5 Reasons Why Healthcare Marketers Need Targeted Digital Health Risk Assessments

When a healthcare marketer hears the term health risk assessment (HRA), patient engagement may not be the first thing that comes to mind. After all, general health risk assessments are typically long, tedious, and not a pleasant user experience. 

However, there is a new breed of online health risk assessments and symptom assessors that are quite the opposite of general HRAs. These targeted HRAs and symptom assessments are designed specifically for Hospitals, Health Systems and clinics to build online engagement.

A targeted HRA is comprised of a short 5-7 minute evidence-based health questionnaires that provides insight into a person’s own health risks for a certain disease or condition. With several leading targeted HRAs, after answering a few demographic, family history, and medical history questions, the user will receive an instant risk result report and personalized next steps they should take with their healthcare provider based on their results.

These assessments are the front end of a sophisticated patient engagement platform that identifies at-risk individuals, engages them in a conversation about their health, and motivates them to take action with the right provider at the right time. The back-end platform may include detailed performance analytics, marketing automation follow-up and measurement tools, and a robust health data set that can be leveraged for further marketing initiatives to drive population health and patient acquisition. 

So why is this new breed of digital health risk assessments so important and why do health care marketers need them?

1. They provide a strong call to action for any marketing campaign – traditional or digital. If you want to get a consumer to take action, you need to get them personally involved. A great way to get a consumer personally involved with your message is by inviting them to take a personal health assessment. It’s not just inviting them to learn about health risks, it’s inviting them to learn about “their own” personal health risks. Not everyone thinks they need to see a specialist for a consultation, or will come to a screening event or health fair, or attend a seminar. A targeted assessment will provide a consumer with the personal motivation to take next steps and respond to your invitation to attend a health event, get screened, or make an appointment.

2. They are proactive. Think of the types of services that are marketed by hospitals, health systems and clinics. Many of these services are marketed to people who may already be searching for them. They are healthcare shoppers. Shoppers are experiencing a need, they have pain, and they need to find a remedy. But what about those who are not shopping? How do you identify those people? How do you identify those who don’t think they have a need? You put an invitation to complete a personal health risk assessment in their path. Out of curiosity, they, or their spouse/partner completes the quiz for them, and it reveals a health risk they never knew existed. For instance, many who are at risk for developing heart disease, or at serious risk of a heart attack or stroke, may never experience a symptom before a catastrophic medical event. These people would likely never be motivated to respond to an invitation to a heart screening event. But if they learned they have a high risk of developing heart disease through a targeted health risk assessment, they may be particularly motivated to attend a heart screening event or consult with a physician about their results.

3. They provide a precise mechanism for ROI measurement for any campaign whether traditional or digital. With more robust targeted assessments, the completion data is tracked in the platform backend database. Healthcare marketers can use the performance data and collected information as intelligence for matching to downstream revenue. This data can also integrate with Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRM) which can provide automated ROI calculations. Because the online assessment activities are traceable using google analytics, as well as other tracking tools such as special URL’s, they provide excellent measurement of various marketing messaging from different channels.

4. They can dramatically increase conversions in paid search and social media campaigns reaching mobile users. In a recent case study involving a Texas health system, over 100 conversions per week were achieved using targeted HRAs as the primary call to action. Nearly 40% of those that completed the online assessments came out at high-risk. Over 90% of the assessments were completed via mobile devices.

5. They reinforce your brand. Many assessments can be customized with the organizations colors, logos, campaign images, contact information, and most importantly, their messaging. With marketing automation, the brand promise of the organization is being communicated from the initial look & feel of the assessment to the risk result reports, and follow up.

With hospitals and health systems keenly focused on health and wellness branding, even the idea of the targeted health risk assessment itself is an extension of the brand. It positions the hospital, health system, or clinic as a health and wellness leader in the community - proactively seeking to improve population health, one individual at a time. Virtually any healthcare organization’s brand messaging can be woven into a personal health risk assessment.

Conclusion

If you are a healthcare marketer and are still not convinced you need targeted digital health risk assessments in your digital strategy, perhaps this information will help. A May 7, 2015 article in eHealthcare Strategy & Trends listed 10 trends that are dominating digital healthcare. The new breed of digital health risk assessments fall squarely into half of the trends listed. They provide a conduit for sending prequalified and motivated patients to physician directories. They bring website health content and interactivity that deepen a consumer’s understanding of health issues, are mobile responsive, boost social media marketing effectiveness, and promote health and wellness. 

Chris Boyer, a digital marketing industry thought leader says, “If you are going to do anything with digital healthcare marketing, make sure it includes SEM and an HRA.”

Targeted digital HRAs are not just for the cutting edge health systems or early adopters of new trends in healthcare digital marketing. They are necessary for any healthcare marketer looking to make an effective digital marketing investment to accomplish their marketing and business objectives.