Social Media and Healthcare

Googling does not mean I think I’m a doctor. It’s a sign of being an engaged, empowered “e-patient.” 

I partner with great doctors – I don’t tell them what to do. And they welcome me doing it.

I personally am completely opposed to a patient going in and saying “I’ve decided I have condition X, and I want you to prescribe 42mg QID of medication Y.” I mean, have you ever seen the things medical students have to learn to get their license??

But I’m all in favor of a patient saying, “I have symptoms A and B, and from what I can tell from websites J and Q, that sounds like it could be M.” Explain your thinking, identify your source, and try to solve the diagnostic puzzle together: Collaborate. 

The flip side is that it’s demonstrably wrong for a doctor to insist that their diagnosis must be right; 

And to flip it again, patient engagement isn’t a synonym for “the patient is always right.”

Googling is a sign of an engaged patient. The only reason a patient ever searches for information is because they’re trying to learn more! To smack that down is to discourage engagement. 

That’s empowering. That’s modern. That’s participatory. Do it that way.

The tricky parts of medicine are hard. Work together.

read this classic and evergreen post at
https://participatorymedicine.org/epatients/2015/11/the-truth-about-the-your-googling-and-my-medical-degree-mug.html

A lot of people have gone mobile and are spending a lot more time on the internet. Healthcare Marketers are now adjusting their marketing strategies to meet their customers where they are. They are now blending digitization with new techniques for greater productivity and effectiveness. A huge part of this strategic change is Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

SEO is very important and any healthcare provider in the current digital first world, should be ensuring that their digital presence is updated in sync with the SEO changes that are affecting  search engine rankings.  Why SEO Changes? That's because Google algorithms keep changing regularly as it continues to interact with users and learn new ways to be more efficient.

A few of the pointers to keep in mind while running SEO programs are:

The BERT updates: BERT(Bidirectional Encoder Representation from Transformers) is a Google A.I. tool to improve the accuracy of search results. BERT tries to understand the reasons why certain users search for a particular key-phrase, the meaning of the searches, and then identify the best results that will be of help to the user. updates by BERT will affect your SEO rankings if your content is not optimized properly to meet the BERT requirements.

The Uniqueness and Effectiveness of your Website: Over the years, Google has updated its algorithm to favor longer content that are unique, of good quality, and particularly relevant. This algorithm update is good for the healthcare industry because healthcare content is meant to be helpful and original.

The Mobile Responsiveness of Your Website: The world is going mobile and it has led to Google changing its algorithm to favor more mobile-friendly web pages. As a healthcare company, building your website to be mobile-friendly is one of the steps to ensuring your SEO is spot on. 

Read the original unedited post:

https://thefutureofhealth.care/marketing-for-healthcare/15/02/2021/seo-updates-and-its-consequences/