Bay Area Physicians Rate Communication with UCSF Department of Radiology

Author:  Laurel Skurko, Marketing Director, UCSF Radiology and Biomedical Imaging

The UCSF Department of Radiology marketing team just completed a survey of 5,100 local referring physicians on their communications patterns and preferences. Today, with heightened communications in the health care industry and an over abundance of activity, understanding best practices in physician communications is critical. It is for this reason that we have been very engaged with this feedback and eager to share it with you. Here’s a summary of what we learned:

Our process

• We emailed 5,100 Bay Area physicians and health care providers. These included doctors from within UCSF, and those who work independently or for other providers.
• We received an outstanding 38% open rate and a 8% response rate.
• 77% of respondents had referred a patient to UCSF radiology in the past.

Most significant findings

• 56% would like us to keep in touch through regular communication about our department news and services.
• 40% indicated email as their preferred way of being contacted.
• Although 95% of respondents do not currently follow us on social media, we know that 32% have Facebook accounts, 18% are on LinkedIn, 14% on are Twitter, and 10% use YouTube.
• Almost half (45%) had heard of our Montgomery Street Clinic launch and the launch of clinical PET/MRI, our two biggest news items in 3rd and 4th quarter 2015. While most (53%) had heard of these launches via word-of-mouth, 24% heard of us through our outbound messaging via postal mail, email and social media.
• While use of personal social media accounts for professional purposes was low in most cases, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter were the most commonly accessed accounts.

About services

• More than 70% of respondents said they were satisfied or very satisfied with UCSF imaging services.
• The top three radiology topics of interest were ultrasound, abdominal imaging, and neuroimaging.

We also asked respondents for general feedback on services, including any problems they’d like to bring to the department’s attention. The response was generally very positive (“Love you guys!” “Thank you”); constructive criticism focused on the need to streamline the scheduling process.

This is the first time we’ve asked members of the medical community for their perspective on the quality of our service and on how they learn about our offerings. With these insights in hand, we have a much greater understanding of how to focus our communications and spread the word about the excellent work UCSF radiologists perform.