The way patients evaluate healthcare changed over the last few years. It is no longer enough to deliver a good clinical outcome. Patients now judge their experience against the same standards they apply to ordering a package, checking a bank balance or booking a flight, and they are increasingly willing to say so out loud.
“Patients today aren’t just comparing us to other health systems,” said Robert Wiehe, senior vice president and COO of UC Health in Aurora, Colo. “They’re comparing us to every other experience they have. They expect healthcare to be as easy as ordering something from Amazon or managing their finances on their phone. If scheduling an appointment, viewing test results, or communicating with their care team is difficult, we’ve created frustration before we’ve even had the opportunity to deliver care.”
For many executives, that shift has crossed from theoretical to operational. Mark Sevco, president of Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health Network, is ready for action.
“We’ve been talking about the consumerization of healthcare for what seems like decades,” Mr. Sevco said. “But COVID accelerated the transition, and post-COVID, both the healthcare industry and its patients emerged realizing that something had fundamentally shifted when it comes to patient expectations. Today’s patients demand more than expert clinical care — frankly, that’s table stakes.”
He sees patients gravitate toward healthcare organizations with digital and virtual access, online self-scheduling and easy bill pay options. Patients also demand “retail-style convenience and service” as they seek medical care designed around their particular needs – and in the home, if possible. This did not happen in a vacuum; they have personalized experiences and services in almost every other aspect of their lives.
“Our job is to meet those expectations today while preparing for the future, to skate where the puck is going, so we can be there for patients when they need us and get ahead of costly chronic health conditions,” said Mr. Sevco. “There is no single tactic or strategy that will help us meet all of these consumer needs. But at AHN, we’ve established a new Digital Transformation Office along with our parent company, Highmark Health, and its in-house digital solutions company enGen.”
The Digital Transformation Office focuses on rethinking care delivery from the digital tools and services down to aligning strategic, clinical and population health goals.
The specific expectations are consistent across systems of every size and geography: frictionless scheduling, immediate access to test results, digital communication with care teams and virtual care options that fit around work and family. Peter Banko, president and CEO of Springfield, Mass.-based Baystate Health, says meeting them requires a different kind of organizational discipline.
“The biggest shifts are that patients expect — and deserve — healthcare to function like every other aspect of their lives: convenient, transparent, and personalized,” Mr. Banko said. “The fastest evolution is personalizing care through digital enablement for patients, physicians, providers and clinicians through our partnership with Oracle Health for the first ‘big bag’ go-live on November 1, 2026.”
Baystate’s executive team is also working with managers to reduce friction and improve transparency between the health plan and provider system for a better overall patient experience. The organization is focused on product development, pharmacy optimization, prior authorizations, denials and gold-carding to deliver a more coordinated overall experience.
“The biggest lift for us is access and convenience,” said Mr. Banko. “That is requiring a fundamental design process, rather than tweaking or redesign, which is demanding that we go slow to go fast.”
Mark Moseley, MD, president of USF Tampa General Physicians and executive vice president of Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital, has seen a similar shift in patient expectations.
“I believe that patients increasingly want healthcare to feel relational without unnecessary transactional friction,” said Dr. Moseley. “They expect the same convenience and transparency they experience in other aspects of their lives and while healthcare may indeed be complex, patients increasingly care less about why that is and more about how we make it easier for them to navigate.”
Patients want to be treated as individuals and clinicians have to earn their trust. It’s a challenge for leaders to keep up with the rapidly changing environment and patient demands while also delivering great patient experience and care. Many health systems are leveraging technology to support their care redesign and patient experience efforts.
“Patients are not simply looking for healthcare services, but for a healthcare experience that leaves them feeling understood and confident in their care,” Dr. Moseley said. “Technology can certainly help remove barriers and simplify the experience, but trust is not built by technology alone. As we evolve, our focus is on making healthcare easier to navigate while never losing sight of the fact that, for patients, healthcare is ultimately a human experience.”
On the operations side, friction-elimination programs are producing measurable results. At HealthPartners Care Group in Bloomington, Minn., Megan Remark, executive vice president and COO, said removing a single unnecessary step — a routine pre-operative physical that research showed provided no benefit for low-risk cataract surgery patients — allowed nearly 1,900 patients to skip an appointment in the first six months after the requirement was eliminated. A redesigned emergency department triage process reduced unnecessary ED visits by 60%.
“We believe this is the direction healthcare needs to continue moving: making it simpler, more convenient and more responsive to what matters most to patients,” Ms. Remark said.
Immediacy has become a pressure point for safety-net systems as much as for academic medical centers. Arthur Gianelli, president and chief transformation officer of One Brooklyn Health in Brooklyn, N.Y., argues the standard does not vary by zip code.
“The most consequential shift in patient expectations is the expectation of immediacy: patients want their caregivers to respond now, and they want appointments available virtually on demand,” Mr. Gianelli said. “Immediacy is no longer a luxury reserved for well-resourced systems — it is the standard of care, and our patients deserve nothing less.”
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