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Over the past years, we have mobilised thousands of practices with eConsult across every type of demographic and list size. From our experience, we know that speaking to and promoting eConsult to patients at every opportunity is the most effective way to market eConsult.

We would suggest that you first make sure all staff have completed an eConsult so they understand the process. They can complete one on your practice website or use our demo site. You can’t promote something if you've never used it.

For different staff, the opportunities to promote eConsult will be different:

We're also built a dedicated patient guides section in our help centre.

Key messages to convey to patients:

A total triage model refers to when a practice introduces eConsult as the main route for accessing help or an appointment. Speaking to and promoting eConsult to patients at every opportunity is the most effective way to introduce a total triage model.

Benefits of Total Triage:

You can find out more about designing the best workflow model for your practice and how to prepare for change when moving to a different workflow here.

Text message campaigns can be an incredibly effective way of promoting eConsult on a specific topic to a specific demographic. You can use your own lists to focus on high-use or groups you want to target.

For example, you may want to suggest to all patients who might want to book a contraception review that they use eConsult instead.

When sending text messages to patients, please follow your standard processes in regards to patient permission, GDPR and PECR.

Depending on the type of workflow you have we have put together different example text messages you could use. You can download these below:

We also have examples of messages to send out to patients in anticipation of your go live:

For the majority of practices, the number one way patients first contact the surgery will be over the phone. With most patients phoning the practice for an appointment it will inevitably lead to phone queues.

Rather than the standard holding music, why not promote eConsults? It is available immediately so patients won’t have to wait in the queue. We would suggest having your lead GP read the message as they will be the most recognisable person from the practice for patients.

“Thank you for calling the practice. If you are ringing to book an appointment or speak to a GP, you may wish to try our online consultation service eConsult. You can access eConsult on our practice website. You tell us what the practice can help you with, fill out an online form, and we’ll get back to you by the end of the next working day with the next steps.”

Practices send out regular newsletters, so this is an opportunity to consistently remind patients about services that you provide. If you can also include some facts and figures about how eConsult is being used in the practice and the benefit it is having, that will make it more relevant for patients.

If you want some examples of newsletters that other practices have sent out, have a look at the below examples – some are from the same practice, showing how they keep coming back to eConsult with different angles.

Blogs to support you with patient education:

Blogs aimed at patients - please feel free to share these with your practice population:

If you have any questions or you feel that this article could be improved, please feel free to give us some feedback by emailing us, pressing the emojis below or using the chat button on the bottom right-hand side of this page to speak to one of the eConsult team.