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The American Medical Association Embraces Mobile-First Communications with Smarp
About the American Medical Association
The American Medical Association (AMA) was founded in 1847 to promote the art and science of medicine. Today, the AMA is a powerful ally in patient care, giving strength to physician voices in courts and legislative bodies across the nation. The AMA is dedicated to driving medicine toward a more equitable future, removing obstacles that interfere with patient care and confronting the nation’s greatest public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The AMA is the premier national organization providing timely, essential resources to empower physicians, residents and medical students to succeed at every phase of their medical lives all while developing public health care.
The AMA is the physician’s powerful ally in patient care. The AMA accomplishes this goal by representing the unified voice of physicians, reinventing medical education, removing the obstacles that interfere with patient care and combating the chronic health issues plaguing their patients.
Objectives and expectations
The shift to mobile-first communications
The American Medical Association was looking for a mobile-first communications platform that would make it easy for their members to access and engage with AMA content at their convenience, no matter where they are located. Indeed, AMA members are eager to share the values of AMA membership with their peers.
“Most medical students and professionals are not tied to a computer all day, and they can’t afford to miss out on important updates, guidelines or resources we share with them. One of the AMA’s top missions is to ensure that AMA members have all the timely information they need to be successful at every step of their medical careers. We quickly realized that Smarp would help us to shift our communications to mobile-first comms and that’s the reason why we decided to launch Smarp.”
J. Mori Johnson, Ambassador Engagement Director & Health Equity Liaison
All critical and timely information in one place
The AMA shares with its members a wide range of materials and content such as medical guidelines, surveys, podcasts, conference publications, health policies and research reports on various topics — from cardiovascular disease treatments to the use of AI in physician training programs or guidelines on how to treat COVID-19 patients.
The American Medical Association updates those materials and content on a regular basis, which makes it challenging for its members to keep up with all the updates and new materials being released by the organization.
The team was looking for a platform that would make it easy for its members to find all the materials and resources they need in one place from their mobile device. That way, they wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time looking for the information they need and could stay focused on their career and other responsibilities like their education and training.
Improving the American Medical Association’s brand awareness
The American Medical Association is a well-known organization in the United States of America. Everyone knows about the association and its general mission.
However, not that many people are aware of the actual work the association and its members are doing on a daily basis to advocate for medical innovations, protect the patient-physician relationship and improve the health of the nation. They know the AMA but they don’t realize the depth of results of its work.
The AMA wanted to launch a communications platform that would make it easy for its members to share any AMA news externally so they could educate the public and media about the AMA’s ongoing projects and achievements.
Smarp in action
The launch of Smarp at the American Medical Association
To kick-start their mobile-first communications, the team launched a short onboarding process which included a live training session with an online demo of Smarp, one-on-one sessions with users, and key materials such as tutorial videos and short guides. That way, AMA members could make the most out of Smarp and start sharing knowledge right away.
“Smarp is so easy to use that it’s pretty straightforward for digital natives as well as non-digital native users”
J. Mori Johnson, Ambassador Engagement Director & Health Equity Liaison
Sharing the right information with the right people in a timely manner
The team decided to segment content based on AMA members’ interests. The idea was to make sure that AMA members — whether they are residents, medical students or physicians — get the right information at their fingerprints without having to hunt around for it.
“Smarp allows us to effectively segment our content based on AMA members’ roles and interests so they’re not overwhelmed with too much or irrelevant information”. Furthermore, Smarp’s functionalities allow us to instantly notify AMA members of any new pieces of content we add to Smarp. That way, they can easily keep up with all the new content being produced by the organization”
J. Mori Johnson, Ambassador Engagement Director & Health Equity Liaison
Results Achieved with Smarp
Flawless and streamlined communications across the organization With Smarp
With Smarp, the American Medical Association has crafted a new mobile-first communications strategy that allows them to easily reach AMA members with shareable information that they can use to engage with other prospective members and current members, no matter where they are located.
Residents, medical students and physicians can now easily catch up with the latest materials created for them to help them be successful.
They are automatically subscribed to mandatory channels that include critical information relevant to their expertise and can also choose to subscribe to additional channels of their interest. Overall, the AMA has 18 channels on Smarp, which allows the communication team to ensure that members receive personalized information based on their roles and the topics they are interested in. Besides having the option to personalize their news feeds, AMA members can bookmark their favorite posts and videos, and like or comment upon the content being shared with them.
On average, the AMA uploads five to six new pieces of content to Smarp on a weekly basis. Users get notified on their mobile whenever a new piece of content is available. That way, they don’t miss out on important information.
By having all the content they need at their fingerprints, physicians and trainees can successfully manage their information flow. Smarp helps them to easily learn about any process improvements, get prepared for their meetings, keep up with the latest medical information, and share best practices with the other members. Unsurprisingly, user engagement hit 89% in the first half of 2020. 
“Residents and medical students have busy schedules and there are lots of best practices, research and procedures they have to keep up with. For example, we update our COVID-19 resource center every day. Smarp makes it much easier for them to find the materials they need to be successful in their careers. They are notified whenever a new piece of content is available on the resources center. Smarp helps them to access the materials they need without having to use multiple channels. The platform is an absolute game changer”
J. Mori Johnson, Ambassador Engagement Director & Health Equity Liaison
AMA members instantly get all critical COVID-19 updates, no matter where they are
A lot of COVID-19 information is being shared on social media. Every day, hundreds — if not thousands — of new posts are shared online which makes it particularly challenging for medical professionals to catch up with all the COVID-19 updates.
But information overload is not the only challenge medical professionals have to cope with these days.
They also need to quickly identify inaccurate information being shared on social media.
Smarp helps the AMA tackle this challenge by notifying its members about any new and urgent COVID-19 updates in a timely manner.
The AMA uses the platform to instantly notify its members about any new updates released by the government, local authorities and health organizations such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That way, physicians and trainees can effectively educate their patients and the public about the latest information about the virus.
“In times of crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic we’re facing now, a platform like Smarp is a must-have for physicians. The pandemic is escalating at a fast pace and it’s essential for medical professionals to have instant access to the information they need to understand and fight the virus. They don’t have the luxury to spend time looking for the latest COVID-19 updates being released by numerous sources. With Smarp, they get notified about any critical updates so they don’t miss out on any important COVID-19 information”
J. Mori Johnson, Ambassador Engagement Director & Health Equity Liaison
A community of empowered members educates their peers and the public about the American Medical Association
The American Medical Association is a complex organization that covers multiple medical and health-related topics. By including Smarp into its communication ecosystem, the AMA has managed to build a community of engaged physicians and medical students that raise awareness around the AMA and advocate for sound healthcare policy outside the organization. Members set the record straight with the facts and specific AMA content shared via their social media accounts. They have reached more than 2 million people on social media through Smarp in just one year.
“It’s all about informing and empowering our members so they can educate the public about what the AMA is and the current state of health care in the US. Smarp has helped us drive knowledge sharing among users so they can increase awareness about the organization and its work”
J. Mori Johnson, Ambassador Engagement Director & Health Equity Liaison
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