Content isn’t just a thing that marketers churn out to get more people to their company’s site.

In healthcare, content can make a huge impact in helping patients understand a diagnosis or treatment and lead to better outcomes.

In this blog, we highlight five benefits of leveraging patient educational content in healthcare.

During an appointment, it can be challenging to keep track of everything a provider is saying, especially after receiving a difficult or unexpected diagnosis.

Instead of relying on patients to remember every detail mentioned, content can be utilized as a helpful reference for reminding patients about important and key details related to their condition or care.

To become a provider it requires years of school and training to ensure that they’re experts in their field.

However, because most patients aren’t experts on their condition, it can be challenging to fully comprehend exactly what a provider is saying or explaining.

Instead, content can be written or recorded at a much lower comprehension level than a doctor's explanation so it’s easier for patients to understand.

Comprehending a provider’s explanation can be hard enough for many people, but receiving an explanation from a provider who doesn’t speak your native language can make things even more challenging.

In addition to making content that’s at a reading or viewing level that’s appropriate for their patients, practices should also ensure that different versions of content are produced in the different languages the patient population speaks. 

With this in place, practices can help reduce the risk of patients not fully understanding their treatment.

Most appointments with a provider consist of having a verbal discussion. However, for many patients, that might not be the easiest medium for them to understand.

With content, there can be multiple varieties of how it’s delivered with articles, diagrams, in-depth videos with visuals, etc.

By having these different options, patients can choose which medium is preferable for them. 

During an appointment, it can be difficult for patients to think of relevant questions if they weren’t previously informed about their condition or hadn’t researched it.

After reviewing content and learning more about the topic, it can help guide important questions that patients should be asking about their condition, recovery, or treatment.

For practices, this can also help open up a more formal line of communication with patients which can lead to follow-up appointments, ongoing patient engagement, and improved outcomes.

Most healthcare businesses do not have the time, money, or resources to invest in high-quality content which is why many companies leverage content providers such as Sanctuary Health. 

While having content is great, it’s useless without being able to effectively distribute it to patients. That’s why many businesses utilize Tellescope’s HIPAA-compliant CRM and Content Management System to easily store and send content to patients.

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