You Have the Data, What Now? A Roadmap for Improved Patient Experience

‍Healthcare Marketing is Digital Healthcare‍

Healthcare marketing and digital healthcare are synonymous because this is where nearly every patient experience begins. Unfortunately for patients, most enterprise healthcare websites assume healthcare begins, instead, in the physician’s office. These assumptions place an undue burden on the patient to self-diagnose possible solutions and underlying conditions.

Wait times for new patient appointments increased from an average 21 days in 2004 to an average of 26 days in 2022; while average wait times for specialists have risen to as many as 45.6 days. 

Healthcare websites serve multiple purposes but are seemingly designed around one key stakeholder: the provider. Healthcare providers have developed robust content libraries and thousands of pages of content that prepares a patient for a visit. Yet, they fail to provide the health management tools and relevant information that patients are actually seeking. Tools like Bouy Health’s symptom checker are a signal that the future of healthcare begins with search and self-diagnosis. Attempting to manage or change those behaviors will simply cause a patient diaspora, as will the failure to develop tools of similar sophistication.

Long wait times are not just an inconvenience, they’re a public health disaster. According to a study published in Preventive Medicine Reports, delays in medical care may increase morbidity and mortality risk among those with underlying, preventable, and treatable medical conditions. Nearly 3 in 4 Americans said it was easier to go to the ER than to get a doctor’s appointment. Healthcare websites must play a bigger role and effective digital will help close the divide between patients and access to the care they need. 

Getting There

Is the answer another survey? Focus groups, web analytics, and digital tools provide mountains of data but healthcare consumers don’t receive a proportionate benefit from the information they willingly provide. The question remains: “we have the data, now what?” 

Great service models are designed to address pain points, ease frustrations, or improve cumbersome processes. Although the data you collect contains the answers, most healthcare organizations struggle to develop services that decode and leverage the data in meaningful ways. Developing effective digital services can be an overwhelming task for healthcare providers, made more complex by a lack of digital expertise and teams that are missing specialized roles that are necessary for developing effective digital marketing and engagement strategies.

Global healthcare leaders are making avoidable mistakes, often investing in the wrong capabilities and pouring money into platforms and technology that promise an improved patient experience without fully understanding the underlying causes of an underperforming patient experience.

Our work with the teams responsible for implementing the platforms that drive patient experience (PX) often struggle to command the basic tenets of digital marketing, user experience, and content strategy, making decisions with a limited understanding of the tools and strategies that result in improved PX. 

Where does the journey begin?

Modern healthcare journeys don’t begin in doctors’ offices or on the “understanding gastritis landing page.” They begin with a google search and are left with far more questions than answers. Healthcare consumers have limited tools at their disposal and are tasked with developing a new vocabulary in a frightening language. Further complicating these experiences is the sheer vastness of available resources - most of which aren’t tied to healthcare providers. The ability to meet the needs of  patients is undeniably dependent on digital resources with other channels taking a distant and mostly irrelevant second place. Providing immediate access to physicians through digital healthcare is a separate and unique issue that we will set aside for this article. 

What now?

Healthcare providers already have the tools they need to reverse this relationship between their patients and  digital resources, they simply struggle to implement them correctly. 

Content is a misunderstood and overlooked pillar of the patient experience. Patients and healthcare consumers seek solutions in the language they know, not the terms in which healthcare providers speak. The current state of healthcare content creates a catch 22 in which the patient invests an enormous amount of energy and time, cross-referencing articles, papers, and doing the work of the healthcare professional to simply put their possible condition into definable terms. This is compounded by the reaction physicians have to their patients googling symptoms and the inevitable contraindication of Dr. Google. This is an unrealistic and antiquated approach and dismisses the modern digital behaviors of generations of patients that implement this exact behavior in every aspect of their lives. 

Switching to a Content-Driven Approach to Patient Experience

Winning the market share of traffic is key to improving the patient experience. Patients should expect to find digital expertise synonymous with the care they experience with a physician, not solely services marketing. Falling short of these standards contributes to poor PX, poor HCAHPS star ratings, frustration, and diminished healthcare outcomes. Content that engages and educates a patient sets the stage for a vastly improved healthcare journey. 

Creating Effective Digital Services 

Content Strategy, SEO, UX/PX, and the ability to leverage analytics are the key activities that result in improved experiences that impact every aspect of the patient experience, from understanding a symptom or condition, to finding a physician, managing a disease, or simply paying a bill. These fundamental capabilities are often attempted by healthcare providers but rarely with the degree to which they will have an impact on the patient experience, improved health outcomes, or bottom line.