Learning the Language of Our Clients: Communicating Healthcare

Artificial IntelligenceHealthcare
Written By Timothy McHenry
decoding healthcare

Navigating healthcare in today’s world can be tough. According to a report published in 2010, roughly 90% of U.S. adults find it difficult to read the precise and complex healthcare jargon. This is troubling both on a macro and micro level. From a macro perspective, understanding the healthcare world and the emerging technology currently affecting it is crucial to understanding the broader healthcare landscape. From a micro perspective, it can lead to medical misinformation or even cause you to shy away from possible life-saving healthcare. This is why it is crucial for communication companies like Cate Urban Communications to bridge this gap and help communicate healthcare to the larger population.

What our clients are up against:

Large amounts of online info: With AI and the vast amounts of online databases for healthcare information, most people choose to go online for healthcare information. According to survey from the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, more than 80% of Americans go online for health information. But that same survey reports that although most people search online, only 11% of people manage to find what they are looking for. This is why it’s important to provide a middle ground of sorts to help translate the complex healthcare jargon into a language that most people can understand. And this starts on helping people navigate the vast landscape of information available to them.

Medical misinformation: This one is tricky. What is healthcare misinformation? Science is an ever-changing landscape where even the truth of what you’re reading can be complex. The science may be right but the way it is presented is misleading. How do you know? According to a report by GoodRx, over 70% of people have been exposed to medical misinformation. Step 1 in trying to navigate what is true or false is learning the language of healthcare. Helping people with this task may be able to draw down the amount of exposure the average person has to misleading or false information.

Emerging tech: While it is tempting to just focus on AI for this one, doing so would ignore the vast amount of emerging technology in the field. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, learning the language of healthcare can help people understand the technology that may one day save their lives. Communicating healthcare can alleviate the fear that AI is going to take over everything, including their doctors. A Pew research survey found that 60% of respondents would feel uncomfortable with AI taking on the role of doctor (diagnosing disease and recommending treatment). Communicating the impact and uses of technology in healthcare may help to ease fears and reduce the stigma around emerging technology in the healthcare sector.

Overall, communication in the healthcare sector is critical to helping people understand a complex and ever-changing industry. A lack of understanding in this field can sometimes be the difference between life and death. That is why we work with organizations like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and CORE Group to find ways to break down the complexity and communicate the impact of life-saving technology and information.

‍Learn what Cate Urban Communications can do for your company:

Timothy McHenry
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