With the wonderful world of technology and the Internet we have many more ways to communicate with the world around us. Webinars are one form of online communication that make it easy to present ideas, information, tutorials and a variety of data to an interested audience.
For those not yet familiar, a webinar is simply a seminar or presentation that is conducted online. A webinar service provider offers a platform, various features for the design and implementation of the chosen content for a webinar and also mainstreams the registration process for perspective attendees.
Many industries use webinars to reach goals relevant to their company needs, and the medical profession is no exception. Since webinars offer so much versatility in presentation options and materials they are the ideal method to present complicated topics, such as those found in the medical field.
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How Webinars Serve The Medical Profession
There are unlimited opportunities to use webinars in the medical profession. While individual entities and professionals in the field should assess their own needs and goals in terms of creating webinar presentations, there are some general ideas that apply to most everyone.
Overall, 4 major categories for using webinars can be applied to the medical field:
- Engaging New Patients
- Maintaining Patient Relationships and Education
- Public Service
- In-House
Many choose to dip into more than one category as well and some categories serve multiple functions.
New Patient Outreach
Webinars can be an amazing and effective tool to reach and engage those interested in a medical practice or a particular medical specialty and convert them into patients. Depending on the focus of the practice there are so many possibilities to showcase expertise and to highlight the treatments that can sway patients to make that initial appointment.
For example, a plastic surgery practice can upload a variety of webinars to their website that explain in detail the various procedures that are offered. Since webinars are visual tools that offer the use of many visuals, like Powerpoint slides, images, video, charts and graphs, those procedures can be explained in a much more receptive light than simply using text.
Trust can be instilled into patients who are hesitant, especially useful in medical fields, such as plastic surgery, with the use of webinars because it allows the doctors in the practice to actually illustrate the details of any procedure, including, what will be done and how it is performed. Plastic surgery is just one example, most any medical concentration can use webinars to engage new patients by providing detailed and comprehensive presentations.
Webinar Ideas For Various Medical Practices
- Dermatologists can offer acne treatment and prevention, Rosacea education and skin cancer prevention tips.
- OB/Gyn Clinics can offer pregnancy health, labor and delivery, healthy baby, breast feeding and other related topics in webinar form.
- Cardiologists can offer heart disease prevention education, post heart attack management webinars and heart healthy diet, just to name a few.
- Psychiatrists can offer various mental health management presentations, coping with stress webinars and many more.
- Pediatric specialists can offer webinars about newborn health and development, nutrition for children, the benefits of vaccinations and other related topics that are useful for parents.
- Surgical teams and specialist practices can create a variety of webinars that help their patients deal with both pre-surgery preparation and post-op care.
Maintaining Patient Relationships
Another way to use webinars is to create informational webinars for current patients that can help them deal with existing conditions and also various prevention topics. One of the best aspects of webinars is the fact that they can be recorded and archived to use for unlimited time periods and so they can be kept on the business website and bring benefit to the medical business for an indefinite amount of time.
Educational webinars on various health topics offer the opportunity to develop and support relationships with existing patients by educating them on the complex topics found in the medical field in an easy to understand format.
There are so many options in this area that it would be impossible to list them all, but, here are a few ideas:
Prevention Webinars
Various webinars can be created under the preventative care category, including the prevention of diseases, such as:
- Heart disease
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Osteoporosis
- Certain Strokes
- Cancers
- Cirrhosis of the Liver
- Proper Nutrition
- Weight Management/Obesity prevention
Condition Management Webinars
These are webinars that can be created to present various management tips and methods for particular conditions, as treated by specialists in a medical office.
Some of these include:
- Acne
- Obesity
- PMS
- Allergies
- Menopause
- Dealing with Cancer: Proper nutrition, Dealing with Chemotherapy
- Pain Management
- Arthritis
- Urinary Tract Infections
- Heart Disease
- High Blood Pressure
- Lupus
All of the above are just a few examples of the ways in which webinars can be useful to patients and in turn, help to support and develop a positive relationship with medical professionals.
Public Service Health Webinars
Another way that webinars can aid the medical profession is by way of public service presentations facilitated by Government agencies and non-profit organizations. Educating the public on various health issues is essential, and as the old saying goes, prevention is worth a thousand cures.
One example of this is nutrition. Creating webinars on proper nutrition for adults and kids is essential around the world, but especially in the United States where obesity rates have doubled since 2008, from 15% to 30%. Children obesity rates are soaring, in fact 1/3 of US kids were obese in 2012 and overall the obesity rate in kids is 16.9% Nearly 3,700 young people under age 20 are diagnosed with obesity and overweight related Type 2 Diabetes in the US each year. This is attributed to the fact that they do not eat healthy foods, eat too many calories and do not get enough psychical activity.
Webinars on this topic can be very helpful, and there are so many possibilities to educate parents about the healthy habits they should instill in their kids. A hospital labor and delivery unit can use these types of webinars to educate new moms as they recover from labor. Additionally, public service webinars can be placed online for the many vulnerable populations, such as senior citizens who can certainly use all types of health care advice.
In-House Webinars
Large hospitals, medical clinics and even small private practices can benefit from webinars created about various topics for training, on current research, about hospital administration practices, patient care and others just for their staff.
Since webinars are so cost effective and can be used over and over again via archived recordings they can be a real asset to existing and new staff. They can save valuable labor hours and costs by not having to designate a specific position or team of staff for specific training.
There are many topics that can fall within this category to aid the daily business and management of a medical entity in regards to staff.
Final Thoughts
As you can see webinars can be of great use in the medical profession. As with other industries that have very complex topics, those in medicine are best explained using a variety of visual elements and a live voice. All reputable medical professionals strive to provide excellent care to patients and to ensure that staff is working to the same goal, and webinars are tools that can greatly assist to that end.
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