3/04/2020

6 Ways Your Healthcare System Should Use Content as a Service

Healthwise Communications Team

Have you ever stopped to think about just how much health content your organization uses? Between your website, mobile apps, social media, telehealth, classes, and patient education, your healthcare system is hungry for words, medical illustrations, and videos.

Some of this content, such as staff profiles and patient success stories, should be created by your team—after all, who better to tell the story of what makes your company unique? But a surprising amount of your material could be handled by what’s sometimes called “content as a service”—structured, modular pieces of content that give your organization something to wrap your message around.

Whether you’re new to the idea of using this modular approach or already have access to structured content, you might be surprised by just how much it can do. Here are six ways structured content can keep your organization front of mind with patients, securing your role as their trusted source of health information.

1. Fill your website with fresh, engaging, accurate content.
   
   Generating enough content to keep your entire website packed with engaging content can be a huge time suck, especially when faced with the task of constantly updating and rotating the information you provide. Using structured content lets you skip the process of researching, writing, editing, reviewing, and formatting your material. The right CaaS solution provides you with accurate content written in plain language so you and your patients can trust it every time.
   
   The modular nature of structured content makes the process even easier. Simply choose which topics you want to use and place them wherever you want on your site. It’s plug-and-play at its best.
2. Improve patient outcomes with videos and illustrations.
   
   Not every patient will read through an entire page of instructions, but most will watch a 2-minute video or look at a helpful medical illustration. Visuals like these help you reach patients who might otherwise struggle to understand the information you’re giving them, whether it’s because of a language barrier, reading difficulties, or simply a lack of time. Videos and illustrations can also demonstrate some medical concepts more easily.
   
   Today, visuals are more than just nice to have—they’re expected.
3. Deliver responsive content for mobile devices.
   
   Many patients need to view your content on smartphones and tablets. If your material isn’t mobile-responsive and doesn’t display well on these devices, patients won’t read it. According to WARC, 3 out of every 4 internet users will rely solely on mobile devices five years from now. Mobile technology’s emerging dominance in the digital market means many companies are having to shift the way they create content.
   
   Structured content works seamlessly with multiple formats, so you know you’re reaching your patients anytime, anywhere. Deliver videos, educational material, and graphics they can view on the bus, in bed, in the bathroom, or while they’re walking the dog.
4. Fill out your social media feeds.
   
   Sharing content that’s timely and relevant is one of the keys to a successful social media campaign. But creating content several times a week can drain your resources—and fall flat if it’s not engaging. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel every time you post, let structured content do the heavy lifting, freeing your team to write just a fraction of the posts from scratch.
   
   Promoting an upcoming 5K you’re sponsoring? Boost the impact of that message by including a couch-to-5K tracker or a video about the benefits of exercise. Getting traffic from your “Baby of the Week” photos? Educate your audience while you’ve got their attention with a post about vaccination schedules or a video called “Survival Tips for New Parents.”
5. Maximize your reach.
   
   Telehealth is a perfect environment to integrate CaaS. Why not make the time that patients spend waiting for a virtual visit more productive for them? For example, play a video related to their health issue. Or, after every virtual consultation, send a link to information that supports the topic discussed.
   
   You can even make better use of the appointment reminders you already text or email to patients by including a link to a short video, to help them prepare for their visit.
6. Make community classes and workshops a breeze.
   
   Community outreach and engagement is critical to maintaining connections between healthcare systems and the people they serve. A large part of the overhead for this outreach is tied up in the creation of the educational material. Using CaaS is an efficient way to put together those handouts, books, slides, and videos because the content is already developed and maintained.

Feed Your Hungry Healthcare System With Structured Content

The possibilities with content as a service are endless. Your organization has opportunities every day to reach patients and the community with accurate, engaging, plain-language content that has already been created for you and is ready to plug in wherever you need it. Free your team to write your stories—and let structured content do the rest.

For more ideas on how you can use structured content in your own organization, download our free eBrief, The Healthcare Marketer’s Guide to Structured Content.