SELF-CARE: THE EMERGENCE OF NEW HEALTH BEHAVIORS AND THE ROLE OF CONTENT IN THIS QUICKLY CHANGING ECOSYSTEM 

This article is built on findings in Humanizing Brand Experience, Vol 5—a joint report of Monigle and the Society for Health Care Strategy and Market Development (SHSMD) of the American Hospital Association (AHA). It is highlighted with key ideas from a conversation with Paul Matsen, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at the Cleveland Clinic. 

The majority of people no longer participate in healthcare in the same ways that they used to. Information about health, care, and wellness is now readily available, including an abundance of misinformation as well. In one of many unexpected outcomes of the pandemic, seemingly every brand has tried to become a health brand in some way. The cacophony of ideas, suggestions, remedies, solutions, and best practices is overwhelming. Naturally, this has led people to become more interested exploring self-care options—responding to this shifting landscape by taking care of things on their own. 

After more than two years living through a pandemic, self-care has taken on a whole new meaning. As people scrambled to cope with changing guidelines, advice, and socio-cultural dynamics, many turned to self-care as a way to take control of their own or their family’s health and wellness on their own terms. Consumers define self-care in two ways: 

1. Preventive steps, activities, and care to stay healthy
2. Reactive research, solutioning, and sometimes care resulting from the suggestions and recommendations of online resources that diagnose and recommend treatment of symptoms that someone can execute without the oversight of a provider 

As self-care takes on a new significance in the way people manage health, care, and wellness, brands will need to define their own role in this ecosystem more clearly. This could mean leaning more heavily into content and programming that supports and keeps consumers safe as they “doctor” themselves. This could be about partnership with the brand playing a role as the path to potential resources. This could also mean brands as curators of solutions with some sort of seal of approval for things that represent a certain level of quality or safety. 

For Cleveland Clinic, a brand with global reach and industry-defining trust, content leadership, partnership, and curation are at the core of an approach that leads conversations not only in the healthcare industry but well beyond it. According to Paul Matsen, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Cleveland Clinic, “we create content that people are seeking based on the questions they are asking and the topics they are discussing. Our work results in trusted and useful information not just for complex issues but also for living better everyday lives.” This is an important breadth of perspectives, but each piece of content has one thing in common: the information leverages the expertise of individuals from Cleveland Clinic, which adds content credibility and marketing reach.

For consumers, self-care is quickly becoming the top choice for many when it comes to managing health, with one in three U.S. consumers preferring to try self-care first before seeking in-person care from a provider. One in five people across the country claim to have been their own primary care physician in the last year, instead of leveraging traditional healthcare provider expertise. Reasons uncovered in consideration are the high price tag and access barriers of traditional care. 

Looking further though, an internet’s worth of resources are now at consumers’ fingertips, which has created a world where people more frequently rely on themselves as the first line of defense. Cleveland Clinic contributes to this wealth of credible health information with a Health Library that has grown by 4,000 resources in the last 18 months as well as its Health Essentials blog, one of the most frequently visited health resources in the country. 
 
When you look across different “points of access”—from in-person to self-care to virtual care, to in-home, and the considerations that come along with them—some important trends emerge. 

Over 50% of the population considers self-care options equally, if not more, than existing alternative care options that health systems provide. Patients used to walk through the door (in person or even virtually), but there are now more and more alternatives to these options that healthcare leaders have historically controlled. This could lead to more consumers leaning away from our brands for those traditional healthcare “visits” while also giving up our legacy credibility and expertise to other organizations.

The orientation to self-care first puts pressure on healthcare brands to adapt 

Across the entire population 31% of people would opt to manage their healthcare first through self-care. As we think about the challenges associated with growth and the recovery of business performance in healthcare delivery, this 31% becomes a potentially important population. The question for healthcare leaders should be how we want to engage them. Do we play the short-game and focus on how we move them “back” to the channels we control? Or do we play the long game and focus on rethinking our ecosystem of care in order to intersect in their lives and their experiences in a way that builds trust and advocacy? Mr. Matsen and his team have chosen the long game. The brand began its journey toward ever more trusted content before most organizations.

According Mr. Matsen, “we know that patients want more information, they want trusted information, and Google wants trusted information as well.” Building a team, capability, and process to support this effort is key to success. Cleveland Clinic’s content team meets daily, uses social listening tools to understand the current state of consumer and community conversations, and answers questions that people are asking one another about self-care topics in near real time.

Get in on the content game

When asked about self-care activities, consumers report many different behaviors and actions that fit into this broad bucket. Unsurprisingly, the most common form of self-care is online symptom research. This ranges from researching symptoms prior to making an appointment, researching symptoms or a specific diagnosis after soliciting care, or even checking out alternative or non-traditional pathways. 

 

Only 27% of respondents did not use online resources in some way to assist, as an addition, or even in replacement of, care. In fact, online research provided enough guidance and peace of mind that just under one in four people surveyed never even followed up with a professional opinion. 

This reality begins to further shift the role and the potential of content. How should healthcare leaders think about content we are deploying, and do we act to support or refute the orientation that people have to online health resources? For Cleveland Clinic, the goal is to be a trusted source of information bolstered by the voices of experts from across the global brand. According to Mr. Matsen, “we feature our own experts and our people who are trusted in the community…their voices are present to help build reputation and relationships.” This is an important consideration for those considering a new role for content—your efforts may not be about driving appointments and immediate volume. Added Matsen, “our digital content is about delivering valuable content and experience to people around the world; it’s not a short-term, volume driving technique.”

What can you do differently tomorrow than today to leverage these insights? 

Self-care represents a new challenge for healthcare leaders to navigate. Some level of self-care has always been present in the broader healthcare industry, but the results of COVID, shifting cultural norms about health and being healthy, and the economic and access challenges found across the industry have put a spotlight on the role of this behavior for healthcare leaders. To be successful, brands need to define how they want to exist for people in this context. 

Three tactics will be key to success:  

1. Know your role: What role do you want to play when it comes to self-care? The content leader, the partner facilitator, the content curator? Healthcare brands need role clarity in order to define strategies and tactics that help consumers take action related to self-care in a seamless way. With Cleveland Clinic’s depth and history, the organization can flex its role across the different platforms where the brand delivers content. As you rethink the role of content, clarity of your role will be key. 
2. Understand the ecosystem: Do you know how and where your target audiences and your communities are most likely to pursue a self-care path? Mapping consumer experiences, specifically with your audiences and/or your communities, can unlock insight into where you should take action to meet individuals where they are. According to Mr. Matsen, the best place to start is in your community. He explains, “start with what’s most relevant in your own market and address a specific topic that will best serve your own community.” You don’t have to do everything all at once. That will make your own content revolution too overwhelming. Pick a topic that’s front of mind within your communities and start there. 
3. Content is an investment in the future: It is important for healthcare leaders to help their peers to understand the role of content in this self-care space as a long-term investment in the organization’s success. According to Mr. Matsen, “the beauty of doing content vs. short-term paid media is that it’s evergreen…if you optimize it and tag it, it becomes an annuity.” This is a challenging conversation in an already challenging economic environment, and it represents an opportunity for organizational alignment to ensure that we balance short-term business and long-term brand goals. 

For more information about the Humanizing Brand Experience report, download it here and check out Monigle and their full breadth of brand, experience, and culture offerings. Take a deeper dive into Cleveland Clinic’s Health Library here and its Health Essentials blog here.