Back in April, my health insurance changed and I had to select a new primary care doctor. Where to start? I skimmed through my provider’s online director of PCPs, overwhelmed at the prospect of choosing a random physician with no information other than a name and a location.

So how did I choose? I found a primary care doc whose practice had a strong web presence – a professional website with photos of the physicians, bios, office hours, directions, and patient forms.

More and more patients are looking for physicians online, so you may want to think about adding an online presence to your arsenal of marketing tools. Consider not only a website, but also a blog, a Twitter account, and online newsletters. Blogs and Twitter allow you to start a conversation with your patients/potential patients, stay updated on healthcare news, and more.

Here’s an article about a nurse who values Twitter for its educational content: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ficarra/why-doctors-nurses-need-t_b_248318.html

Here’s information about doctors who used Twitter to update a patient’s relatives during a long surgery: http://www.newslite.tv/2009/05/20/doctors-twitter-live-from-tran.html

And finally, an article about surgeons who used Twitter during an operation to get buzz for themselves and to educate people who were considering a similar procedure: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/17/twitter.surgery/index.html

This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 6:20 am and is filed under All Posts, Marketing Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.