After thousands of patient encounters, your care protocols fit your persona naturally. Per the old saying, “like riding a bike, some things we never forget.” As a hearing care professional, while your clinical acumen is applied intuitively, do you also regard yourself as a grassroots educational marketing specialist? In response to this question, not surprisingly, most are uncomfortable with practice promotion or worse yet,
sales…
In this context, I often ask practice growth partners if they’d like to benefit from a logical construct in which core skills motivate them to be educational marketing experts who
outsmart not outspend competition
. After a lengthy phone pause or puzzled look, a common reply is “what do you mean?”
Sometimes, viewing common symptoms in new ways triggers a sense of relief and call to action. Does that sound similar with how you encourage patients to adopt behavior change which may improve their quality of life? With respect to marketing, are you a “natural expert” who achieves productive outcomes, or do you habitually wonder with anguish what to do next? In reflecting on marketing dollars you and your allies spend, do you imagine how these scarce resources could be more effectively invested? If these challenges are chronic, as is typical, have you ever thought about
“Diagnosing and Treating”
practice-growth initiatives?
|
|
|
|
With purpose, discovering clinical analogies expands our horizons. Evidence-based “diagnosis” is driven by cues and clues identified daily and over years. What frequently asked questions are not proactively answered? For example, usually when dining out we expect to see what’s on the menu. Years ago, listening closely to talented clinicians nationwide, I heard a pattern of them saying, “it’s so frustrating patients don’t even know what we do.” After regularly observing these cues, our discovery was clear… “if folks don’t know, let’s tell them.” Sounds simple, right?
|
|
Our “Treatment” was developing eye-catching designs to proactively indicate what’s “on the menu” with professional service and personalized solution options, now visually expressed as “The Art of Hearing™," a beauty for all to see and easily advocate.
|
|
Motivated by this useful methodology, I cherish dynamic opportunities to “Diagnose and Treat” customized designs with progressive practices nationwide. Our co-creation is driven by the imperative of sensibly mapping out patients' journeys to well-informed decisions and I delight in helping visionary specialists bring their brilliant educational ideas to life.
Over many years, noteworthy “cues and clues” signaled essential need to empower best practices with research-based ways to systematically educate patients, other healthcare providers and local communities about
how hearing loss relates to common medical conditions
. For me, this sparked interest in studying peer-reviewed papers about how hearing loss relates to the risk of falls. As I eagerly learned, extensive literature detailed how hearing loss may increase fall risk, which raises hip fracture risk and hip fractures beyond 10’s of billions of dollars in economic cost, induce a myriad of quality of life negatives, including risk of sooner morbidity.
With this provocative catalyst, my comorbidity passion was ignited. If only more people “knew” relevant information, they could make more well-informed decisions. While reviewing reference lists, I found it profound how dedicated researchers devote years and careers to “getting published," yet far too few healthcare providers or patients are aware of or benefit from their wisdom.
|
|
From this humble origin, amid deep admiration for these subject matter experts, our
“Did You Know?”
comorbidity education program began. Now 100’s of journal articles and yellow highlighters later, we’ve developed an extensive collection of proprietary content with strategic techniques to effectively promote why
Better Hearing is Better Healthcare.
|
|
As we
“Diagnose”
what more folks need to know, we
“Treat”
by sharing useful information in empathetic ways. In doing so, we are inspired by timeless guiding principles to be detailed in next week’s issue.
What educational initiatives would you like to “Diagnose and Treat”? Join the fun, you’ll be glad you did.
|
|
Bruce Essman
CEO
High Definition Impressions (HDI)
bruce@hdimpressions.com
314.276.7392
|
|
View Previous Issue by Clicking on Link Below:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
