On Wednesday, December 30, 2010 the Department of Health and Human Services released the Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) establishing the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Program, commonly referred to as the Meaningful Use of an EHR, and the Interim Final Rule (IFR) establishing the Initial Set of Standards, Implementation Specifications and Certification Criteria for EHR Technology. Visit the HIMSS website for an evolving set of tools to navigate and analyze the nearly 700 pages of regulatory change.

Throughout time, physicians have relied on a number of different factors to become “known”.  Word of mouth, physician referral, insurance handbook, or a quick thumbing through the yellow pages; these would produce a new patient relationship.

Over time and in a world of overspecialization, the best physician brands become know by by their work.  “Dr. Johnson is the best neurosurgeon in California.”  For those who were seeking what they considered to be better care by a better physician, they would end up at the end of a communications path leading to the best branded physician accessible.

In the age of the Internet, the paths to those brands have grown to excess.  What has become misleading is how the physician brand is being represented.  It can be hard to tell a hack from a da Vinci.  Especially if the hack has a great medical web marketing campaign and the truly talented physician has a web page that his nephew created in 1998.

With the public turning to the Internet as their primary source for information and their primary path to their new physician, it is important to define and present the physician brand from a perspective of integrity.  With a good match between the web brand and work delivered, the web brand will support itself via the community of patients that uphold the brand for the physician.

Here are 8 hints and reminders regarding the physician and their web branding strategy.

1. A great physician brand comes after the patient experience.  The patient experience influences the value of the brand.  The patient experience influences other patients on how to feel about the brand.
2. A great physician brand frequently comes from something unique about the physician or group.  Be sure to define, harness, and leverage that uniqueness in your branding campaign.
3. Keep repeating that YOUR BRAND IS NOT YOUR LOGO.  Think of your logo as shorthand for your brand.  When people see it or hear your name (or name of your practice), what is the emotional response?  The logo/name will trigger that internal association with your brand.  The idea is to create the best experience.  The response to the logo or your name will follow suit.
4. Today’s patients are smart.  They know when they see false or misleading advertising and can pick out the lack of credibility.  Don’t help them by either poor web design or misleading web site elements.  The more you put into how you present yourself on the web, the more patients know you care about their experience.
5. Don’t be afraid to develop the definition of the experience.  How will the experience look and feel from the Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) to and throughout their office visit?  Build into your medical office culture a consistent defined experience from the web to their feelings long after the office visit.  Build that into the definition of the brand that you’re trying to achieve.
6. Focus on what you do best and include items that you are moving towards.  Sometimes you express everything you can do, which waters down what you do best.  What you do best is really the strongest and biggest branding opportunity.  Use your strengths to lever up the areas of expertise and technology that are on your practice and professional development path.
7. Once you’ve defined, developed, and are executing your web branding strategy, monitor the strategy and be flexible.  Don’t be so flexible that you are always changing everything, but be flexible enough to change what is not working and easily add in new ideas that come up.
8. Always remember that your brand is an experience and then a promise to fulfill that experience again and again.  In the physician practice there are a myriad of opportunities to create a great experience (and repeat).  The toughest but greatest experiences really come down to your patient relationship and the service (care) you provide.

So be honest about what you do, define it, design it, execute, improve it, and leverage your personal brand path from your medical web site to (and throughout) new patient experience.

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