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Personalization in Healthcare: 6 Keys To Successful Patient Experiences

By 02.15.24
Reading time: 4 minutes

Implementing patient experience use cases with Marketing Cloud Personalization requires careful planning, data integration, and consideration of privacy and security. In addition, we recommend a collaborative approach involving marketing, IT, and clinical teams. These teams should work together to define use cases that align with patient-centric objectives and healthcare goals.

Let’s look at a few keys to success to consider before diving into the personalization deep end.

Define clear objectives and target audience 

Before implementing Marketing Cloud Personalization, healthcare organizations should establish clear objectives and identify their target audience segments. Understanding the goals of personalization and the specific patient groups to focus on allows marketers to develop personalized content strategies that align with organizational objectives. 

Tightly align business goals and patient experience use cases. This ensures synergy between your business goals and the capabilities of the Marketing Cloud Personalization platform. These items shape the breadth and depth of your Marketing Cloud Personalization engagement.

Data integration and fragmentation

Healthcare data is often fragmented across various systems and platforms. To achieve effective personalization, organizations need to integrate data from disparate sources into the Marketing Cloud platform. This requires data governance strategies, data mapping, and integration tools to ensure a unified view of patients and enable seamless personalization across channels.

Collect and leverage data effectively

Data integration and security considerations are critical to building a robust foundation for personalized patient experiences. Healthcare organizations must prioritize patient data privacy and security when implementing Marketing Cloud Personalization. 

Compliance with data protection regulations, such as the GDPR and the HIPAA, is essential. A recent HHS bulletin emphasizes healthcare companies doubling down on compliance efforts, as third-party tracking technologies may expose patient data. It tackles webpage tracking, mobile tracking, and HIPAA compliance with third-party trackers.

Marketing Cloud ensures security of PHI while delivering personalized experiences and tracking analytics. Salesforce offers BAAs that enable compliant services for covered entities and handling PHI with integrity. Marketers no longer have to compromise marketing power for HIPAA compliance.

Patient consent and preference framework

Healthcare organizations must obtain patient consent, clearly communicate data usage and privacy policies, and provide mechanisms for patients to control their data. Transparency and ethical considerations are essential to building trust with patients and maintaining the integrity of personalized patient experiences. Before implementing Marketing Cloud Personalization, be sure to discuss your consent capture process and how it will integrate into your current and future state technology footprint.

Create consistent and cohesive patient experiences

Healthcare organizations should strive for consistency and cohesion across all personalized touchpoints. Whether it’s email, web, mobile apps, or social media, maintaining a unified brand experience reinforces the organization’s identity and builds patient trust. Personalized content should align with the overall brand voice and visual identity, ensuring a seamless and recognizable patient experience.

Resource and skill constraints

Implementing Marketing Cloud Personalization may require additional resources and specialized skills. Healthcare organizations should assess their internal capabilities and consider partnering with experts or agencies with experience in personalization and Marketing Cloud platforms. Training internal teams or hiring specialized talent can help overcome skill gaps and maximize the potential of personalization efforts.

Measuring the impact of personalized patient experiences 

Measuring impact is pivotal to demonstrating the value and effectiveness of Marketing Cloud Personalization. Key performance indicators (KPIs) can include patient satisfaction surveys, patient engagement metrics, health outcome measurements, and financial indicators such as return on investment. By tracking patient satisfaction, healthcare organizations can gauge the impact of personalized experiences on patient perceptions and loyalty.

Marketing Cloud Personalization surfaces performance trends and useful insights across your touchpoints, helping you understand who your patients are, how they behave, and how they respond to personalized conversations. Personalization can also expose campaign statistics data for capture by third-party analytics platforms such as Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics, taking into account the legal considerations of the aforementioned HSS bulletin.

Marketing Cloud Personalization provides robust white box machine learning capabilities. By using deep contextual and behavioral data to determine individual affinities and intent, the Personalization application empowers marketers to create maximally relevant segments and deploy AI-powered product and content recommendations, next best offers and actions, and personalized experiences on a one-to-one basis across channels and with real-time relevance. It gives users the ability to test and tune machine learning functionality through a business user-friendly interface.

AI-driven personalization in healthcare and life sciences

Marketing Cloud Personalization uses predictive AI to revolutionize patient care and operational efficiency. Through personalized experiences and targeted campaigns, this solution transforms healthcare engagement and sets the stage for a patient-centric future with:

AI-driven journey triggers

Relevance is key in healthcare. Marketing Cloud Personalization uses AI decisions to trigger real-time, contextually relevant experiences to guide customers. By leveraging behavior, history, and industry data like pricing and inventory, providers deliver predefined journeys for browsing, cart abandonment, and more based on real-time interactions.

AI-automated offers for personalization

Einstein Decisions introduces a contextual bandit algorithm to elevate relevance. Fueled by real-time/historical data and logic, it identifies dynamic offers throughout the customer journey. Continual feedback enhances the algorithm’s ability to optimize decisions across websites/apps, ensuring engagement.

AI test and learn for continuous optimization

Optimizing web and app experiences becomes seamless with AI-powered A/B and multivariate testing. Leveraging real-time, behavioral, contextual, and historical data, Marketing Cloud Personalization targets tests based on segment membership or rule-based triggers. Confidence in decision-making is bolstered through randomized tests using Bayesian modeling, allowing healthcare providers to assess confidence levels for out-of-the-box and custom KPIs. The integration of data facilitates holistic personalization optimization across various channels, including websites, mobile apps, email, and service and sales interactions.

In essence, Marketing Cloud Personalization emerges as a strategic ally for healthcare marketers, bringing AI-driven capabilities that align seamlessly with the industry’s demands. 

Transforming patient engagement with Marketing Cloud Personalization

Personalized patient experiences have the power to transform patient engagement, satisfaction, and outcomes. By harnessing the capabilities of Marketing Cloud Personalization, healthcare organizations can deliver tailored messaging, relevant content, and personalized support to patients. 

The art of implementing patient experience use cases in healthcare lies in understanding patients’ unique needs, leveraging comprehensive patient data, and designing targeted interventions. With careful planning, collaboration, and adherence to privacy regulations, healthcare providers can unlock the full potential of Marketing Cloud Personalization to create exceptional personalized patient experiences and drive improved healthcare outcomes.

By partnering with healthcare technology consultants like Silverline, healthcare organizations can navigate the complexities of implementing patient experience use cases and maximize the value of Marketing Cloud Personalization. With Silverline’s expertise, guidance, and support, healthcare organizations can elevate experiences and revolutionize the way they engage with patients, ultimately leading to better health outcomes and patient satisfaction.

Find out how our team can help you evolve your customer interactions with Marketing Cloud Personalization. 

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