Image credit: pepperdigital.typepad.com
I wrote about Medicine and Dog Food Marketing a week or so ago. One of the problems I think that medical practitioners will face over the coming years is the rise in patient awareness and involvement. That coming awareness and involvement is going to do to medicine what it has done to virtually every other business. It’s going to shred the old way of doing things as de-institutionalization takes hold in medicine as it has in other industries.
When our PCPs suggest another physician or specialist, the days of blindly following that suggestion are coming to a rapid end. We will Google. We will Bing. We will want to know as much about that referral as we possibly can. So too, will other practices and physicians be looking at the social media footprint of the doctors they recommend. And, while we’re all searching for those referral practices, if they don’t show up with a social media presence they might as well lock the doors. Business for them might not be over, but it will be dwindling at a speed they are not likely to believe.
What many practices miss about the “social media thing” is that by not participating they are saying, in effect, we don’t care to engage with you, our patients or potential patients. Or, with you, our referring partners. We’re too busy as it is to take the time to fool around with that. Not to worry, those of you thinking that, I have a feeling you’ll have plenty of time on your hands soon enough. Kevin, M.D., the number one ranked medical blog, put up a post addressing this issue this morning. You can read it here: Why doctors and nurses should engage in social media. As he points out, you should be thinking about building for the future, not the past.
