Mobile strategy is more than just having an app for patients to access their EHR.
It's critical to think of mobile as a platform-based approach that gives both existing patients and outsiders — such as people visiting a hospital — a one-stop place for wayfinding, scheduling and any other needs they might have.
In a Becker's Hospital Review Patient Experience + Marketing Virtual Forum session sponsored by Gozio Health, Lea Chatham, vice president of marketing at Gozio, discussed recent survey results that showed how healthcare leaders are prioritizing and tackling mobile strategy.
Four key takeaways were:
- Healthcare leaders agree that a mobile presence is critical to digital strategy. In a May/June 2022 survey of 272 healthcare executives, sponsored by Gozio, nine out of ten said a well-designed patient-facing mobile app would help them achieve their digital strategy goals. Among survey respondents, 50 percent rated the importance of a mobile app as a 9 or higher out of 10 and 63 percent believe a strong patient-facing mobile app can help with labor challenges. The top challenges that a mobile app is seen as solving include wait times, staff efficiency and retaining and increasing patient volume. Yet despite the importance of mobile apps, only 68 percent of organizations have one. Among those that do, only 22 percent have a custom-built app that can handle all patient needs.
- A mobile presence isn't enough. Providers must focus on what patients want. Just having a mobile presence isn't a solution or a platform. A larger digital strategy must include a mobile-responsive website, a secure patient portal and features like scheduling, bill pay and wait time information for urgent care/emergency department. The survey shows that the majority of patients (60 percent) want an experience in healthcare that mirrors retail. "It must be easy to use, all-in-one and provide a good overall experience. Otherwise, they may move to a different provider," Ms. Chatham said.
- Most health system leaders plan to increase the investment in mobile. Four of five respondents said they plan to invest more in mobile strategy, Ms. Chatham said, and are emphasizing collaborating across departments on patient experience. Providers are prioritizing what patients want and need throughout the entire experience, rather than focusing on individual features. "It's more, 'What are patients looking for, what questions are patients asking?'" Ms. Chatham said. "Try to structure things from that point of view." Features of particular interest to patients include scheduling, registration and wayfinding.
- Follow these tips for success. "Most healthcare apps fail," Ms. Chatham said. She suggested, "Spend the time to scope out the work," and offered the following tips:
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- Be practical. Focus on a digital companion that can be effectively operationalized and monitored for success.
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- Be user-focused. Think about what patients want and need. "Look at your patient surveys, talk to your call center, track the most common questions coming in," Ms. Chatham said. "Make sure you're addressing those things and not just talking about, say, a new orthopedic service. If the number one question that you're getting from patients is where's the registration desk, address that."
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- Be flexible. Don't build an app, create a platform. From wayfinding to appointment scheduling and more, bring everything under one platform rather than several different apps.
Taking a platform-based approach to mobile strategy can deliver great results. Organizations that have partnered with Gozio have seen results such as 22 percent appointment conversion rates, more than 140,000 downloads and 34 percent of app users relying on wayfinding services.
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