Today’s health consumers demand focused health content that flows easily across devices. Your users expect compelling videos, visuals, and information that meets them wherever they are and is easy to consume. They want to interact digitally with you and your brand. And they need to know they can trust your content to be accurate and up to date. To keep up with these expectations, your health system needs a way to deliver content quickly in a foolproof way without tying up teams every time you enhance your website, push timely social media campaigns, or roll out a new health app. It’s time to support your health system’s digital experience goals and connect with your patients through structured content that is targeted and relevant.
Structured Content: The Building Blocks of Digital Health Experiences
Structured content (sometimes called “modular content” or “content as a service”) lets you publish individual, discrete bits of information quickly and easily. Each item is tagged with rich metadata, making the content flexible and easy to find and deploy. Each module is designed to “plug and play” on your website. Think of structured content as LEGOs, where each brick is a component of information, an image, or even a video. You can select content to build your own unique creations to support your brand and initiatives.
This modular approach stands head and shoulders above the inflexible content many sites currently use. Structured content allows you to integrate accurate health information into your digital experiences for greater personalization and ease of use. Most of your audience will access your health content from a phone or tablet at some point, and if your presentation doesn’t flow well, consumers will leave. Structured content that’s liberated from the layout displays elegantly on mobile devices in a responsive way. It also makes it easy to integrate rich media experiences, like audio and video, that will make you stand out from the crowd.
Think Outside the Box
The possibilities for structured content go well beyond your company’s website—you can apply this approach virtually anywhere you use content. Do you host classes for patients or the community? Prepare educational material in the blink of an eye. Are you a telehealth organization? Play audio or videos while patients are waiting for a virtual visit, or send a link with helpful, up-to-date health information afterward. Is your marketing team exhausted, trying to fill your social media feeds day in and day out? Give them engaging content to pair with your messages, such as fitness trackers and infographics. Do you text appointment reminders to patients? Include a health-related video to help advance your health literacy goals.
Pivoting on a Dime: Health Content for Emergencies
As one health system recently discovered, modular content truly shines when you need accurate, engaging, medically reviewed content right now. When Gritman Medical Center treated two patients with measles last year, they needed to alert and educate the community as quickly as possible to prevent the spread of misinformation.
If this rural hospital had been forced to research, write, review, code, and design all the content from scratch, the project would have taken weeks—time they didn’t have when faced with a community that needed answers immediately. Fortunately, Gritman’s website was formatted to work with structured content. They created the new page, then populated it with medically accurate structured content topics such as “What are the symptoms of measles?” and “Why is it important to get your child immunized?” Gritman also wanted a photo, so they searched their database of structured content and found one showing the measles rash. They even included an engaging video about the importance of immunizations. This content was easy to find because it had been tagged with metadata.
Gritman personalized the messaging by including a section with a Q&A from the hospital’s CMO and emergency director, as well as the phone number local residents should call to report new cases. This modular approach allowed the medical center to quickly put together a comprehensive emergency response that still looked and felt personalized.
The time from start to finish? Five hours.
The Time Is Now
The time to break up with old-school content and move to modular is now. Are you ready to leap into the future of digital healthcare experiences? Get started with The Healthcare Marketer’s Guide to Structured Content, our free eBook that walks you through every step of the process. And if you find yourself at HIMSS20 in March, use our online tool to schedule an appointment with Healthwise, or just stop by booth #2533 to chat and see a demo. We’ll be there, ready to help you connect with your audience.