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3 Steps to Reach the Wireless Patient

 |  By Marianne@example.com  
   November 03, 2010

My eight-year-old neighbor has a smartphone. My partially blind elderly aunt has a smartphone. The President of the United States, for the first time ever, has a smartphone. And if you want qualitative evidence that more people are using the devices, 17% of U.S. adults used a smartphone in 2009, up from 11% in 2008 and 7% in 2007, according to Forrester Research.

In response to this upward trend, forward-looking hospitals are beginning to focus their marketing efforts on mobile technology such as mobile-specific websites, geotargeted mobile ads, and custom smartphone applications.

Be mobile-friendly
Southern Regional Health System in Riverdale, GA, created a mobile-friendly site in January so smartphone users in the Atlanta area could access key information without experiencing the delays that often occur when accessing a non-mobile website on their phone. If a user on an iPhone, BlackBerry, Palm, Android, or other type of smartphone navigates to www.southernregional.org, he or she will be automatically directed to the health system's mobile-specific site.

"Patients are using the site on the go—whether they have a medical condition they need to address or whether it's top of mind," said Marcus Gordon, who was strategic marketing manager for the 331-bed hospital; he has since become director of marketing and public relations at Atlanta Medical Center. "We're also seeing the mobile-specific website as a conduit for finding physicians and physician offices and directions."

Two months after the mobile-specific site launched, Gordon found that smartphone visitors accounted for 2.5% of overall traffic. By August, seven months after it launched, mobile visitors accounted for 5% of the site's traffic. Gordon expects mobile traffic to continue to increase.

"The utilization of mobile technology and platforms is being steadily adopted in most demographic segments," he said in the October issue of HealthLeaders magazine. "For us, it plays a big part in our communications—and moving forward in most organizations, especially with integrated marketing campaigns, it will have a role."

Take advantage of geotargeting
Harbor Hospital in Baltimore has used geotargeted ads in a recent integrated campaign promoting its emergency department. Using geolocation technology, the 193- bed hospital's ads will appear on the mobile versions of popular news and consumer sites for smartphone users in the area.

"Being able to access the Internet on handheld devices isn't going anywhere—it is only expanding and the audience is starting younger," said Nikki Laska, marketing and communications manager for the hospital.

"Mobiles allow us to target potential patients based on their location, and it allows them fast access to our hospital information with a click of a button. Because time is of the essence when finding emergency care, we want Baltimore area residents, business professionals, and tourists to know that quality emergency care is only minutes away."

Create customized apps
Downloadable smartphone apps are another way hospitals are sharing information with patients and physicians. One of the most common smartphone apps among hospitals is a tool that informs mobile users of emergency room wait times.

Apps can be made for internal use, too. Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital created an in-house iPhone app called VitalHub, which allows its physicians to securely access patient records, test results, and medical literature from an internal data network.

Southern Regional recently created an app in an attempt to increase donations to its foundation. Users who download the app can also read the latest Southern Regional news and watch videos. But so far, the results for that effort are mediocre.

"I wouldn't say it's been below expectations, but the traffic hasn't been as great," Gordon said. "The mobile-specific site has exceeded our expectations and has been a big satisfier to our internal clients like physicians as well as our external consumer base."

And by instituting these mobile strategies now, your organization will be in a position to reach its increasingly wired consumer base for generations to come.

Marianne Aiello is a contributing writer at HealthLeaders Media.

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