5 Use Cases/Applications of Healthcare Sentiment Analysis in 2024

Healthcare is an industry where customer feedback and needs are of the utmost importance because the customers are primarily patients, and their satisfaction relies on the quality of health service. However, according to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index 2022 report, hospitals ranked 44th, and health insurance companies ranked 36th out of 47 benchmarked industries in customer satisfaction.

There are various reasons for the dissatisfaction, such as a lack of transparency, bad customer service quality, or physician’s attitude. So, understanding how the customers feel about your service and reading their feedback or reviews can be helpful for your business. 

Sentiment analysis can provide in-depth insights regarding how the customers feel about your service. Here are five use cases of sentiment analysis in the healthcare industry:

1. Understand customers’ needs and get insights about the services they are dissatisfied with

Figure 1. A hospital review made by a patient

When the patients are satisfied with the service, they are more likely to continue to use it, comply with the proposed treatment, or recommend the service to others. There is evidence that patients with good reports about the medical service they receive have better health outcomes a year later. Thus, understanding what makes patients satisfied or dissatisfied is crucial in planning further strategies. 

By conducting sentiment analysis, you can identify the key points that need to be addressed and make adjustments to your strategies accordingly.

2. Protect your firm’s reputation by detecting fraudulent reviews

Fake patient comments and fake reviews generated by competitors or their bots harm the companies as well as the patients seeking treatment. Sentiment analysis can help identify fake reviews by detecting the emotional tone of the text. For instance, exaggerated claims and too much use of punctuation marks point out a potentially fake review.

Feel free to check our article on the use of AI systems in fraud detection.

3. Monitor the side-effects of medications based on social media posts and prevent unforeseen consequences

People usually share their personal experience regarding the side effects of medications online. By implementing sentiment analysis tools, you can monitor the effects of your products on a broader scale, and, if necessary, take quick action to withdraw the product from the market.

You can also check our article on social media sentiment analysis for more.

4. Make more personalized healthcare plans based on patients’ prior experience

As healthcare services have great importance in people’s agendas, it is essential to identify what matters to them personally and to provide them services accordingly. By examining customers’ complaints and compliments through sentiment analysis, you can offer them a personalized healthcare plan, which results in a better customer experience. 

For more, you can check our article on personalized care.

5. Track the overall performance of your business

The success of a business cannot be thought of as separate from the success of its services or products. Thus, by analyzing the emotional tone in the reviews and customer feedback, you can get insights into your customers’ feelings towards your services, which helps you track your business’s performance. 

Further reading

If you are interested, here are our other sentiment analysis articles:

• Top 5 Open Source Sentiment Analysis Tools
• Sentiment Analysis: How It Works & Best Practices

If you think you can benefit from sentiment analysis, check our data-driven list of sentiment analysis services.

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