Relevance of social media for Doctors in India

It is important for doctors to market their service through all available tools/mediums and social media is one of the tools.
Here I have tried to list down various types of marketing tools used by healthcare professionals in the order of there importance:

1. Word-of-mouth
2. Public lectures or seminars
3. Being a visiting consultant with more hospitals
4. Featuring in media stories
5. Websites
6. Participating in free check-up camps
7. Giving lectures at CMEs
8. Social Media

The above comprehensive list gives a good amount of publicity for the doctors to portray their services to their customers (patients, media, doctors, etc). With the advent of new technology and informed patients it has become prerogative for doctors to address using new mediums and be connected with there patients.

Now looking this scenario from Indian context the doctors are quite bearish accepting these new mediums. They still think and believe in the traditional form of marketing i.e. Word-of-mouth. The new generation of doctors are to a large extent aware about new ways to market themselves.

Doctors now are aware about treating their patients, keeping a stock of disease awareness brochures in d clinic, are available on mobile and email, don’t mind debating with patients and updated with latest developments in d medical science field.

Social media through freely available there is investment of time and this will be managed by trained Social Media Optimisation (SMO) consultants.

The SMO creates and helps to design various templates like account on twitter, facebook, wordpress, linkedin, plaxo, connect doctors , etc. Also creating the doctors website and aligning with these different social networking platforms. All these platforms will then be used by doctor to inform his patients about his knowledge, case studies, booking of appointments, etc.

Below is a small eg to showcase how social media can become a boon for healthcare professionals and doctors, check out on - mashable.com

NGOs help to increase awareness on Healthcare

Healthcare and NGOs always go hand in hand. A lot of times NGOs help to address healthcare issues. NGOs work to improve healthcare facilities and services, they have lot of freedom, motivated staff, so respond easily to the needs of the healthcare community.

Following are some of the issues NGOs work on or create awareness on:

1. Malnutrition
2. Deficiency of Iron
3. Stress on students
4. Noise pollution
5. Air pollution
6. Vaccination
7. Drug abuse
8. Sexual abuse
9. Sucidie
10. Cartract operations
11. AIDS preventation

NGOs help to raise awareness on healthcare amongst patients and the common people. Their are also NGOs who promote good/healthy living manners amongst people. They work in the arena of Dental care, washing hands before eating food, etc.

So NGOs form very important part of healthcare awareness in turn growing the Healthcare industry. So it is very important for healthcare industry to promote and publicize such NGOs. Promoting NGOs will help create awareness among the target group, who in turn buy the product and increase business. NGOs act as the company's critic partner highlighting the weakness of the product. NGOs can become the CSR initiative arm of the company, thus creating goodwill about the company. It is easy to generate awareness about a disease category with the help of an NGO. NGOs can be used to attack competitors, coz when an NGO publicizes weakness/ill-effects about the competitor’s products in press they generate lot of mileage, thus impacting the business of competitor. NGOs can fight for a plea with the competitor company and still earn respect in terms of helping the society.

Healthcare is a very critical area and one mistake can lead to the downfall of a company. Coz Healthcare is related to the wellbeing of a human being and something destroying it will create negative influence.

How the company selects an NGO or should the company launch its own NGO?
Well, as per my experience the company in association with an existing NGO should launch a new NGO. The company will fund it and the NGO will take care on operations area. In the long run even if the existing NGO breaks the contract, the company can run/manage this new NGO on its own.

Companies can get detailed information on NGOs through http://www.indianngos.com/

Also can visit the following link for an more information: http://www.expresshealthcaremgmt.com/20030615/conversation.shtml

Evolution of Healthcare Communications and Public Relations

There was a time, when there were very less no of doctors available to treat patients. But with the growth in economy the number of doctors has increased and the patients numbers has also risen with the rise in new age diseases.
A new attitude among patients has been observed in last couple of years which the doctors never anticipated? The patients now are much more informed. Now, patients do their homework on the aliment they are suffering from, and information technology plays a crucial part in spreading information.

Patients now, are more prone to do a Google on their ailment they are suffering, the best doctor available, advisable treatment and medicines. With the information, patients have become knowledgeable; they now ask the doctor for more information on the ailments, diseases and debate on best possible treatments.

The media for quite sometime observed this trend and launched columns and wellness supplements in there publications. For that matter even TV Channels, Websites, Radio stations have dedicated special shows and sections for the public at large. Most of the issues are related to Health, Wellness, Fitness and diet. Through extensive coverage is given to Health based stories, New technologies in hospitals, successful case studies, Yoga, Wellness columns by eminent doctors, Q & A based columns, etc. These articles often quote expert doctors, and leads to awareness on the doctors expertise.

This phenomenon suddenly gave a boost to Healthcare PR. Healthcare PR professionals often publicize the doctors, treatment and diseases. Well this is for what they are known for. But they also do a lot of other things like

1. Provide information on wellness
2. Crisis management of medicines
3. Information on new diseases and treatments
4. Creating awareness on existing incorrect policies
5. Website designing
6. Doctor's brochure compiling
7. Promotion of CMEs

There are lots of other aspects where a Healthcare PR professional plays an important part. Healthcare PR professionals have become an intrinsic part in spreading word-of-mouth awareness and pubicing the Doctors Consulting business.

Image management in Healthcare industry

Healthcare industry for decades was dependent on word-of-mouth publicity. Even when the industry started operating as corporate entity they still were not able to advertise because of stringent rules laid by ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research).
Also the Indian mindset, I mean the public at large don't really trust advertisements in healthcare sector, so this leaves the sector with very little prospects of publicity.

Whether doctors should advertise has been in debate for a very long time in ICMR meetings, but I think this discussion will continue, as the decision makers are of the old thought process and believe that if the Hospital/doctor is really good then the patients will spread the good word to target audience and that’s the main reason they are against advertising.

So the main question arises whether this should this stop the healthcare sector from hiring Advertising and Brand Consultants?

No

Rather the healthcare sector should hired Brand or PR Consultants who will help in providing advice and guide on managing the brand. It is very essential for a healthcare provider to define internal as well as external communications, to segregate the target audience, to inform about the services offered and the most important to device a crisis management strategy. These Consultants will also help to position the Healthcare provider in the minds of its target audience.

Most often the doctors who have completed Masters in Healthcare Administration take charge of the marketing department of these Healthcare companies, and they certainly cannot advice on Brands and how it relates to the company philosophy. Actually this is the main reason Healthcare companies need experienced Brand/Image Consultants.

Case Study: Hinduja Hospital, a trust managed hospital with a capacity of 351 beds including ICUs, ICCUs, latest technology to diagnose and treat patients, very highly qualified Medical and Para-medical staff to managed emergencies, etc. Most of its doctors often quote in media on various health related issues, media has a very positive attitude towards the hospital, so half battle is won when solving crisis situations.

The hospital never advertises because it is a charitable trust hospital helping poor patients. The best part is even media knows this about Hinduja Hospital, but what happens when an opinion survey is conducted. The findings very much deviate from the philosophy of the hospital, it shows that the hospital is for rich people and hardly any poor patients opt for treatment in Hinduja Hospital. Quite surprising! But that’s the truth about this hospital. Now the public perception needs to be changed so the brand is in sync with its philosophy, mission and perception.
In this case the hospital needs to hire an Image Consultancy which would try to change the perception over a period. The plan would be a mix of events, CMEs, internal communication programs, brochure and information document development, etc. The Image Consultancy with experience and market survey will help Hinduja Hospital to position itself as a world class Hospital for poor.