CINCINNATI – PatientPoint®, the trusted leader in patient engagement solutions committed to making every doctor-patient engagement better™, today announced the launch of its new mobile engagement program PatientPoint® Proximity™. The program leverages location-based marketing technology to offer waiting patients a custom blend of timely condition-specific education and complementary brand messaging on their mobile devices to prepare them for their visit.
Visiting the doctor’s office is inherently stressful for many Americans—and the waiting is often the hardest part. In fact, more than 60 percent of Americans report feeling the most anxious while they wait to see their physician. PatientPoint solutions are designed to transform wait times from stressful moments to empowering experiences by delivering award-winning education and sponsored content about relevant treatment options.
PatientPoint Proximity was designed with patient wait times and behavior in mind. According to recent PatientPoint research, more than half of waiting patients say they watch a patient education screen at least part of their average 15-minute wait time and more than 40 percent reported using their mobile device1. PatientPoint Proximity complements the PatientPoint digital waiting room program , PatientPoint® Communicate™ (also a form of digital-out-of-home signage, or DOOH), extending engagement with patients to ensure they receive valuable information on whatever screen they may be looking at during their wait.
PatientPoint Proximity works by delivering hyper-targeted messaging to patients’ mobile devices via popular news, weather and gaming apps while devices are within a specific radius of a physician office. Content encourages patients to click to access key questions to ask during their visit and promotes a relevant treatment option. Upon clicking the in-app message, patients are taken to a PatientPoint mobile condition center where they can peruse a full library of relevant content about their specific condition and learn more about the promoted treatment.
“Point-of-care patient education is all about reaching the right patients with the right information at the right time,” said PatientPoint Chief Digital Officer Bill Jennings. “PatientPoint Proximity takes this notion an important step further by providing trusted, timely and relevant education to patients on their mobile devices while they wait. There is immense power in patients having information at their fingertips that can guide their conversation with their physician and help them determine the best treatment option.”
In addition to providing education, PatientPoint Proximity drives powerful value back to sponsoring brands by leveraging both DOOH and mobile technology. Recent research exploring the power of DOOH and mobile reveals that users are 48 percent more likely to click on mobile ads after exposure to DOOH than exposure to TV. Several year-to-date brand campaigns leveraging PatientPoint Proximity underscore the power of combining DOOH and mobile along with contextually relevant content. PatientPoint Proximity typically generates mobile click-through rates more than four times the national average.
While several proximity marketing technologies such as beacons, WiFi and IP targeting exist to reach consumers with targeted, timely location-based promotions, PatientPoint chose to leverage geofencing capabilities for PatientPoint Proximity.
“Geofencing offers several strategic advantages over beacons, WiFi and IP targeting, namely the ability to deliver immediate data and importantly the ability to retarget the 75 percent of patients who visit a retailer within four hours of their visit,” said Jennings.
1Surveys of more than 2,000 patients who visited physician offices installed with PatientPoint® Educate™, PatientPoint® Communicate™ and/or PatientPoint® Interact™ programs.