Advantages of Virtual Birth Care Education

When you provide your birth care classes and tours online, your health system and community will benefit from the convenience and flexibility of this format. Find success with online courses that let your patients learn from you where and when they want. Learn how to create virtual classes that are timeless and impactful.

1. Become Adaptable

In a public health crisis, being adaptable is critical. The COVID-19 outbreak makes in-person maternity classes impractical, or even impossible, for an unknown period of time. The ability to change to meet the demands of your environment keeps you relevant and enables you to make a positive impact in your community during a difficult time.

Be an adaptable healthcare system by being resourceful. Use your website to deliver the knowledge of your maternity experts to your patients — instead of asking them to come to you.

2. Think Long-Term

Make videos that will outlast the COVID-19 pandemic. To produce effective and timeless videos:

• Avoid time stamps – Do not reference current events, dates, or fads. Stick to the core purpose of each video to preserve your videos.
• Avoid trends – Encourage your instructor to dress in a classic style that looks professional now and will still look professional 3 years from now. Avoid patterns, logos that can become outdated, and fashion statements.
• Focus on your messaging – Follow the topics you typically address and answer questions that come up the most in an in-person class.
• Break it up – Grab and keep your viewers’ attention by putting the most important information first. Then cover one topic at a time. Keep each point short and simple.
• Accommodate your viewer’s pace – Use titles in your videos to allow people to easily pause and rewind as needed.
• Keep it simple – Speak using an active voice. Use words your audience understands and explain any technical terms.
• Use visuals – Help your audience understand and remember by demonstrating best practices. Encourage your viewers at home to give each exercise a try.
• Make it accessible – Include closed captions to accommodate all audiences.
• Include a call to action – Invite your viewers to continue engaging with your healthcare system by giving them a relevant next step after they finish a course.

3. Build an Engaging Online Library

You do not have to create online options for all of your classes at once. Prioritize the classes that fill up first. Progressively build your online library to allow people to explore topics that are relevant to them. Assemble a collection of courses to cover:

• Advice for grandparents
• Breastfeeding benefits and tips for success
• Cesarean birth
• Comfort measures, including breathing and relaxation techniques
• First aid for newborns and infants
• Newborn care
• Navigating the first year of parenthood
• Postpartum care for mother and baby
• Tips for expectant parents
• What to expect during labor and birth

Virtual Maternity Tours

Offer a virtual tour of your birthing center to build trust and awareness online. Make your video memorable by showcasing why families should choose you for their delivery. Create warmth by using happy families holding their babies with supportive and compassionate nurses nearby. Use images that help people envision themselves or a loved one having a positive experience at your center. Include a step-by-step look at everything families may experience, including:

• What to bring to the hospital
• Where to go when you’re in labor
• Your care team
• Birth center amenities
• Maternity rooms
• Neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and team
• Breastfeeding services
• How long families can expect to stay
• Going home with your baby

In your video, include testimonials from families that can serve as ambassadors for your hospital. Include clips from your care team on why they love what they do.

4. Promote Your Online Library

People are continually searching for a source of information they can trust. Get the word out about your online library and encourage people to visit it by:

• Featuring your classes in your blog
• Playing clips of classes in the offices of your OB-GYNs
• Promoting online courses on your social media platforms
• Running a digital ad campaign
• Sharing it with your internal team
• Using email marketing

Continue building awareness by including ways to promote your videos each time you revisit your marketing plans.

5. Connect With Your Viewers

Create a place for people to submit questions and comments. You will gather valuable insight from your viewers by reaching out to them directly. You may learn:

• Common questions your videos are not addressing
• Concerns families have
• Parenting trends
• Resources people are looking for
• Topics that interest expecting parents
• What sets you apart

Use this feedback to iterate your existing materials or to create more videos and resources.

Make an Impact

Stand out as a resource people can turn to anytime they need information. Focus on what people need to know and how you can best provide that information to them through your virtual classes.

1. Understand Your Community’s Concerns

Start with research. Reach out to your call center, frontline staff, and infectious disease specialists. Monitor local news outlets. Check social media and local online forums, like your city’s local subreddit. Look at Google Trends, your own internal site search, and other tools that reveal what people are searching for in your area and on your website.

These tools can help you get a handle on the questions, concerns, and potential misinformation in your community — so you can deliver the information people need.

2. Categorize & Organize Your Questions

Make it easy for readers to find information. Group questions by topic and place them under clear and specific subheadings — for example, “Protecting Yourself and Others,” “Local COVID-19 Testing and Care,” and “Hospital and Clinic Policies During COVID-19.” This makes your FAQ page easy to scan and navigate. No one wants to weed through all your content to find the answer to the one question that brought them to your site in the first place.

To keep an FAQ page from growing unwieldy, address the questions of just one target audience. For example, you may have one FAQ page for external audiences, like patients and community members, and another for your employees and physicians. Put employees and physician FAQs in place that makes sense for this audience. In some cases, that might be your intranet. If your intranet isn’t easily accessible for some staff or nonemployed physicians, choose a section of your website dedicated to healthcare professionals. Learn more about internal communication during a healthcare crisis.

As a crisis progresses and the questions you uncover in your research become more specialized to specific situations, you may want to segment your audience even further. For example, consider targeted FAQ pages to address the COVID-19-related questions of pregnant women, cancer patients and their families, people with respiratory conditions, older adults, and other groups. Consider the needs of your audience and the specialty programs, services, and expertise at your organization as you determine your approach.

3. Be Concise and Straightforward

Make questions and answers easy to read and understand by using plain language. Be clear and specific. Use short sentences and paragraphs. Speak directly to the reader. Use the active voice. Choose everyday words. Learn more about creating readable healthcare content.

When writing questions and answers, vary your opening phrases. Eye-tracking studies show that readers tend to look at words toward the beginning of a line when they scan a page. That means if every question starts with “What should I…,” your readers may struggle to find the information they’re looking for.

4. Prioritize Usability, Accessibility, & Inclusivity

During a public health crisis, everyone needs access to reliable, trustworthy health information — especially those who are most at risk. Choose an FAQ format that’s easy for everyone to use.

According to user experience leader Nielson Norman Group, the best format for short and medium FAQ pages is a question list followed by the individual questions and answers.

If you choose to use accordions to condense your content, make sure they comply with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Same for in-page links, also called jump links.

The subheadings you used to organize your questions also support accessibility for people using screen readers and other assistive devices.

If your service area includes large populations whose preferred language is something other than English, consider translating your FAQ page into the most commonly spoken languages in your community. A professional medical translator gives you more control and confidence in the accuracy and quality of your translated content.

5. Connect to Related Content

Avoid duplicating your content by connecting users to other areas of your website for additional information. For example, if you’re telling patients to use virtual visits for some healthcare services, cross-link to your virtual visits service line page.

During a far-reaching crisis like the COVID-19 outbreak, take advantage of resources from national or international organizations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offer easy-to-read COVID-19 fact sheets in multiple languages and syndicated public health library content.

6. Update Your FAQs Regularly

Keep your FAQ page relevant and up-to-date as the crisis evolves.

Do continual research on your community’s needs — the questions they have tomorrow or next week may be completely different than the questions they have today.

As news breaks, recommendations are updated, or policies change, revise your FAQ page so your visitors get current information. Consider including a “last updated” or “last reviewed” date on the page to help instill confidence and trust.

Putting it all Together: FAQ Page Examples

Check out these examples of clear, purposeful, well-organized COVID-19 FAQ web pages for a variety of audiences:

• Aetna — What You Need to Know About The Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• CDC – Information for Healthcare Providers: COVID-19 and Pregnant Women
• Children’s Hospital Colorado – FAQs for Healthcare Professionals: What You Need to Know About Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• Cleveland Clinic – Frequently Asked Questions about Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
• Cone Health – Social Distancing FAQ: How It Helps Prevent COVID-19 (Coronavirus) and Steps We Can Take to Protect Ourselves

After the Crisis

When the crisis passes, remove the FAQ page from your website. While FAQ pages can be useful in a time-sensitive situation, they aren’t ideal for long-term website content. Instead, work relevant information about ongoing care or new policies into your foundational content.

With these approaches, you’ll create a timely, purposeful FAQ page with factual, unbiased information that can help ease anxiety and stress, reduce call volume, protect your community’s health, and even improve brand trust and loyalty today and going forward.

Communicating Internally During a Crisis

Healthcare marketing and communication professionals are working diligently to reduce confusion and worry, as well as stop inadvertent spread of misinformation by implementing a solid internal crisis communication plan. As we’re learning with COVID-19 right now, creating and following a plan becomes even harder when information changes day-by-day, and even hour-by-hour. Flexibility is key.

As you implement your crisis communication plans, knowing the answers to these five questions will help reduce chaos and provide your organization with accurate and timely information.

#1: Who Needs Information?

Ideally, you have time to assess the layers of communication you will need before you need them. Even if the crisis has begun to unfold, understanding the groups of individuals needing information can save you crucial time. Your internal audiences may consist of:

• Individuals working on campus during the crisis
• Individuals working off site during the crisis
• Staff who are expecting to come into work
• Team members who will not report to work
• Physicians with privileges at your health system
• Board members
• Vendors
• Volunteers

#2: What Do They Need to Know?

Not all of your internal audiences need the same information. You’ll need a plan for both essential and nonessential staff.  Determine what to tell your team and how to balance privacy and disclosure. Ask your managers what questions or concerns they’ve heard from staff. Address those questions on a large scale. Anticipating the information your teams need to know allows you to communicate proactively — so you can prevent problems or miscommunication.

Activate your incident command center to coordinate communications during an emergency. Rely on your command center to organize communications coming in from your local emergency response teams, government, and your staff. Use your command center’s strengths to build a hierarchy of responses about operations, logistics, planning, and support in a logical and efficient way.

Initial Communication

Your internal team will need to know about:

• Benefits – Notify your teams about what they can expect regarding pay, previously planned time off, and related information.
• Community resources – Share information that can help your internal teams’ well-being to keep them safely at home or safely report to and from work
• Working expectations – Clearly state who you expect to work on site, who should work remotely, and who should not work. Explain why these policies are in place and how long you anticipate they will last.
• Staff protocols – Communicate your process for individuals who get sick. Do you expect them to stay home or work? What steps or processes do staff need to follow before returning to work?
• Patient care protocols – Ensure everyone on your team knows your health system’s protocols regarding patient care. Eliminate confusion since each state and facility may have different rules for testing or patient care.
• Public messaging – Be transparent about what you’re communicating to the public through your website and other digital platforms as well as what you’re communicating to the media. This helps your internal team share correct information with the public. Your internal teams will value hearing from you first, not from news stations or social media.

Ongoing Communications

As your messaging continues to evolve, be sure to communicate:

• Action plan – List what your organization is doing to ensure the safety of your internal team, patients, visitors, and community.
• Building changes – Keep your internal team up to date by communicating facility changes, such as temporary testing sites or rezoning of departments
• Census updates – Share your patient volume and capacity with individuals who can use this information to improve patient care and make the appropriate staffing accommodations.
• Staffing updates – Inform your team on what they can expect during the crisis. How long with their shifts be? What can they expect when they arrive to work? Define roles and how your team members can make the most significant impact while protecting their own health.
• Supply status – Communicate your current resources, so people know what is available. Clarify items you need to improve patient care and how to best allocate supplies that are low in stock. Tell your team if and how you’re working with neighboring hospitals to improve patient care in your community.
• Your success – Remind your team of your mission and purpose as a health care system. During a crisis, it is important to celebrate your progress to continue the positive momentum and cohesion amongst your team.

#3: How Will They Receive Communication?

Evaluate your platforms for communication. What technology is in place that you can use during a crisis? If your technology becomes unavailable, what is your backup plan? Successful ways to communicate with your internal teams include:

• Overhead announcements – Use your facility’s public address (PA) system to make quick statements that everyone needs to hear.
• In-person updates – Work with managers or designated communication teams to provide verbal updates to front-line staff.
• Group text – Use for short, concise messages that need to go out quickly.
• Phone tree – Create and use a phone tree to efficiently relay brief messages to a group of people. Create a script to help people pass on accurate information.
• Email – Securely communicate updates that are important but do not require immediate action.
• Intranet – Dedicate a page or section of your intranet to crisis communication. Many people do not have time to sift through emails, especially when emails can quickly become out of date. Your intranet is an effective, searchable channel to communicate changes to a procedure, visiting hours, or staffing to all internal teams.
• Website – Share public updates on your website, check out these resources for crisis communications on your site.
• Social media – Shape the message you want to communicate through social media and set clear policies and procedures for your internal teams to follow. Make sure your social media team knows where to send inquiries and how to best address the questions coming in from your community.

#4: When Will They Get Updates?

Prioritizing what information you need to share and how frequently to share it helps establish a process for when a course of action is necessary. Depending on the length of your crisis, consider communicating:

• As needed – Relay urgent information immediately
• Hourly – Communicate critical information that impacts patient care and staff
• Daily – Send a daily recap to all internal teams by email. Consider having separate distribution lists for your different internal audiences. This can help you craft and communicate information relevant to each group. Update your intranet each day to include information for all internal audiences.
• Weekly – Summarize the week, concerns, and need-to-know information for the upcoming days and weeks.
• End of the crisis – Inform your team of the impact of the crisis, acknowledge their sacrifices and teamwork, and share your recovery plan.

#5: Where Can They Go to Get Answers to Their Questions?

Questions will arise even with the most informative communications in place. Use your intranet as a tool to help people submit questions and get answers promptly. Save time by creating a page on your intranet that provides correct messaging to questions your front-line teams hear frequently.

Evaluate & Evolve Your Communication Plan

Once the crisis is over, take time to review your process. Identify areas you would iterate on in a future event. Continue updating your plans as your health system changes and evolves.

The Web is Your Most Valuable Communication Tool in a Crisis

When you need to communicate quickly and update messaging to keep up with rapidly changing events, your website is a valuable tool. It’s always “on.” It’s available to the masses. It’s accessible in a second. And, most importantly, it’s quick and easy to update.

Stay Updated

Staying on top of rapidly changing information might be hard for your team, but do the best you can to follow a few reliable sources, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or National Institutes of Health (NIH) to share with your web visitors. As a team, evaluate new information you hear inside and outside the organization to ensure you’re providing the most relevant information to the public.

If resources and time are tight, link to those organizations or your own state health department, which are constantly updating their own sites with public-facing information.

Focus on Consumer Needs

Keeping consumers at the forefront of your communication strategy is always important. In a crisis, it’s essential. Before you post a coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) FAQ or a press release, ask yourself whether it’s the right content for your audience.

Consider what your audience needs to know.

• What’s already been shared in the national and local news? What questions are people still asking?
• What common concerns and questions are your staff hearing from patients, visitors, and others in your community?

Common Questions During a Healthcare Crisis

Questions your community may have for you during a healthcare crisis include:

• What is your organization’s plan to handle this crisis?
• How are you monitoring patients coming to your hospitals and clinics?
• What should I know about this illness/crisis? What are the symptoms? When do I need to see a doctor? How will I be treated?
• How can I protect myself and my family?

Create Readable Content

Only 12% of adults in the United States have a proficient level of health literacy, according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL). That means most people have difficulty understanding and using health information to make informed choices and access medical services. In times of stress or anxiety, even people with high levels of health literacy may face challenges. Why? Because intense emotions impede our understanding of complex words and phrases.

So, when communicating about a healthcare crisis, it’s even more important to create readable healthcare content:

• Aim for a reading level of 9th grade or lower
• Consider alternative formats, such as infographics and videos to help reach more people
• Speak directly to your readers
• Use plain language and words that people without a medical degree will understand
• Use subheadings and bulleted lists to make content easy to scan

Examples of Ways to Communicate & Educate

As of this publication, the COVID-19 outbreak is sweeping headlines. You have a recognizable and trustworthy brand that people in your community look to for relevant, timely, and accurate information. See how other healthcare marketers like you are using their websites to communicate and educate.

Connect People With Reliable Information

In early March 2020, Cape Cod Healthcare used their editorial brand, Cape Cod Health News, to publish an article titled “Who can you trust for coronavirus information?”.

During the 2014 Ebola outbreak, Parkview Medical Center created a frequently asked questions list for visitors to read and share, answering questions about Ebola treatment, symptoms, and care.

Engage Your Experts

Cone Health shared COVID-19 information through their editorial brand, Wellness Matters. A Q&A with infectious disease specialist Cynthia Snider, MD, allowed a conversational approach to sharing information on the virus, its symptoms, and prevention.

In Texas, University Health System’s Health Focus SA shared a video with infectious disease specialist Jason Bowling, MD, answering frequently asked questions.

Leverage Outside Resources

Cone Health also published a list of reliable sources for COVID-19 information, such as the CDC, World Health Organization (WHO), and North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. UNC Health did something similar, but with links to up-to-date news releases on cases in their state.

Altru Health’s webpage on the coronavirus connects website visitors with trustworthy sources, including the state health department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Partner With Local Media

Reach out to local media, such as newspapers and TV stations, to talk about the crisis and what people in your community can do to be safe. Work with the media to direct people to your website for additional information and updates.

What Did We Learn?

When the crisis is over, reflect on the experience and what your team learned. Ask yourselves:

• What was the feedback from the community?
• What went well? What was challenging?
• How can we improve crisis communication in the future?

Getting through a healthcare crisis is a major milestone. Use this opportunity to build a plan, establish confidence in your employees and community, and learn how you can better communicate with your patients to keep them healthy and educated.