Digital Marketing

Top benefits of using SMS technology in the Healthcare Industry

SMS Messaging in healthcare

The most obvious and immediate benefit of using SMS technology in the healthcare industry is the ability to provide more effective diagnoses and treatments of patients. However, there are benefits across the board including for your administrative, customer care, internal communications, and marketing departments.

Use SMS alerts for appointment reminders

SMS technology is the easiest and most efficient way to communicate with your patients. By automating appointment booking systems, healthcare providers are able to save money and free up administrative time by using SMS alerts for patient appointment reminders. Do you know that annoying problem where patients forget about their appointments? Sending reminders about upcoming appointments directly to your patients’ phone ensures that they’re aware of the time, date and location of their consultation. Problem solved!

Provide feedback on diagnostic test results via SMS alerts

Some test results are obviously of a sensitive nature and healthcare providers would prefer to discuss them face-to-face with their patients. A great deal, however, is of a far less complex nature, and administrative and communication costs could be cut by using SMS alerts to provide patients with their results.

Use SMS technology for prescription reminders

There are numerous ways SMS technology can be used to benefit patients and administrative healthcare staff when it comes to prescription reminders. Configure your messages with each patient’s details and automate your messaging to let patients know via an SMS alert when their repeat prescription is about to expire or when they need to collect prescribed medicine.

Create new calls-to-action

Many patients will need follow-up phone calls to measure how they’re feeling – perhaps after being prescribed a new regimen of medication. Using 2-way SMS technology, you can allow your patients to respond with a simple “YES” to let you know that they need to schedule another appointment. A simple reply of “No Thanks” from your patient would let you know that everything is okay and that they’re on the mend.

Patient feedback on healthcare services

Gathering feedback from patients on the standards of healthcare received is a great way to improve your services. Again, 2-way SMS allows you to collect this information quickly and easily. You could send out a short survey or use an easy to remember shortcode that patients can use to send you their feedback.

Improve internal communications

Given the 24/7 nature of the healthcare industry, communication within the organization can often be very lacking. SMS alerts have the ability to keep internal communication infrastructure together. Notify healthcare staff of timetable changes, staff meetings, employee birthdays, urgent notifications, and so much more.

And there you have it! Just a few of the many instances where SMS technology can be used to benefit healthcare providers. All that’s left is for you to implement these ideas and immediately start reaping the benefits. Clickatell allows you to send messages to multiple locations via the best possible messaging routes. Sign up for your free Clickatell account today and you’ll get 100 free test credits to start experimenting with how your healthcare service can benefit by making use of SMS alerts.

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