Chris Young serves as the Vice President, Innovation and New Virtual Market Development for Ascension in St. Louis.
On May 11th, Chris Young will speak at Becker's Health IT + Clinical Leadership 2018. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place May 10-11th 2018 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Chris' session, click here.
Question: Please share a new consumer-centric capability your organization has built or tapped into within the past 18 months.
Chris Young: There are a few consumer centric areas where we have seen profound levels of engagement with customers. The first is creating easy access via online scheduling. Healthcare has lagged behind on digital consumer engagement and facilitating things that should be simple, like self-scheduling an appointment, is really key. Another area is on-demand care, which allows a customer-patient to directly consult a clinician via their smartphone. This is really about meeting a customer where they are, at any time of the day or night, and really meeting their health needs. All this, coupled with a robust, digital front-end focused on consumer needs, really makes the difference.
Q: How do you define patient engagement?
CY: Including and empowering the consumer while they experience our comprehensive suite of services. It is about bringing those we serve into the health equation throughout the course of their lives.
Q: How do you see the barrier between competitors and collaborators changing?
CY: To solve many of the fundamental misalignments in healthcare, I see barriers dropping and a significant increase in the number of collaborative efforts. The macroeconomic problems that are coming with an aging population and the cost of care challenges are not sustainable. I also see many non-traditional players significantly disrupting the healthcare industry, which will create new competitors. Advances in digital consumer engagement, the internet of things, genomics, blockchain, artificial intelligence and robotics are all going to reshape the industry.