A patient logs onto a virtual visit five minutes early. The screen shows a loading icon, then a message that the doctor will be with them shortly. What happens in that gap, something that the healthcare industry has not fully addressed, is a rare opportunity to engage relevant patients who are looking for more content, pre-visit.
The Virtual Care in America: The Populus Report found that 51 percent of patients stay focused on their screen before and during a virtual appointment. Nearly half, 46 percent, said they want health or educational content while they wait. That is a large share of attentive patients, and there is currently nothing put in front of them.
And patients aren’t the only ones who welcome pharma into virtual care moments: the research also found that 53 percent of providers accept pharma presence in virtual care, but 57 percent rarely or never see pharma messaging there.
Compare that to a physical waiting room. In-office point-of-care advertising has grown into a business worth more than one billion dollars a year, built on the simple idea that a patient sitting in a chair, waiting to be called back, is worth reaching. Screens in exam rooms, posters by the front desk, printed materials on the counter, all of it exists because someone recognized that waiting is not empty time.
Virtual care has reproduced the same waiting period without reproducing the same intent. The patient is still there, still early, still thinking about the appointment ahead. The screen in front of them is usually blank or generic. The opportunity for product and disease education is real, but the healthcare industry has largely ignored it.
Permission Without a Plan
Patients, in other words, have already permitted more useful information at this moment, yet execution has been slower to follow. The audience waiting on that screen has already committed to a health conversation, and 86 percent of patients reported feeling comfortable discussing personal or sensitive health topics in a virtual setting. Filling that time with something relevant respects the reason they’re there.
Providers are already seeing part of the payoff on the scheduling side: 82 percent cite fewer missed appointments as a benefit of virtual care, a pattern that depends on patients showing up and staying engaged before the call even connects.
Marketers see the same opening. Sixty-six percent of pharma marketers surveyed for the report rank engagement as their leading measure of virtual care effectiveness, ahead of new patient starts, script lift, and reach, and 70 percent say virtual care is particularly effective for patient education. Marketers already believe the moment matters, with 81 percent reporting that they increased their virtual care spending over the past year, yet little of that budget has been redirected toward the minutes before a visit even begins.
The opportunity reflects a larger shift toward using digital healthcare experiences to keep patients engaged throughout their care journeys. As Future Healthcare Today has explored, digital health tools are increasingly giving healthcare organizations new ways to connect patients with information and support beyond traditional in-person interactions.
A Moment Nobody Owns; Designing for the Wait
The pre-visit window sits where three separate interests meet, and those interests rarely talk to each other: the patient who wants a clear answer to a health question, the provider who wants a patient walking into the visit informed rather than anxious, and the health marketer trying to reach someone who is actually paying attention instead of scrolling past an ad. Most of that time goes unused because no single party owns it. It falls between the scheduling system, the video platform, and whatever content strategy a health system or brand has built for other channels.
Addressing this starts with treating the pre-visit window the way physical waiting rooms have been treated for years, as a moment worth designing for rather than a delay to sit through. That could mean a short, relevant video queued up ahead of a specialist visit, or medication information delivered while a patient waits for a follow-up call for that specific indication. It could also be as simple as a well-timed reminder of what to have ready before the appointment starts, such as symptoms to describe, medications to list, and questions to ask, or it can be targeted efficacy information on a new therapy used to treat the condition being discussed.
Populus Health Technologies’ Virtual Care Media is designed around these virtual care touchpoints, delivering educational content and sponsored messaging at multiple points during an online visit, including pre- and post-visit interactions.
Trust Is Already There
The industry spent years building trust in virtual care as a platform, and the numbers back that up. The same report found 88 percent of patients feel safe using virtual care, and 87 percent report satisfied with their last visit.
Patient trust is particularly important as healthcare organizations expand digital touchpoints and look for new ways to create more connected experiences. Future Healthcare Today has covered how digital transformation is reshaping the way healthcare organizations engage with patients and deliver information throughout the care experience.
What remains is helping patients take advantage of the virtual care moments that already exist and filling it with more educational and helpful information during the pre-visit attention window, the post-visit support window, and care between visits.
The opportunity extends beyond the waiting period itself. The Populus Report examines virtual care across patients, healthcare providers, and pharma marketers, identifying opportunities for engagement before, during, after, and between virtual visits.
Patients have already shown up early, stayed focused, and asked for something useful to fill the wait. Providers, health systems, and marketers now have a clear opening to answer that request, and the ones who act on it first will set the standard for what a well-designed virtual visit looks like.
The author, Edith Hodkinson, is Chief Strategy Officer at Populus Health Technologies.