As consumer preferences continue to shift towards mobile and digital, technology has created a wide variety of communication channels for engaging with information. Because the amount of marketing content that we receive on a daily basis often results in information overload, studies have found that personalized and individualized content creates a better and more satisfying user experience, resulting in a higher response rate. The radiology industry can help patients achieve better outcomes through strong, personalized communications.

Some examples of personalized messaging include emails with recipients’ first names to referencing their previous activity in order to customize their experience. By allowing you to deliver targeted messaging to your audience, personalized messaging helps to capture customer attention, increase engagement, boost conversions and build relationships.

There are several companies in consumer spaces such as Leanplum and Attentive that have demonstrated the positive impact of personalized communications - be it achieving engagement and revenue goals, or building lasting and valuable customer relationships. Through targeted campaigns, they use customer data to optimize messaging and ensure that you connect the right message at the right time on the right channel to produce measurable return on investment by ensuring that customers convert.

Radiology can also benefit from personalized messaging. In fact, some patients like to communicate via text, others via email ; some like to receive messages in the morning, others in the evening ; others are more likely to click a message if they see their primary care physician’s name in it. Personalized messaging in radiology has the power to improve engagement between patients and providers, improve adherence to follow-up recommendations, and ultimately increase revenue through more booked appointments and follow-ups.

Within Health is a platform for radiologists that automates and optimizes patient and provider engagement across multiple communication channels including email, text messages, EMR messages, and eFax. Within’ s communication module uses Artificial Intelligence to learn patient preferences over time, which helps determine what type of message to send, the best timing, and the ideal channel in order to increase the likelihood that the patient will respond and ultimately schedule a follow-up appointment they may have missed. Creating systems to automate and personalize patient and provider communications is key to the running and growth of a radiology practice. These innovations to the client engagement model will lead the radiology industry to a future with strong patient engagement, and ultimately better care.