Personalised medical imaging could increase patient satisfaction in the healthcare industry, says Javier Lopez, General Manager, Vertical Solutions, OKI Europe Ltd.
Simple measures, such as a friendly, personal service make all the difference for patients and customers in doctor visits, and if those measures were reflected in the medical results and documentation supplied to patients, medical organisations could benefit from increased confidence and patient satisfaction.
Businesses and healthcare organisations offering radiology services, such as cardiologists, gynaecologists, medical centres and others with X-ray facilities, must rely on medical imaging manufacturers to produce informative, easy to digest images. These essentially enable medical staff to recognise medical complications, assert the best course of action, and help patients understand complex issues.
Building patient trust
For medical imaging manufacturers, there is a clear opportunity to help those radiology-based organisations build trust with their patients while reducing time spent describing those complex issues. Presenting patients with sharp, high quality colour images will undoubtedly increase the ease of describing issues and treatments. For patients, this creates a friendlier more personalised and satisfying experience that will provide a valued level of comfort during an otherwise daunting experience.
However, the benefits of DICOM are only recognised by medical imaging manufacturers and medical staff.
Traditionally, DICOM image files are not easy to share with patients. While other image file formats such as JPEG, PNG or TIFF files are recognised and easily read by personal computers, DICOM files are not recognised by the standard home PC or laptop running Windows or MacOS operating systems. While medical organisations could share the images via email, the patient would require additional software in the form of a DICOM viewer to access the file and would need additional information in a separate text file to explain the image’s findings.
Personalising the patient experience
This is where medical imaging manufacturers can provide a simple yet effective solution in the form of personalised booklets, providing a referenceable take-home source of information for patients, including post- diagnosis radiology report, and detailed, high quality images. To maximise their marketing value, the booklets should include relevant information alongside the images, explaining the findings of the scan or X-ray, or detailing proposed surgery in booklets that present visual renderings of potential cosmetic procedures.
Through variable data printing, the booklets can be further personalised with the patient’s name, surname and date of birth clearly displayed on the front cover.
A patient requiring cosmetic surgery could be presented with an A3 colour booklet during the consultation stage, prior to deciding on whether to go ahead with the surgery. Having the personalised booklet with details including before and after images, will enable the patient to make an informed decision.
For patients requiring dental care, the personalised booklet will help keep them updated with the course of treatment, and new updated booklets during treatment will increase patient satisfaction by highlighting the patient’s progress on the road to recovery.
Personalised booklets will also be of great value to expecting parents, presenting high quality ultrasound scans of the foetus that will provide a lasting keepsake which can be shared with friends and family members.
For medical organisations, there is opportunity to increase marketing value through increased satisfaction in a highly personalised experience. In turn, this creates a clear opportunity for medical imaging manufacturers that can provide high quality personalised booklets in a flexible range of formats and sizes that include sharp, colourful images that will inform and placate medical patients in an age of high expectations.
- Find out about OKI’s unique DICOM embedded printers: http://www.oki.com/me/printing/products/colour/dicom/index.html
- OKI’s medical health solutions:
http://www.oki.com/me/printing/services-and-solutions/industry-solution/healthcare/index.html
