2022 Digital Trends in Healthcare: Best Practices and Examples

Healthcare was once a traditional industry that worked around several rounds of patient-physician interactions. Fast-forward to today, digital transformation in healthcare have now led to doctor-patient relationships in real-time without geographical limitations.

Your patients expect your healthcare business to have a quality website that is easy to navigate and aesthetically appealing. Your website is the first impression of the healthcare business, so it is essential to nail the user experience. A report from Forrester shows that improving the user interface of your website can increase conversions by as much as 200%.

The key aspects of digital transformation for healthcare include a quality user experience, boosting website conversions and engagement, and better search visibility.  If you’re looking to increase patient volume and service quality in 2022, investing in the right healthcare website design and technology infrastructure is essential.

We’ve put together a list of the hottest digital transformation trends in healthcare along with best practices and examples to help your healthcare business succeed. Implementing these healthcare trends will improve your website’s performance, bring in more leads and distinguish you as an industry leader.

#1. Rise of on-demand healthcare

Patients consulting doctors online and ordering medicines right from their phones are some of the paradigm shifts in the on-demand healthcare segment, owing to the pandemic.

McKinsey found that consumers are willing to use telemedicine platforms even when the pandemic wanes. This means a solid and responsive website design for healthcare businesses can help reap the benefits of real-time data, including healthcare data mining.

Here are some healthcare website design tips:

• Minimalism - Minimalism provides fewer distractions. One great way of improving conversions is by reducing distractions so that the patient focuses on the CTA.
• Comfortable color - Your website’s colour has a direct impact on how patients view your brand’s personality. For example white signifies safety. You’ll notice many healthcare websites are designed with white space. Use comfortable colours throughout your website and place the intense colours around your CTA.
• Improve your page speed - Pages that load within two seconds have an average bounce rate of 9% whereas pages that take five seconds to load have a 38% bounce rate. You could use lazy loading to improve page speed, which will also help in SEO and decrease the bounce rate.
• Humanize your brand - Although advancements in online communication have taken most interactions completely online, patients may miss the personalization of live interactions and lead to a sense of alienation. As a healthcare provider, you need to make your website appear human. One way could be adding a real image of a patient or medical provider to the homepage.

Let’s take the example of Doctor on Demand which facilitates virtual consultations in the form of video chats. The website uses white, cream, and blue colours to bring humanity into the web design with customer images and has an uncluttered design.

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#2. The need for real-time communication between physician and patient

We’ve seen how digital communication channels have helped businesses during the pandemic.

Having a dedicated conversation channel with patients to communicate with their providers can be a great way to keep in touch at all times. In times of emergencies, drug management, and post-hospitalization care, a telemedicine software or mhealth app help in facilitating real-time communication.

The benefits of real-time communication include:

• Instant communication - Patients can schedule appointments and get prescription updates. They can also communicate with therapists, psychologists, and care providers from the comfort of their homes.
• Remote patient monitoring - Imagine an app to monitor your blood sugar levels, heart rate and calorie intake. When the readings reach a threshold, the physician is alerted. Remote patient monitoring platforms have essential features for hospitals that patients can use both on-site and on the move.
• Alerts and notifications - They contribute largely to preventing no-shows, both for patients and doctors since all parties are reminded of scheduled appointments.
• Telemedicine - Features such as video consultations, e-prescriptions, in-built CRM, online payment, electronic health records, and patient history analysis and management have made telemedicine app development an important aspect of healthcare businesses.

Maple is a telemedicine app for connecting to certified doctors for medical care, right from your phone, tablet, or computer. Patients can chat with physicians, share the symptoms and the doctor writes the prescription. Further, the app identifies the nearest pharmacy. Custom healthcare development allows you to add features as per the needs of your target audience.

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#3. A deep focus on UX/UI design for healthcare apps

Designing healthcare websites, software, and apps requires great responsibility and that requires an added focus on the user. As people’s healthcare is at the core of these apps, UX/UI design comes first.

Let’s take the example of Jinga Life, an app that connects patients with their caregivers, family, and friends. The app can be used across all devices and in many different contexts. Clarity and intuitiveness are the best features of the app and they do not leave any room for doubt. Notes of pill prescriptions, doctor appointments, and everyday symptoms can be added.

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Ensure that your healthcare mobile app has clear and intuitive navigation such that the user can quickly enter information into the platform, even while doing other activities alongside.

Explore TechWyse’s conversion optimization and landing page design services for the best ROI in your healthcare business’s digital transformation.

#4. Modernizing the IT infrastructure

Modern healthcare businesses providing quality care know that lives are at stake. Rigorous testing and planning form a critical part of digital transformation when you plan to modernize your IT infrastructure.

The backbone of most organizations’ health IT infrastructure is Electronic Health Records (EHRs). The lack of interoperability is a limitation of EHRs.

Additionally, digital transformation involves upgrading to technologies like big data, AI, and IoT that can help improve patient management and remote patient monitoring.

Some healthcare tech trends making inroads in 2022 are:

• Cloud-based technologies - Healthcare organizations operate in a dynamic environment where the cloud facilitates EMRs mobile apps, patient portals, and wearable devices. It provides scalability, and flexibility and improves decision-making.
• IoT solutions - Connected healthcare in the form of chatbots and wearable devices have IoT technology at their core.
• Cyberthreats - Healthcare businesses need to integrate robust solutions like MDM for healthcare to ensure the security of patient data, EMR records, and organizational information. Healthcare IT will have to be proactive in protecting endpoints.

Assess your healthcare business needs before incorporating IT solutions for your organization. Adding to that, healthcare emails have the highest open rate of 23.46% as per Mailerlite. Incorporating a professional touch, consider enhancing your email communications with a doctor email signature, providing a personalized and secure signature that adds credibility and trust to your patient interactions. In this age where data is the most critical asset, it is important to ensure that your digital solutions are HIPAA compliant.

#5. The role of content in the patient journey

Let’s think if you were to read about the do’s and don’ts during the pandemic or look for the basic symptoms, where would you go to find this information?

Surely, Google or a healthcare website. As a healthcare service provider, having an online library of content not only helps your users but a large group of people searching for that information.

Your company could have a budget for digital content that helps educate the audiences while following industry rules and regulations. As the Coronavirus spread, most healthcare brands including the Fortune 1000 list started updating their sites and social channels with useful information. Many of them had no other content on their website prior to the pandemic. The articles, videos, and announcements showed that healthcare companies can adapt quickly when the need arises.

Have a content expert on your team, who can craft engaging, effective, and high-impactful stories. Alongside, have a medical expert fact-check whatever is written before being published. This partnership can enrich your content marketing and it is important for SEO. When it comes to content that can affect your health, Google has extremely high standards.

Using multimedia in the form of videos and images for health education promotes active learning and generates wider user interest. InVideo, a video creation tool can help you provide information on healthcare that is easily understood by your users.

Cleveland Clinic has an extensive library of online content covering health, wellness, and fitness tips.

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#6. Personalized experiences

The ability to send tailored brand messages to specific audiences by utilizing their prospect profiles is called personalization. Did you know, that 80% of customers are more likely to purchase your product or service if you provide personalized experiences? A personalized touch enables you to establish a humanized connection with your prospective patients.

Let’s explore the ways in which you can implement personalization in healthcare:

• A great way to add website personalization even after business hours is through a chatbot. Chatbots improve the customer experience by answering frequently asked questions. The chatbot mimics communication through a human person.
• Another way is to send your patients targeted emails. They could be appointment reminders, preventive tips, and so forth. You can integrate a CRM with email marketing software such as MailChimp alternatives. Email marketing helps you build long-lasting relationships with patients. After the first experience, email marketing allows you to stay in touch with them regularly. Incorporating a professional touch, consider enhancing your email communications with a doctor email signature, providing a personalized and secure signature that adds credibility and trust to your patient interactions.
• Predictive analytics on your website provides insights that analyze consumers’ past behavior and predict future behavior.

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#7. Mobile-first approach

The watershed moment for mhealth apps was during the pandemic when they bridged the gap between patients and physicians. As per McKinsey survey, 40% of consumers intended to use telehealth going forward.

Mhealth app development allows you to track everything ranging from a patient's health status to medication adherence in minutes for real-time data.

Conclusion

The face of the healthcare industry is constantly evolving. As a healthcare provider, it is essential to understand that these new technologies are improving patient-provider relationships, increasing staff engagement, and ultimately contributing to the overall organizational growth. Consider this guide on digital transformation in healthcare in 2022 as a navigator helping you build transformative experiences for your customers.