The goal of any healthcare professional is to provide the best care and services for their patients. But to do that, you need to understand your patients' individual wants and requirements.
That’s why patient demographics are essential. When used correctly, the information they provide can help you decide the most effective treatments and specialised care.
What is the Purpose of Patient Demographics?
Patient demographics are the information gathered from patients that give you a better idea of who they are. This lets your practice tailor your care to their specific needs.
When patients check in for their appointments, download an app, or fill out a survey, they'll usually be required to enter some information. This data will then become part of your medical records, which you can use to personalise your patient interactions.
Patient demographic data can include:
- Age
- Gender
- Sex
- Ethnicity
- Address
- Medical history
Why is Patient Demographic Data Important?
1. It Helps You Deliver Personalised Care
The more information you have on a patient's history, the better equipped you'll be to offer the best care possible.
For example, a patient’s location may affect their ability to receive immediate care. Likewise, their medical history might increase their susceptibility to contracting a specific disease. With the right demographic data, you can address these concerns and deliver personalised care and extra attention to meet their needs.
Some patients may be hesitant to share this information. So, always be transparent about how you’re using their data, and explain how it can benefit them.
2. You Can Better Target Your Campaigns
Targeted healthcare campaigns help patients feel connected to their practice. They're also a great opportunity to share news, treatment options, updates, or healthcare trends.
Demographic data lets you tailor these campaigns to specific patients or groups. For example, you can send out flu jab reminders to patients over 65 or educate at-risk patients on how to manage their conditions.
Make sure you create your campaigns with your target demographic in mind. Regular communication with patients will keep them engaged and informed, but only if the content is relevant to them.
3. Data Provides Insight on Areas You Can Improve
Patient demographics are a great way to segment patient feedback.
They can help you discover pain points like accessibility issues, long wait times, or an ineffective patient check-in process. You can then use this information to make improvements across your practice.
For example, through a patient survey, you might find out that patients that are hard of hearing or partially sighted are struggling to hear or see your calls. With this information, you can improve your calling system, or provide different ways to use it.
Get to Know Your Patients
To improve your healthcare delivery, you need to understand the challenges facing patients. This will help you personalise your interactions and refine your services.
Collecting patient demographic data is an essential part of ongoing patient engagement and provides you with invaluable information so you can provide the best possible treatments.
Learn more about how to use demographic data to your advantage in our eBook.
