Marketing Your Way Through The Stereotypes of HBOT

   The wound care industry tends to view hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) as a necessary component of a full wound care program. The therapy provides a healing option for qualifying patients that would normally take longer to heal or patients that might never heal. We are fortunate to be familiar with all of the healing advantages that HBOT offers. Surprisingly, for a large percentage of the medical community, hyperbaric oxygen therapy is still viewed as an elective, cosmetic, or experimental procedure. Most medical schools do not include hyperbaric treatment as a part of the required curriculum. Compounded with the reports from Hollywood or various athletic teams, there is a perceived lack of credibility. So how do we overcome the ridiculous stereotypes to reach treating physicians and more importantly the patients that can most benefit from HBOT? The answer is easy enough—education. The dilemma is how to deliver the education without the message being lost in marketing hype.

Positioning

  To help promote the benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy it is important to position the wound center as a resource for the local medical community. Now that hospitals are looking to wound professionals for assistance with inpatient programs, it invites the perfect opportunity to highlight the benefits of a total program. Each program needs to work with the hospital to set up a series of short in-service programs to discuss the full spectrum of wound care services. This allows potential referring physicians to become familiar with the wound care protocols and the expanded services offerings. Physicians not familiar with HBOT will have the opportunity to see the chambers and ask questions. It is important to make all educational materials available for interested physicians.

Using Your Tools

  Development of case studies for each of the clinical indications for hyperbaric treatment is one of the most important education tools for each center. As a clinic, identify those cases that have resulted in successful hyperbaric patients. Once the studies have been developed, it is important to pair the cases with the appropriate referring specialty. This provides fact-based evidence that hyperbaric treatment is effective for the patients that this particular physician treats. This opens the door for further discussions and potential patient consultations.

Following the Shift

  To reach a larger physician audience, develop a program that targets a specialty group. Hospitals have shifted to specialization, and this provides the perfect opportunity to demonstrate how the wound center and hyperbaric treatment can serve as a vital component to a total program. A particularly growing specialty is women’s health. At first thought, hyperbaric treatment may not be seen as important to include, but it is a very crucial component. Develop an educational program that highlights the treatment of female cancer patients that have undergone radiation treatment with resulting radiation necrosis. This can lead to several different educational sessions. To prove further relevance, follow up the initial sessions with female hyperbaric patients that were treated with compromised grafts or flaps from mastectomy procedures that are successfully healed.

Creating A Platform

  Develop an educational wound care and hyperbaric symposium on an annual basis, which highlights current research sponsored in partnership between the wound center and the hospital. This provides a platform for physicians from varying specialties to discuss the benefits of a total wound care program and the advantages of hyperbaric treatment. It is important to bring in well-respected speakers from both the local and national medical communities. Work with physicians outside the wound center to bring impartiality to the information being delivered and increase the credibility of the medical evidence. It is important to offer CME and CEU credits at these events. This increases the importance of the information being presented and helps draw more clinicians to the event.

Re-Education

  Being able to overcome the stereotypes of hyperbaric treatment is sometimes difficult. It is a re-education process of the established medical community that is reluctant to change. The benefits of HBOT have to be presented simply—a technology that has been in existence for several years but has now found its’ place as an integral part of patient healing. This in no way means that the potential referring physicians’ medical education was sub par; but rather that technology has advanced more quickly than curriculum. HBOT is an advanced technology that has evidence-based outcomes which cross the lines of physician specialties as few modalities can. To promote the benefits of hyperbaric oxygen therapy, each wound care and hyperbaric treatment program needs to become an ambassador of education to their respective medical community to provide optimum patient outcomes.

Heidi Mueller is Sr. VP of Sales and Marketing for Wound Partners. For questions or inquiries, please contact Heidi at heidi.Mueller@insighthtbb.com.