Introducing: Healthcare Idea Email from Hammock | Like Hammock Inc.’s popular Idea Email, the new Healthcare Idea Email briefly explores one topic, every other week. Learn more about the new Healthcare Idea Email at the bottom of the page.

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Idea: Your Teenager Holds the Future of Healthcare Marketing in the Palm of her Hand

By John Lavey | Hammock President/COO

How often do you hand your smartphone to your kids so they can show you a better way to use it? I have two teenagers whose phones are like an extension of their bodies—not an unfamiliar scenario for parents of teens. 

Watching my daughters use their smartphones for more than just talking or texting revealed there’s more potential in a phone than what we’re typically used to. The same is true for healthcare. There’s more we can do to improve the healthcare system—particularly in the way we engage people—whether we are providers, payers or any other part of the healthcare ecosystem.

Younger generations fluent in digital devices know better ways to use them, and we could learn from the way they interact with smartphones to help us create more engaging content and experiences that improve healthcare across the board.

There are some shining examples of healthcare marketers already doing a great job of engaging their customers. The Walgreens smartphone app is one such example. I use it regularly—without the help of my teenagers.

One feature of the app hooked me and makes it indispensible: the ability to scan to refill a prescription. It’s not exactly drone technology, but it saves me five minutes at a time of day—in a hurry to get kids to school and go to work—when I need it most. The app’s location-based alerts remind me of the pickup when I am near my Walgreens.

These interactions are a big convenience and make me loyal to the brand, but the implications of creating engaging experiences that solve problems for people—as well as opening up the power to share data across health systems—reach even further. Additional opportunities abound to improve healthcare by using data to drive decisions. These kinds of solutions will create healthier outcomes for individuals, improve the health of the greater population and increase efficiency.

And we won’t have to hand over our phones to the kids to get it done.

Insight for healthcare marketers: Observing the way young consumers interact with products and the information that supports those products can provide a roadmap to the future of healthcare marketing.


About the new Healthcare Idea Email: As our popular Idea Email has a large number of healthcare marketers who subscribe, it did not surprise us that the No. 1 request we’ve received is to “offer more ideas about healthcare.” So we have. In addition to Idea Email, on other weeks you can receive the Healthcare Idea Email that is focused exclusively on healthcare-related marketing, media and content trends and topics. Subscribe below:

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