Text messaging has quickly become a vital piece to the communication puzzle. In fact, 66% of people check their phones around 160 times a day! This means that recipients are highly likely to notice when they receive an SMS message. The healthcare industry can take advantage of this statistic by offering SMS messaging to their patients to increase the patient experience.
Improving Patient Experience with SMS
Although many of us use text messages in our personal life, there has been an increase in how much businesses use text messaging with their customers. This is something that the healthcare industry can take advantage of as well. There are many use cases for SMS in the healthcare industry. We will highlight a few examples below that have a high impact on increasing patient experience.
Scheduling
Scheduling appointments and meetings can be tedious and time-consuming work. SMS has taken this burden away from the scheduling team, and put the power into the patient’s hands. Not only can patients schedule their appointments through SMS, but managers and team leaders can schedule meetings and even work shifts through SMS. When last-minute changes take place, SMS can be a good way to reach out to those affected.
Reminders
Along with scheduling comes reminders. Reminders for upcoming meetings can be crucial to staff members. If all members show up to the meeting on time, everyone can get back to work faster. Along those lines, missed meetings or delayed meetings can cost valuable time and money. Also, patients may have to wait longer due to longer meeting times. Patient experience can increase when meetings are on time, and everyone is accounted for.
Patient experience can also increase when they receive appointment reminders too. While missed appointments cost the healthcare industry billions of dollars a year, they can also be a big burden on patients themselves. While forgetting appointments or missing appointments is sometimes unavoidable, rescheduling can be a pain. A quick automated text message reminder from the healthcare facility can really improve the patient experience.
Medication Notifications
There are some patients who need recurring medications throughout their life to maintain their chronic illness. SMS messaging can improve the patient experience by letting them know when their medication is ready to be picked up. Also, SMS messaging can be used to inform patients of the correct usage of medications as well as alert them that it is time to make an appointment in order to receive their mediation.
Lifestyle Notifications
The best patient experience is when the patient can avoid needing a doctor, to begin with. The best way to avoid the doctor’s office is to lead a healthy lifestyle. Family doctors and general practitioners can support their patients by sending lifestyle tips through SMS. By encouraging healthy choices, doctors and patients can work together to improve the overall health of the patient without numerous doctor visits.
Patient Portals
There are some patients who like to have access to their medical records, lab results, appointment information, and other medical details without the need to call the office. The best fit for these patients is an internet-based patient portal. SMS can be useful for these patients, as a quick SMS can allow for one-time-use passwords. This alleviates the burden of creating another new password for another website.
Improve Your Patient Experience Today
If you are a decision-maker for a healthcare facility, and you are ready to introduce SMS messaging, HighComm is here for you. Taking steps to improve the patient experience can improve the overall bottom line of your facility, which can keep your doors open for years to come and patients healthier than ever!
HighComm is here to answer any questions you may have with business communications, not just business text messaging. Contact us today to get started with SMS messaging for your healthcare facility!
