Award

Wockhardt Bags Best Website Award for Medical Tourism

The award was presented at the Healthcare Globalisation Summit held at Las Vegas

India's leading chain of super-specialty hospitals, Wockhardt Hospitals group's website www.wockhardthospitals.net was adjudged the best 'International Hospital Website for Patient Information' by Consumer Health World Awards. The award was presented at the Healthcare Globalisation Summit held at Las Vegas. The awards recognise excellence and advancement in service, products and programs that enhance consumers' abilities to manage their healthcare expenditures and enhance healthcare quality. "Our simple objective for setting up this website was to inform, educate and empower our potential patients and their families by offering them comprehensive information," said Pradeep Thukral, Associate Vice President & Head International Business, Wockhardt Hospitals Group. The idea was to showcase the complete range of treatments, clinical and surgical services offered by the Wockhardt Hospitals Group in India. The website was not just about medical information, but also to empower its potential patients to help them make a decision. "Each of our top doctors’ profiles and pictures are in the ‘Find a Doctor’ section. So, the patients can know how competent their doctors are," adds Thukral. They have added some truly unique features like live webchat, testimonial videos of patient experiences, a query option to get a no-obligation second opinion from expert doctors, a credit card payment gateway for easy money transfer. There is a special section for international patients that has many useful resources like info on travel and tourism, visa and hotels to that helps patients to plan the next steps and make a decision "When we just launched this website we set up a 24-7 toll-free phone helpline in the US and UK. Most of the important links on this website are right on the home page in a health portal like style so that the visitors do not have to navigate much and are able to easily find the information they need in the shortest possible time," said Pradeep Thukral. In the past one year, the website has received more than 45,000 patient queries for opinion. Apart from the website, Wockhardt has invested in sophisticated web based customer relationship management software. The group has also set up a video channel on popular broadcasting sites like Youtube where more than 40 videos about the hospital group, patient testimonials and media stories can be viewed. According to Vishal Bali, CEO, Wockhardt Hospitals, "Website is the most powerful and cost effective medium for enabling our potential patients to make an informed choice."

EH News Bureau