HEALTHCARE MARKETING EXECUTIVES BILLBOARDS ARE ONLY THE BEGINNING IN THE ER WAIT TIMES WARS
If you spend anytime on the road these days, you’ve probably seen hospitals touting their short ER wait times “LIVE” on any of the highways’ many billboards.
HCA hospitals started the strategy in Florida, developed by their advertising agency, AB&A out of Miami. And the outcomes were fantastic. Some showed increases in ER traffic of up to 25%! Of course, HCA’s wait times were stellar, almost always less than 30 minutes, many times less than that.
But then came the new marketing wrinkle that REALLY got the ER’s cranking: Live ER wait times delivered to potential patients via text message in the middle of their emergency. That’s right, just think about it. Your daughter cuts her finger and needs 3 stitches. Don’t you want to know if you need to go to Hospital A and wait 18 minutes or Hospital B and wait 312 minutes? Pretty simple decision.
So what’s this whole text thing about anyway? Well, its about a trillion of them. Over a trillion texts sent in the US in 2009 and climbing. More and more, people are using their smart phones as the device of choice for making decisions on the go.
Many hospitals are turning to the industry leader for live ER text services, ERTexting out of Miami, Florida. Currently the company manages the 4ER411 system of ER text messages. The patient texts 4ER411 with their zip code and instantly they receive a text of the participating hospitals’ live wait times. Hospitals can secure zip codes on an exclusive basis and use the system to really dominate their competitors. And now 4ER411 even features outbound services to maximize their clients’ database. Patients can routinely receive text messages from hospitals on the system for pennies.
So if you’re looking for the wow factor, get that big billboard and let the whole world know! But if getting ahead of the marketing curve is your thing, text away and reap the rewards.
Sarah McCallister
Concept Behind ER Texting Service
Many People still aren’t familiar with the new phenomenon that has hit ER Waiting Rooms. A new service has been presented to hospitals all over the United States that allows patients to text their zip code to 4ER411 and get local (participating) hospital er wait times. The service is absolutely free to those who text in their zip code. The image shown depicts how the new system works:
Emergency Planning Via Texting
Why Publish Emergency Room wait times?
written by Jennifer Reynolds
Here are 4 facts on why hospitals are increasingly marketing their ER wait times via text and other advertising vehicles. If you have an ED to promote, the evidence is overwhelmingly positive.
Patient Satisfaction When patients know your emergency room wait time, their expectations are set and experience enhanced. Knowing what to expect translates into higher level of patient satisfaction.
Transparency Whether its quality scores, infection rates or provider comparisons consumers trust what they can see . Marketing your emergency room performance aligns with what consumers desire and are currently demanding.
Emergency Department Performance By being transparent, your ED team will be more motivated to drive performance, quality and patient satisfaction. Consumer awareness motivates ED team members to take deeper ownership of their services and instills a greater sense of pride. Published times can also support other benchmarks and metrics already in place.
Hospital Image Publishing emergency room wait times for consumers to instantly retrieve with a single text, reflects your being in touch with your communities. Reaching out to your markets and offering instantaneous information via a single text reinforces your position as a market leader. Your hospital will be seen as “informed and connected”.
There you have it. And we haven’t even covered the costs, which are minimal. You can usually promote your hospital’s live ER wait times for under the cost of that 1 newspaper ad that less and less people are reading every day. Catch the tech wave or get washed away. Some healthy advice!
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ER Wait Times: To Text or Not to Text?
That is the question and the answer is very simple.
If your hospital is focusing on ER admissions and generating
ER wait times under the staggering national average of 4 hours,
then yes, by all means, let people know about it. Texting ER
wait times is one of the strongest arrows in the healthcare
marketing quiver.
In 2009, over 1.6 trillion–with a “tr”–texts were sent and received
in the United States alone. People are texting more than they are
talking or e-mailing. Texting enables people to make a quick decision
about which hospital provides the shortest ER wait time and that in
turn enables people to begin their positive patient experience.
Studies show that many hospitals that market their ER wait times have
shown double digit increases in ER admissions. Although this has generally
meant a combination of tactics such as billboards, web site postings as
well as texting, the anecdotal evidence is there: people waking into the
ER, cell phone in hand, asking if the wait time is “really just 22 minutes?”
And speaking of people walking into the ER: some hospitals servicing larger
populations have worried over the idea of creating a further burden on their
already strained system. But think about this: marketing the text code
4ER411 to the marketplace is totally controlled by the hospital.
The hospital chooses who learns of the text code, how they learn about it,
when they learn about it. It can be geo-targeted, age targeted,
demographically targeted, so the hospital can maintain better control
of their overall ER targeting.
If your hospital is trying to open up that front door just a bit wider,
then promoting ER wait times is definitely the way to go.
written by Matthew Blakely
HOSPITAL MARKETING BUDGETS DOWN, CREATIVITY UP!
There’s a growing trend among hospital marketers, that is:
Budgets are going down and moving in the direction of online.
What else is new? That’s what most industries are doing.
However, technology is playing an even more unique role in some
hospitals’ marketing efforts. The ER or ED, long the front door and
bringer of patients both coveted and tolerated is now the focal point
for marketing in many hospitals nationwide.
So what makes for great ER/ED marketing? Simple. Speed. Oh of course
quality matters, but in many cases of minor emergencies, quality is assumed.
Therefore, it comes down to the quality patient experience and how quickly
the hospital can get it going.
Many hospitals have gone to publishing live ER wait times on the web on billboards
and the latest trend, via text message. The leader in this technology is ERTexting, Inc.
out of Florida, providing a nationwide vanity text code: 4ER411 that can be accessed
by all potential patients. Hospitals can buy the service for a fraction of what it would
cost them to implement the service on their own. And without all the IT hassles.
So put it on your “To-Do” list. If you’re in charge of marketing your hospital and your
ER/ED is important to you, put your live ER wait times on the map. In this crazy
“techy” world we live in, it’s what potential patients want to see.
ER Texting Emergency Services
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