Patient acquisition has long been one of the greatest challenges facing hospitals and healthcare organizations.
The rise of the internet has exacerbated patient acquisition challenges by giving prospective patients easy access to provider reviews and other information. When patients have seemingly limitless options, it is difficult for healthcare organizations to differentiate themselves from the competition.
Fortunately, organizations can use the digital ecosystem to their advantage and enhance patient acquisition capabilities with data analytics.
The healthcare data analytics market has been growing at a 15.3% compound annual growth rate and is expected to reach a value of $96.9 billion by 2030. This market has been experiencing such rapid growth for one reason: data analytics works.
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Healthcare Organizations Already Have the Data — Now’s the Time to Use It
The key to a successful data analytics strategy is high-quality data. Unlike many other industries, hospitals and healthcare organizations already have most (if not all) of the data they need to engage in effective analytics. Many of them just aren’t leveraging it.
Hospitals already have access to the following valuable patient data:
- Email addresses
- Names
- Employment information
- Insurance information
- Phone numbers
- Physical addresses
Additionally, some healthcare organizations collect data on how patients learn about their services.
Asking patients whether they found out about a provider by visiting its business page, via social media, or through a review website has become common practice. This information allows healthcare organizations to assess the efficacy of their outreach efforts and identify which channels are producing the strongest results.
How Healthcare Data Analytics Can Drive Patient Acquisition
By analyzing patient and healthcare data, organizations can:
Identify Core Audiences that Align with Priorities
Hospitals and healthcare organizations closely monitor utilization, referrals and program investments. Using patient demographic data to identify where core audiences reside, enter the system. For instance, a local healthcare organization may find that most of its patients are males ages 40 to 65. It could then use this data to tailor its future marketing campaigns toward these audiences.
Identifying core audiences is one of the first steps in the creation of winning campaigns. After an organization has identified its ideal audience segments, it can create unique content for each group of prospective patients.
Target Patients at Pivotal Points in Their Journey
Healthcare organizations can use another form of analytics to reach potential patients exactly when they need a provider.
Predictive analytics helps hospitals target ideal leads who are browsing the internet for information about medical services. After identifying these leads, organizations can nurture them with well-placed, curated ads that speak to the individual’s unique needs.
Ad targeting assists with patient acquisition and can help businesses boost the return on investment of their overall ad dollars. Ultimately, this will lead to better profitability and less resource waste.
Guide Marketing Spend
Without data analytics, healthcare organizations may find it difficult to identify which marketing channels work and which don’t. In turn, this can lead to waste and cause businesses to burn through their marketing budgets without producing any meaningful results.
Healthcare data analytics allows hospitals to pinpoint which channels are driving traffic. After an organization determines which channels have the most impact, it can double down on those investments while reducing spending on less effective options.
Incorporating Healthcare Data Analytics into Your Strategy
By leveraging healthcare data analytics, your organization can overcome the pain point of patient acquisition.
Data analytics solutions will help you gain real-time insights into the patient experience, marketing performance, and your target audience’s needs. You can use these insights to guide decision-making, increase the efficacy of marketing campaigns, and acquire more patients.
Step one involves assessing your current decision-making processes and taking stock of data already available. Once you know what information you have at your disposal, you can begin to tap into it through data analytics.
