eHealth Articles & White Papers

Promoting Wellness Instead of Illness

Ben Dillon - Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

We call it healthcare. But how much health do we really care for? Instead, we seem to do sick care, injured care, and unwell care. People enter the “healthcare system” when they aren’t feeling well – when they want to be fixed.

Although our missions focus on keeping people well and preventing disease, payment structures haven’t truly made this a priority. That is until now.

We’re seeing a revival of wellness and prevention services. Healthcare reform changes the calculus for providers by making resources available for preventive services while placing the financial responsibility for outcomes on providers’ shoulders. These changes are generating genuine enthusiasm for wellness services amongst healthcare providers to match that of the government, private insurers, and employers who have watched the precursors to serious disease rage out of control for much too long.

So everyone is on board. Everyone, that is, except health consumers.

This is where healthcare marketers come in. Persuading consumers to participate in more wellness programs will fall squarely on your shoulders. You’ll have the important role of encouraging the entire community to change their behavior and make better lifestyle choices.

That’s no easy task. And to achieve this, you’ll have to rethink your approach.

Traditional methods to promoting wellness – direct mail, phone calls and in-person training – just don’t scale well and growth in expectations will likely outpace growth in budgets. That’s why many healthcare marketers just like you are turning to the Web as the communication vehicle of choice.

Organizations that use the Web to manage their wellness programs are able to reach more health consumers more efficiently. They’re able to modify messaging, so health consumers see the organization is as focused on wellness as it is on illness. They’re able to proactively promote and recruit for health screenings. But most importantly, they’re able to educate and motivate their communities to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Learn more about the role of the Web in wellness promotion in this month’s Geonetric webinar.