with the readers and draws readers deeper into the website.
- Columbus Regional Hospital
With a soothing color scheme and flash intro this site immediately grabs a visitors attention. The home page is free from clutter and uses a tabbed drop-down menu which keeps the site sleek and organized. The designer also incorporated social networking tools into the design which help promote internet traffic to the site.
- Swedish
This major brand of hospitals welcomes you to their website with a minimalist design, flash into, and icon graphics to guide you where you need to go. Shades of black, blue, and white create clean contrast and reflect the professionalism and style of this hospital.
- Kindred Hospital
Another gorgeous website design that balances warm colors, pleasing graphics, and a simplistic design that is easy for visitors to navigate. There is a zoom feature on the top of the home page for those who have difficultly viewing the screen. Plus large visuals and use of graphic helps direct readers easily through the site.
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3 Ways Patient Portal Technology Can Benefit Your Practice
Patient portals are, without a doubt, the future of medical practices. With cell phones, computers, and an increasingly mobile patient population the demand for healthcare providers and services to be online is growing.
Jumping in and investing in patient portal technology can be daunting at first but the rewards will pay off in the long run. Here are 5 ways that a patient portal can benefit your medical practice:
1. Lighten your office schedule – without sacrificing patients
One of the biggest benefits of a patient portal is the ability for patients to consult with their healthcare providers online without having to physically come into the office. This means that patients who have simple questions, need a prescription, or just are following up on lab results can schedule an online appointment during a time that it convenient for both you and the patient. This lightens the patient load at the office leaving you with more time to spend with critical patients, tend to your office tasks, and even create more space for new patients.
2. Streamline tasks that are time consuming and costly to your practice
Office overhead is a huge expense for a medical practice and making the best of your resources is essential in growing your profits. Patient portal features such as prescription requests, appointment requests, and medical record retrievals means that you have less nursing staff and other personnel spending valuable time completing these simple tasks. Furthermore, patients can reach your staff though online messaging, meaning less time spent receiving calls, waiting on the line, and making call backs.
3. Add significant revenue to your business
If your average patient comes to see your twice a year then that is only two times per year that you receive ay profit benefit from that patient. Furthermore, that profit is controlled and reduced by third-party reimbursements. Charging a low monthly membership rate to your patients for use of the patient portal is a way for you to gain significant revenue from your patients all year long. You can also charge small fees for consultations on the portal which are not only more cost-effective for patients who avoid expensive co-pays, but they give you the added revenue directly into your pocket – without outside control from insurance companies.
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Top 5 Hospital Website Designs in the Industry
If you are in the market for hospital website design and are looking for some inspiration you have come to the right place. After sorting through hundreds of websites we have narrowed it down to 5 websites that exemplify an elite-level of hospital design. Chosen not only for their aesthetics these websites also excel in ease-of-use, conveying relevant information, and incorporate a solid SEO structure for an effective hospital internet marketing campaign.
#1 Mount Sinai Medical Center Heart Institute
This elegant and professional website design created by Medical Web Experts stands out among hospital websites. Rich colors, flash intro, fast-loading pages and easy navigation makes this website ideal for attracting new patients. Furthermore, the designers incorporated a sophisticated SEO strategy built into its layout, linking, and page designs which direct high volumes of internet traffic to the website.
#2 Cleveland Clinic
With a stunning home page slideshow and and clean layout the Cleveland Clinic has one of the top hospital website designs around. This site has a large amount of page volume which is organized, visually appealing and easy to navigate. Furthermore, the designer incorporated strong internal linking strategy which helps drive the website’s SEO.
#3 Seattle Children’s Hospital
This sleek web design uses a mix of media and color schemes to stay true to the young clientele, without sacrificing professionalism. The scroll-over menu and slideshow news updates make the site visually appealing and provides easy-to-use navigation. Plus, blogs written by healthcare providers which appear on the home screen builds trust with the readers and draws them deeper into the website.
#4 Swedish
This major brand of hospitals welcomes you to their website with a minimalist design, flash into, and icon graphics to guide you where you need to go. Shades of black, blue, and white create clean contrast and reflect the professionalism and style of this hospital.
#5 Adena
With a crisp color scheme and large slideshow intro, this site immediately grabs a visitors attention. The home page is free from clutter and uses several menu levels which keeps the site sleek and organized. Patient navigation features such as search bars and scroll-over items help users easily make their way into the site to where they need to go.
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Dermatology Westchester PR Gives Expert Information, Boosts SEO
One of the major keys to a successful press release campaign is giving something the readers to link their own content to. Dermatology Westchester physician Dr. Abadir provides an excellent example of this type of campaign in their press release “Botox vs. Juvederm”.
The original purpose of a press release was to give newsworthy information to members of the media in hopes that they would in turn report on topic, bringing free publicity to the business. In other words, the readers of the PR provide the promotion. However, in today’s world of SEO, the use of press releases has evolved into an internet marketing strategy in itself. Links are embedded in press releases in order to build SEO and link building campaigns. Therefore they are distributed widely not for media readership, but for search engines. So in the end you wind up with press releases that are solely self-promotional, don’t offer any value to readers, and, therefore, are not read.
While this type of link building strategy is somewhat effective, its effect is limited. If a press release doesn’t offer anything of educational or newsworthy value to a reader, than the readers don’t participate in the promotion. Therefore the power of the press release doesn’t go beyond the number of websites that it is published on.
In his press release campaign Dr. Abadir from a Dermatology Westchester practice gave his readers something of value which in turn the readers turned and promoted.
“Wrinkles in the skin can be caused by a loss of collagen or by repeated creasing and folding of the skin – such as by sleeping on the side of one’s face. “Fold a piece of paper or fold a sheet,” explains Dr. Abadir, a Botox Westchester provider. “Fold anything in the same place over and over again – what would happen?” The repeated folding and creasing action of the skin causes wrinkles, and Botox injections “relax the muscle in the area where the skin is creasing and allow the skin to lie flat.” As wrinkles are related to movement and Botox prevents muscles from moving, it also prevents new wrinkles from forming.”
In the excerpt above, the explanation given by the botox Westchester specialist, is automatically of value to online readers. They can copy this quote for use in their own articles, websites, or blogs which are then referenced back to the press release. This natural promotion effectively boosted this dermatology practice though promotional link building far beyond what writing for a search engine would do.
A similar effect can also be achieved by including statistics in your online press release, which have high linking value.
Updated: October 4, 2011
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Medical Doctor Web Site Design and Marketing
Hospital Web Design | Physician Marketing | Security / HIPAA | Client Showcase | Contact Us | Sitemap | Legal
© 2012 New Wave Enterprises, LLC dba Medical Web Experts - 510 Civic Center Drive | Ste A | San Diego, CA 92084 | Tel:Fax: 619-923-2155
Medical Doctor Web Site Design and Marketing
