Mr. Chawla was having severe tooth pain, so he asked his son Malay to take him to a good dentist. Malay’s main concern was if the doctor will be careful with his elderly father. Malay searched on Google for “dentist for elderly in my area” and Dr. Srishti’s profile came up. He clicked on her Facebook page and went through the posts. Alongwith the photos of her clinic’s infrastructure, she had posted cool graphics with tips on how to keep teeth healthy, articles on why flossing is important etc. Also, there were photos of Dr. Srishti attending medical conferences and achieving certifications based on continuing medical education (CME) and skill acquirement. Patients had posted good reviews about her work. Importantly for Malay, some of the positive reviews were from the relatives of elderly patients. Dr. Srishti had also posted pictures with her patients, who recently underwent treatment in her clinic. Malay found Dr. Srishti to be reliable and capable of handling his father and so he took his father to her clinic.

After her recent heartbreak, Trisha thought that she was suffering from depression. She wanted to seek professional help, but faced a lot of resistance to the idea from herself. She looked up on Google for psychologists around her area. She came across Dr. Triveni’s website, also linked to her blog. Dr. Triveni had written about how patients face internal resistance before visiting a psychologist and had shared tips on how to overcome it. There were various articles on bipolar disorder and depression and links to various healthcare journals. There were also Vlogs (video blogs) included on her website. She also found testimonials from Dr. Triveni’s patients on how she had helped them overcome their issues and how professional yet friendly she was. This convinced Trisha who then decided to give her a visit.

You might have noticed that the above scenarios don’t happen frequently in India. This is because a lot of doctors are not using their website or social media pages actively to connect with their patients. The major reason for this is that their profession keeps them busy. Another reason could be the mindset that the word of mouth is enough to bring more patients to them.
However, the situation is changing rapidly these days.

Nowadays, patients do their due diligence and research online before consulting a doctor.

The young generation is quite tech-savvy and even older patients ask their sons or daughters to find good doctors for them online.
Many a times, patients do their own online research on the health issues they are facing and may come across information that is not reliable. It will help patients a lot if doctors post reliable, verified information about these health issues, their symptoms and causes and whether or not a patient needs to visit the doctor.
According to the statistics*, 74% of internet users engage on social media. 80% of those internet users are specifically looking for health information, and nearly half are searching for information about a specific doctor or health professional.

The geographic targeting options available on search engines and social media platforms can help to reach out to patients in a particular area. This can also come handy when a doctor newly starts a practice or when doctors shift their clinic to a new locality.
Even if you don’t find time to post updates, you can ask your staff to do it on your behalf or hire an agency.
On this Doctors’ day, reach out to your patients, stay connected with them. It’s all just one click away!

*Source: PewResearch