Reimagining the Online Doctor Profile

December 1, 2016

3 Strategies to Build Patient Trust and Drive More Online Appointments

// By Shawn Gross //

Shawn Gross, White RhinoPatients turn to online doctor profiles to learn something meaningful about the person who’s going to be managing their health. But often these profiles are little more than an abbreviated resume: an academic history, professional credentials, and a headshot. They rarely convey any real sense of who the doctor is or any real emotional connection.

And while some hospitals are beginning to add physician videos and star ratings to their online doctor profiles, this is a missed opportunity to build trust with prospective patients.

Imagine your hospital website as a highly immersive experience—comparable, say, to an IKEA store.

As you move through the store, it’s clear that IKEA has attempted to create a story out of each room. You envision your future living room, bedroom, or kitchen being a part of your life. By the time you reach the checkout area, you’re emotionally connected to that gray Norsberg couch you saw and have decided it is unquestionably the right purchase for you.

Now envision a Reimagined Doctor Profile as a similarly immersive experience that tells a story around each doctor. By the time you’re done scrolling through the beautiful page, a more personal connection is built with the physician—building trust and driving online appointments. In this example for Nantucket Cottage Hospital—an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital—patients encounter a mobile-friendly, user-centric website featuring a Reimagined Doctor Profile. Within 1 month of launch, the experience increased online appointment requests by 300 percent.

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3 Ways to Build Trust Before the First Patient Visit

Neuroscience research shows that, to build trust and influence consumer decision-making, brands need to appeal to two parts of the brain:

  • Cognitive Trust: Consumers’ rational evaluation of a brand’s competency and reliability. Will this brand do what it says it’s going to do?
  • Emotional Trust: Consumers’ emotional evaluation of a brand’s benevolence and altruistic motives. Will this brand act with my best interests in mind?

Here are 3 ways you can reimagine—and reinvent—your doctor profiles to activate these areas of the brain:

1. Add Personal Details to Build Rapport

According to research, patients are more concerned with a doctor’s ability to communicate with a patient than with their competency and skills[1]. And effective communication starts with rapport. Studies show that when we’re on the same comfortable “wavelength” as another person, the brain is signaled to relax and open up[2].

Rapport between doctors and patients typically doesn’t happen until the first appointment. But the Reimagined Doctor Profile starts building a relationship much earlier, in large part by including biographical information that is personal and evocative. In the example noted above from Nantucket Cottage Hospital, patients learn that Dr. Jock Lawrason is a creative person, spending his free time drawing, painting, and woodcarving. This seemingly small detail suggests that, like most creative people, Dr. Lawrason is probably observant and open-minded—an attractive physician trait for many consumers today.

Using well-produced visuals—rather than the typical physician headshot—to tell stories around your physicians increases the odds of connecting with a prospective patient. Our brains are wired primarily for visual processing, which means people respond to more visuals—and less copy.

And building rapport isn’t just good marketing. It’s also good medicine. Research shows that when communication improves, doctors tend to detect problems earlier and patients adhere more closely to their treatment[3].

2. Complement Star Ratings with Reviews to Appeal to the Emotional Side of the Brain

The peer review provided by star ratings gives patients trust in a physician’s competence.

But while a four- or five-star rating can help with evaluating credibility, it doesn’t appeal to the emotional part of our brains that responds to benevolence. When it comes to establishing consumer trust, research shows that benevolence (goodwill) matters more than cognitive assessments of competence.[4]

Complementing star ratings with actual patient reviews helps patients assess a doctor’s bedside manner, and answers the question, “How will this doctor treat me?” In the retail industry, the presence of text-based customer feedback on eBay has been shown to engender a buyer’s trust in the seller’s benevolence and credibility that builds consumer trust and preference[5].

To enhance your doctor profiles with star ratings and reviews, work with a site like HealthGrades. Patients are already providing reviews on these sites, so why not take advantage of what’s already out there? A simple API provides a data feed directly to your website, featuring reviews and more detailed ratings that evaluate a doctor’s communication and listening skills:

doctor profilesKeep in mind that consumers tend to scan reviews to save time. So it is important to help them get what they need faster by calling out featured reviews within the physician’s bio. Just don’t forget to link to all reviews or you may appear inauthentic and create distrust with patients.

3. Use Quality Data to Demonstrate Reliability and Competence

While hospitals increasingly post their quality rankings online, they often struggle to present this data in a format that actually helps consumers make better decisions.

Rather than point consumers to a raft of statistics about mortality, infection rates, and other measures of care, hospitals should consider posting data right alongside each doctor’s profile. But this data doesn’t have to be so granular that it’s specific to the physician; it can be department-level data featured on the doctor profile. After all, the reputation of a practice is a top factor when patients choose a provider[6]. By making this information available to the patient at an essential moment of decision-making, the hospital reinforces a perception of competence and expertise.

Used on its own, any of these strategies goes a long way toward building trust with a prospective patient. But used together to their full effect, they powerfully appeal to both the cognitive and emotional sides of your consumers’ decision-making processes, increasing the likelihood they will schedule a visit.

Shawn Gross is the Chief Digital Strategist, Healthcare Practice Lead for White Rhino in Lexington, Massachusetts, where he helps healthcare organizations weave digital marketing programs into the fabric of their operations. Shawn was previously the Director of Digital Marketing at Massachusetts General Hospital, Tufts Medical Center, and Floating Hospital for Children. You can reach him at shawn@whiterhino.com or @shawngross.

[1] Ha, J. F., & Longnecker, N. (2010). Doctor-Patient Communication: A Review. The Ochsner Journal10(1), 38–43.

[2] Glaser, Judith E. Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results. 2014.

[3] Ha, J. F., & Longnecker, N. (2010). Doctor-Patient Communication: A Review. The Ochsner Journal, 10(1), 38–43.

[4] Cuddy, A. J.C., S. T. Fiske, and P. Glick. “Warmth and Competence As Universal Dimensions of Social Perception: The Stereotype Content Model and the BIAS Map.” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 40 (2008): 61–149.

[5] Pavlou and Dimoka: The Nature and Role of Feedback Text Comments in Online Marketplaces 412 Information Systems Research 17(4), pp. 392–414, 2006

[6] Hanauer DA, Zheng K, Singer DC, Gebremariam A, Davis MM. Public Awareness, Perception, and Use of Online Physician Rating Sites. JAMA. 2014;311(7):734-735. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.283194.