Practice management consultants and marketing experts say "quick response" codes could be an effective tool for health care providers seeking to market themselves and their services, American Medical News reports.
QR Code Details
Quick response, or QR, codes are two-dimensional, upgraded versions of standard barcodes.
When scanned by a camera-enabled smartphone, the QR code can transmit back to a user's mobile phone up to 14 types of data, such as hyperlinks, text messages and phone numbers.
Dozens of websites offer QR codes at no cost. Users who request QR codes can enter what type of data they want to transmit, such as a URL or text message. The websites can generate a digital file of the QR code's image that can be placed on advertisements, business cards, social media pages, practices' websites and elsewhere.
Marketing Applications
According to Mary Pat Whaley, a consultant who runs a practice management resource website, health care providers can use QR codes to introduce physicians to patients by linking codes to online videos.
Athens Regional Health Services in Georgia recently began posting QR codes in newspapers, magazines and postcards that remind women to schedule mammograms and link them to an online appointment center.
In addition, Nebraska Medical Center promotes services by linking QR codes to online hospital tours, and Poudre Valley Health System in Colorado uses QR codes to send patients to the system's maternity Facebook page (Dolan, American Medical News, 10/3).