Why Healthcare Organizations Need Effective Communication
Organizations in the healthcare sector must routinely manage a complex set of tasks and responsibilities. Hospitals and clinics need to monitor the health status and treatment of individual patients – all the while coordinating the activities of healthcare professionals and caregivers within designated facilities, or out in the field.
For communities impacted by disease outbreaks or physical events requiring medical aid, there’s a need to coordinate the activities of response teams, and to ensure that all relevant stakeholders are kept informed. In addition to all this, there’s the need to manage the day to day administrative activities of healthcare facilities and institutions.
All of these activities rely on and benefit from effective communication. So healthcare organizations require a communications platform that can meet all the demands of their critical operational, administrative, and patient/customer-facing activity sets. Healthcare organizations can also benefit from a communications medium that facilitates the automation of routine tasks, and the on-demand distribution of information to both individuals and targeted interest groups.
Ten WhatsApp Message Templates that Healthcare Organizations Can Use to Extend Their Outreach
The WhatsApp messaging platform currently has over 2.5 billion users worldwide, spread across some 180 countries. This extensive user base helps ensure healthcare organizations of a communications channel that will likely encompass at least a considerable proportion of their patient population and stakeholders, in any particular area.
On the automation front, WhatsApp message templates provide a convenient and pre-defined format for drafting frequently used or recurring communications. Unlike free-form messages, communications created using WhatsApp templates can be sent out to recipients who have yet to message you, or who have not sent you a message in the last 24 hours.
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Here are ten (10) free WhatsApp message templates that your healthcare organization can use right now, to help increase the efficiency of your operations, and to improve your outreach.
1. Welcome Message for Patient Onboarding
Every patient’s journey with your healthcare organization begins with getting to know who you are, what you do, and what you have to offer them. You can help them start this journey by issuing a well-crafted and personalized Welcome message.
The WhatsApp messaging platform allows for the exchange of multimedia content. This means that your healthcare organization can send out visual aids, charts, or educational materials to enhance and embellish the text of your welcome message and onboarding materials.
You can welcome new patients by sending out the WhatsApp message template that you can download here.
2. Appointment Reminder
Using WhatsApp messaging, healthcare professionals can easily communicate with patients and schedule their appointments. Messages can include appointment details such as date, time, and location – all of which you can send directly to the patient’s WhatsApp account. No phone calls or email (which can be ignored, or meet with dangerous delays) are required.
In addition to the initial scheduling, healthcare professionals can conveniently use WhatsApp messaging for sending appointment reminders – which can be automated or manual nudges that notify patients about upcoming appointments.
There’s a medical appointment reminder WhatsApp message template, which you can download here.
3. Pre-Appointment Instructions
By setting up a detailed notification prior to a patient appointment, healthcare professionals can include important instructions, preparation guidelines, or any necessary documentation that the patient needs to bring before the consultation.
By sending a message to the doctor or healthcare facility’s WhatsApp number indicating their availability or requesting a change to the appointment time or date, patients can also use WhatsApp to confirm or reschedule their appointments.
You can download a pre-appointment instructions WhatsApp message template from here.
4. Prescription Reminders
Using WhatsApp messaging and notifications, healthcare providers can set up automated or manual medication or prescription reminders. These reminders can specify the name of the medication, its required dosage, and the frequency with which the patient needs to take it. Health professionals can also share information about how to take the medication, any specific dietary restrictions that the patient needs to observe, or any potential side effects that the patient should be aware of.
Patients can also use WhatsApp’s two-way communication to ask questions or seek clarification about their prescriptions and medications.
Here’s a WhatsApp message template for prescription reminders, which you can access here.
5. Newsletter with Healthcare Tips
Healthcare providers can use WhatsApp to create newsletters and bulletins that answer questions about general health concerns, provide guidance on managing common illnesses like colds or fevers, or which offer tips for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. By using this facility, healthcare organizations can help bridge gaps in access to healthcare, and bring the benefits of telemedicine to communities that would otherwise miss out.
You can easily share healthcare and fitness tips by using this WhatsApp message template.
6. Post-Treatment or Post-Surgery Outreach
With WhatsApp messaging and notifications, doctors and caregivers can provide patients with explanations and clarifications regarding health updates and test results relevant to their care after treatment or surgery. Doctors and patients can have remote consultations via WhatsApp by sending messages, voice notes, or even conducting video calls. Patients can use WhatsApp to send messages or pictures that update their healthcare providers about their health.
There’s a post-surgery outreach WhatsApp template available for you to download here.
7. Sending Out Medical Test Results
The WhatsApp messaging platform’s end-to-end encryption of transmitted communications ensures that healthcare professionals can share health updates and test results with their patients in a secure manner. These communications can include important information such as lab reports, diagnostic imaging results, or treatment updates, which are sent directly to the patient’s WhatsApp account.
With the two-way conversations facilitated by WhatsApp, healthcare providers can give explanations and clarifications regarding health updates and test results. In turn, patients can ask questions, or seek further information.
You can easily inform patients about their medical test results with this WhatsApp message template.
8. Reminder to Pay Medical Bills
Besides appointment scheduling and patient care monitoring, WhatsApp can serve as a helpful platform for sending out payment reminders. The WhatsApp messaging platform provides tools to set up automated or manual reminders when payments for treatment or consultation become due.
You can automate reminders for hospital bill payments using the WhatsApp message template that you can download here.
9. Notification of Healthcare Emergencies
There are a number of ways in which the WhatsApp messaging platform can help organizations manage healthcare emergency situations.
Using broadcast lists, healthcare organizations and public health authorities can use WhatsApp to send out mass messages. This helps ensure that important information reaches a large number of recipients simultaneously.
Creating special groups or broadcast lists within WhatsApp also enables emergency responders, doctors, paramedics, and other healthcare stakeholders to coordinate and share important information.
In emergency scenarios, healthcare providers and responders can use WhatsApp to send out notifications and instant updates about the situation, such as the availability of medical resources, changes in treatment protocols, or evacuation procedures.
WhatsApp instant notifications also ensure that civilians and patients on the ground receive timely updates, increasing the likelihood of their responding promptly to prescribed courses of action. With WhatsApp’s support for multimedia content, healthcare organizations can include visual aids in these notifications, making their health and safety advisories more engaging and easy to understand.
You can automate notifications for any healthcare emergency by using this WhatsApp message template.
10. Special Offers and Announcements
Of course, no healthcare organization can ignore the fact that the bottom line matters, in keeping the operation up and running. Encouraging patients to make use of the facilities that the organization has to offer can therefore be an important tool in driving needed revenue.
Healthcare providers and nutritionists can create dedicated WhatsApp groups or broadcast lists to share tips on nutrition, provide product recommendations, and give regular health advice. Healthcare organizations can also use WhatsApp notifications and messaging to keep patients informed about special offers and discounts on treatments, medications, and nutritional supplements.
You can automatically share discounts and offers on products or services with the WhatsApp message template that you can download here.
Supplementing Your WhatsApp Messaging Efforts
Using the WhatsApp Business API (Application Programming Interface), you can integrate the functionality of the WhatsApp messaging platform with your own organization’s existing business systems.
For example, with the IDT Express SMS API, you can easily schedule SMS, MMS, or WhatsApp messages to be sent at a specific date and time in the future with a simple API call. With IDT’s reliable and scalable Notifications API, you can create highly personalized SMS notifications that cater to any use case with unmatched flexibility.
Bear in mind also that WhatsApp messaging is intrinsically dependent on stable internet connections. In cases or geographical locations where such connectivity cannot be guaranteed, you’ll need alternatives to keep your communications infrastructure intact.
Here again, you can look to IDT Express. IDT is one of the world’s most trusted global telecom partners, and a leading voice connectivity provider in the industry. As a division of IDT Corporation, IDT Express is focused on delivering wholesale Voice, DIDs, and Global A2P SMS services to small to medium size businesses across the globe.
Application-to-Person or A2P SMS is quickly becoming a preferred channel for enterprises to engage customers in a personalized, timely and efficient manner. IDT Express offers a secure, highly reliable Wholesale SMS gateway service enabling businesses to provide outbound one-way A2P communications. IDT’s state-of-the-art platform adheres to the highest security and operational standards.
To find out more about how IDT Express’s SMS gateway technology, SMS Portal, and SMS API can work with WhatsApp to enhance your healthcare organization’s business communication system, visit our website, or book a demo.
One Response
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