Earning the right to reach out to patients | Healthy Bottom Line podcast

Patients are scouring the web for information on healthcare and medicine, and (spoiler alert) some information online is unreliable.

Ann Bilyew, president of WebMD Ignite, talks about engaging patients in ways they want in the latest episode of Healthy Bottom Line, a podcast from Chief Healthcare Executive.

Ann Bilyew, president of WebMD Ignite, talks about the importance of giving patients trustworthy healthcare information in the latest episode of Healthy Bottom Line, a podcast from Chief Healthcare Executive®.

Healthcare organizations need to understand that it’s not just about providing good information to patients or prospective patients. It’s presenting that information authentically and connecting with patients in different ways.

“You need to reach people where they are, and you need to earn the right to communicate with them,” Bilyew says. “You need to earn the right to communicate with consumers.”

Many people gravitate to short videos on healthcare topics on TikTok and other platforms because they're captivating.

“The reason people are going to these sources for medical information is because it's easy and because it's produced in a way that feels very relevant for them, and maybe even, God forbid, a little entertaining,” Bilyew says.

“So we have to earn the right to communicate with consumers by giving them information that's super timely, super relevant, formatted in a way that they can consume it, that they want to consume it, in the right channel, in the right format, in the right language, at the right time,” she continues. “That takes a tremendous effort.”

Healthcare organizations need to consider communicating with patients in different channels, such as social media platforms, email and text.

“There are some patients, or some consumers today that only have a phone,” she says. “They don't have a PC, they don't have a laptop. They're not actually accessing the internet on a laptop. They're not going to a patient portal on a laptop, or PC, or whatever. They have their phone, and that is their only connection to the rest of the world.”

Other sectors of the economy have demonstrated they know how to reach consumers in novel ways, and that’s an area where the healthcare industry can do better, she says.

“You also need to make people feel like you understand them, and to do that in a way that feels appropriate to them, but also feels like they've been heard, and you understand them, and you've taken the time to get to know them. And that's part of what I described earlier, is earning the right to communicate with them,” Bilyew says.

Patients are also coming with more information and doing more homework in selecting providers, she says.

“Consumers are just so much savvier than we used to be, because we have access to so much more information …. So people are used to having access to information that they use to make good decisions for themselves, whether it's a purchase of an item or selecting a health plan or selecting a provider,” Bilyew says.

In a wide-ranging discussion, Bilyew talked about her work at WebMD Ignite, patient engagement, the challenge of providing the latest medical information when healthcare is changing so rapidly, and some lessons in leadership that have proven to be valuable.

Check out the entire discussion here in our latest edition of Healthy Bottom Line. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.