Columbus Regional Health’s history spans over 100 years and evolved from a small county hospital serving the area’s medical needs to a health system that now serves 10 Southeastern Indiana Counties. As one of the leading medical centers in Indiana, their mission today is the same as its always been – to continue to improve the health and well-being of those it serves.
The Challenge
Ratings and reviews are one of the most important pieces of information on a hospital website. In fact, a recent Software Advice study shows that 77% of patients use online reviews as the first step in finding a new doctor. Understanding the importance of patient reviews, Columbus Regional Health sought to improve transparency and the overall digital patient experience by publishing patient reviews on their physician profile pages.
Our Solution
Columbus Regional Health partnered with Loyal to implement data publishing solution, Empower, to maximize the use of their patient experience data, promote transparency, and gain deeper insights into what patients are saying about their healthcare experience. Publishing reviews with Empower has the added benefit of improving search rankings and driving prospective patients to the Columbus Regional Health website over 3rd party review sites for better online reputation management.
The Empower platform made it easy to sort, approve, and publish their existing survey data as ratings and reviews on their physician profile page. With just a few lines of code and Loyal’s experienced implementation team going live was seamless. “Empower is easy to use, intuitive, and self-explanatory,” says Andrew Laker, Columbus Regional’s Web Coordinator. “I look forward to processing the comments and learn a lot from the feedback.”
The Results
Six months after going live with ratings and reviews, Columbus Regional Health saw a significant increase in the traffic to their physician profile pages. Pages featuring ratings and reviews experienced a 97% increase in page sessions, an 88% increase in organic search results, and a 94% increase in new users over the previous year – translating to an increase in new patient acquisition as consumers are able to easily find, research, and choose a Columbus Regional Health physician based on verified patient feedback. “It was a home run,” says Laker. “Greater engagement translates into being valuable from the patient end and doctors are excited about the feedback.”
