Who needs health care printing? Health care providers are in the business of treating people, but they also provide education and information. Whether you work in a small, two-person family practice or a major hospital system, you need health care printing to create patient brochures and other materials. Here are some health care printing ideas that can enhance your practice and create better relations with your patients.
Who Needs Health Care Printing?
You need printed materials if you run any type of health care provision service, including:
- Family practice
- Specialty practice
- Urgent care clinic
- Plastic surgery office
- Stand-alone surgical unit
- Medical spa
- Veterinary practice
- Emergency veterinary clinic
- Dental office
- Dental surgery
- Pediatric practice
- Podiatrist
- Alternative medicine provider
- Acupuncture clinic
- Psychiatric or counseling office
- Chiropractor’s office
- Therapy practice
Why Do You Need Health Care Printing?
Health care printing materials can help your clients stay informed. In health care, a well-informed customer is one who is best placed to make the right decisions for their and their family’s health care.
Reinforce your in-office discussion
With the right health care printing materials, you won’t have to worry that patients haven’t taken in everything you talked about. You also won’t feel like you’re constantly repeating yourself. You can hand your client a document that reinforces what you talked about during your meeting.
Enrich your patient’s understanding
If your patient or their loved one has been diagnosed with a particular condition, a brochure that explains the condition is a useful tool. When you first offer a diagnosis, your client may be confused or have many questions. With a brochure that explains the details, you can address those questions and allow your client to get the details later, when they’re at home or in another quiet location.
Let’s say your patient has been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. A pamphlet can explain what the condition is, what its possible causes might be, and what most doctors do to treat it. The pamphlet can outline the best treatment options and prognosis. It can offer suggestions on how the patient might need to change certain things in their life—for instance, learning meditation or exercising more often—to reduce their symptoms.
Instead of keeping you in your office asking lots of questions, they’ll have the information they need in hand, and they can read it at their leisure.
Provide detailed follow-up
After a treatment or procedure, your patient should always follow up correctly to get the best results. Your follow up pamphlet can address the following:
- Are there any foods the patient should avoid?
- What activities can they engage in right away, and which ones should they wait to do?
- Is a follow-up medical appointment required?
- Which warning signs should they be alert to?
- What should their caregivers know?
- How long will they experience pain or other symptoms?
- When can they expect the results of the procedure to become apparent?
Offer home care suggestions
Some conditions don’t require medical intervention. Others can be helped with simple home care remedies that help alleviate symptoms or make the patient feel better.
For instance, if you’re treating someone with Achilles tendonitis, you can suggest stretching exercises to make the ligament stronger and more flexible. The exercises won’t heal the tendonitis on their own, but they allow the patient to feel better and provide a roadmap for self-care.
A home care pamphlet can outline those suggestions and suggest other home care techniques. In the same example, your booklet might recommend icing the leg or wearing a night splint. Patients who feel in charge of their condition feel less anxious about it and are more likely to start feeling better than those who feel helpless to do anything about it.
Increase trust
No patient wants to feel like they’ve wandered into the offices of an untrustworthy doctor or therapist. Professional-looking health care printing brochures will alleviate that worry, especially if they address the client’s concerns about who you are and why they should trust you with their family’s health. When you offer clear explanations and health care printing resources, you put them at ease. Always let your patients feel that they’re in knowledgeable, trustworthy hands. The right health care printing materials will help.
Explain medicines
If you’ve prescribed medication for a client, their child, or their pet, they probably want to know more about what it is and why you’ve prescribed it. Your medicine brochure should include information about the following:
- What is the medication?
- What is the proper dosage for your patient, and how often should they take it?
- What are its possible side effects?
- Are there generic options?
- What is the best way to take the medication?
Provide practice-specific information
Maybe your client has never tried Ayurvedic medicine or had family therapy sessions. Give them a better understanding of what you do. Be clear and upfront. Explain how your practice can help them feel better, overcome obstacles, or enjoy a healthier life.
What does your specific practice do, and how can it help your clients? Think about the questions a new customer might have as you think about the best way to explain how your practice stands out and why the client should trust you as an expert.
Get Started in Health Care Printing: 4 Steps to Success
You’ve decided that health care printing brochures can be valuable additions to your practice. Now, how do you get started? Follow this guide.
1. Decide which health care printing materials you want to produce
What specific subjects do you want your patient pamphlets to cover? Most practices will start with a simple brochure that outlines the practice, the providers, and what patients can expect from getting treatment there.
Once you’ve written and printed a brochure with general information, you can start developing more specific ones.
2. Write the copy
Writing your booklets and brochures is an important step in the process. Your brochures should be written in clear, simple language. Avoid using medical jargon. If you do use it, be sure to include an explanation. Focus on answering any questions your readers might have.
Once you’ve written your first draft, reread it from your customer’s perspective. Is there anything that’s unclear or needs more explanation? Let someone else read it. Ask their honest opinion. It may take several drafts to get it right.
If you’re not confident in your writing skills, maybe someone else in your office could take over this step. For the best results, and to save time, hire a freelance writer to write the copy for you.
3. Design your brochure
Are you new to design and layout? You can find tips on design through online classes or from studying the designs of other brochures that you like. Most booklets and brochures for health care printing feature simple designs with plenty of white space and a few well-chosen images. You can work from a free, customizable template that does most of the designing work for you.
Once you have a basic layout, consider personalizing it with images and colors that are specific to your practice or industry. If you’re designing for a veterinarian’s office, it’s appropriate to add pictures of cute animals. A pamphlet for an alternative medicine center might feature restful, spa-like colors and nature images. A pediatrician’s office might want a booklet that’s designed to look like a children’s book. Use your own circumstances and your creativity to put your personal spin on the basic design.
4. Get your health care printing materials professionally printed
Professional health care printing will make your health care materials look their best. Working with a printer ensures that your pictures and text pop against the paper. You’ll enjoy handing out materials that look great and enhance your clients’ trust in you.
If you’re ready to start your own health care printing program, work with Dazzle Printing. We offer expert printing and personalized service to every customer. When you’re ready to print your materials, call us for an estimate.
