The operatory isn’t your only opportunity for patient education, nor is it the first point of patient interaction. Education can start when your patient enters the reception or waiting area—and here’s why it should.
Let’s face it: Most patients would probably bypass patient literature and brochures for Cosmopolitan or Esquire. There’s also a good chance Millennial and Gen Z patients are buried in their phones, especially with in-office Wi-Fi. Having the local news channel on the main television is a courtesy, but it’s not a necessity if (hopefully) your practice is running efficiently and patients are not waiting indefinitely.
Rather, you can easily use TV monitors in your waiting room to educate patients, even if their engagement is just momentary. Doing so can help make patients more informed advocates of their oral health. This educational content doesn’t have to be boring, and it actually could be more interesting than watching the local news station’s “weather on the 1s” every 10 minutes.
In order for patient education videos to be effective, however, you must have a reliable and engaging source of video content. That’s exactly what Spear Education has created in its recently released patient education lobby videos, which offer dentists and their teams animated, research-driven visuals via Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV stick. The content is intended to provide clear overviews of common dental issues, help patients visualize their conditions, and also help them understand the essentials of recommended treatment.
Dentists can be assured that the video content is accurate and up to date, as the content has been developed by Spear faculty and longtime educators. The videos run unobtrusively in the background, highlighting common but complex dental issues, with topics that include healthy gums, dental implants, cracked teeth, and temporomandibular disorder. In some cases, the relatable content and graphics may help to remove apprehension from the visit.
Patient education lobby videos are included with Spear Online, and the platform is designed to automate the content so you and your team can focus on other priorities. For instance, perhaps your practice has made it a goal to increase case acceptance for implants. You can combine various lobby videos and animations to build a video loop that addresses basic concepts.
At this point, you may be thinking, “This is nice to have in my practice, but is it really that important?” It is if you believe in the correlation between patient engagement and treatment acceptance.
In Spear Education’s recent survey of 500 patients, more than 90% of those who watched patient education videos wanted to discuss treatment with their doctors. Spear also studied the reactions of 400 other adult dental patients who were shown the patient education lobby video about cracked teeth, and 91% reported they would move forward with treatment after seeing the video. Eighty-six percent felt repairing a cracked tooth prevents more work in the future, as patients understood the consequences of inaction, and 84% felt a wait-and-see approach was a bad choice for small cracks as they became aware of the consequences.
In the video below, you’ll see Spear Education’s “Healthy Gums” lobby video. Notice how the video engages with patients by first posing questions, providing stats, and giving tips for good oral hygiene before delving into more of the clinical content about unhealthy gums, gum disease, and associated health risks. The content then leads to a call-to-action that tells the patient to ask their dentist about the best treatment options for their individual situation.