Five ways to engage patients: Lessons learned from other industries

Fixing healthcare, one patient engagement at a time

In the past, U.S. healthcare often fell well short of patient expectations. Providers didn't need to worry about delivering subpar service, long waiting-room stays and obsolete bill-paying mechanisms. Sharing health data? Hospitals and doctors' offices were exempt from even baseline information sharing, let alone the standard of transparency consumers expect from other service –focused companies across industries.

The healthcare ecosystem has evolved, thanks to a new and closer relationship between payers and providers. Back-office transactions between payers and providers take care of documentation details and oftentimes, most of the payments. Now that patients pay a larger share of their bills, they're becoming a bigger part of these transactions. They're taking charge of treatment decisions, with a watchful eye on costs. Their votes count too, as measureable expectations of satisfaction tied to responses on surveys. Furthermore, payers are opening doors to access provider comparison data; transparency and comparability in quality ratings.

In this new healthcare economy, hospitals and primary care providers are getting a crash course in what finance companies, communications vendors and social media sites figured out a long time ago. To survive, healthcare must create quality customer engagements that start with meeting patient expectations first, while providing patients with follow-up service that they rightfully deserve, especially since they are paying more out-of-pocket for care.

Thankfully, we can learn lessons from other industries with more fully evolved customer service and engagement models. As new technologies that help to guide and reach out to patients at key moments in their care process emerge, here are five critical considerations to up your engagement game:

1. Make information transparent
In the finance industry, customers of portfolio managers always want to be in the know when it comes to their investments. They expect to have real-time updates, and the information must be readily accessible in a language they can understand.

In the automobile industry, customers cannot be made to feel taken advantage of when it comes to buying a car or getting a car services. Customers need to understand the language so they don't later feel duped. Salespeople cannot use confusing, technical lingo that customers can't follow, or they'll just walk away and go to another dealer.

The lessons for healthcare: Let patients know there will be a follow-up message after an appointment or episode of care, and be sure to follow through when the time comes. Also, physicians and nurses have to constantly remember that literacy gaps create a disconnect with patients. It's essential that patients can understand the information given to them, so they know all the pertinent details about their conditions and treatment plans.

2. Empower patients to take action
The cable industry has made many recent service focused strides, for example, DirecTV improved its payment processes by delivering actionable text messages. Previously, the company texted late payment reminders, but customers still had to remember to make a payment later, from a different site. DirecTV realized that with one change their reminders could be actionable. In the latest service upgrade, customers simply text "yes" to pay with a card on file – and the transaction is completed through automation.

Healthcare can streamline many processes using this same approach, such as making appointment confirmation text and other notifications – such as bill-paying reminders – actionable for patients.

3. Provide on-demand service
Think about social media and how we consume media in general, be it video or audio. Would we use Facebook, Twitter, Netflix or music-streaming services nearly as much if they weren't readily accessible on smartphones and tablets as well as televisions, desktops and even connected gaming systems? Thanks to these innovative services, their customers – and your patients – expect instantaneous transactions.

Healthcare needs to catch up. Patients hate long wait times. Providers who learn more efficient time management will survive in the coming months and years as patients realize they have multiple choices among caregivers. Those who maintain the status quo of providing more time in the waiting room vs. physician face time will not.

4. Make personalization a priority
This expectation is streamlined across most industries and companies, with retailing, auto purchasing and personal finance making great strides this decade. The message is clear: When a brand makes an effort to target specific audiences with personalized ads, it makes the potential customer feel as if the brands fits in with his or her lifestyle. Amazon led the way by building its empire on personalization. The online retailer uses search data and purchasing behavior analysis to understand and anticipate future purchases of the customer.

These examples can apply to healthcare, too, because what is more personal than your own and your loved ones' health? Personalization of messaging from providers makes patients more confident in their choice of provider. Opportunities for this include personalized follow-ups, which we refer to as "evidence-based messaging," or tailored direct messages they can understand and respond to. Not only will this build patient confidence, but it can reduces anxiety when information is fully understood and available to the consumer.

5. Improve care coordination
When we go out to eat at a favorite chain restaurant, stay at a particular hotel or fly the same airline, there's a reason we subscribe to loyalty programs and earn rewards – and they earn our repeat business. And that reason is that we receive consistent quality of experience no matter the location or circumstances. Healthcare pundit Atul Gawande first discussed the idea of healthcare adapting this "mass-produced" level of care quality in a widely-read New Yorker article that praised the Cheesecake Factory. While dietitians blanched at the idea of holding up that particular eatery as a shining example of what healthcare can learn, there was a kernel of truth in his argument.

Patients are frustrated when doctors and hospital staff are not on the same page with their patient information. Imagine visiting a new city on a business trip and booking a room at the same four-star hotel you've come to rely on across the country. Suddenly, staff cannot locate your reservation, and your room isn't ready when you arrive. Worse yet, the rewards-club discount rate isn't reflected in your rate. It's as if you'd never logged into the hotel's site and booked it in advance. Yet this is what happens in many healthcare scenarios, especially complex, multi-step long-tail episodes of care such as knee and hip replacements. The health systems that can better coordinate care will create a higher-quality, lower-cost experience for patients – meeting their expectations – and win those frequent fliers as loyal repeat customers.

Taken together, all of these lessons learned from other industries can help healthcare reinvent itself as competition across health systems becomes more intense for shrinking payments. Healthcare doesn't have to recreate the wheel; it can take its cues from customer-service success stories all around us. When patients – customers – are better taken care of, we all win. Improving service is the first step toward meeting their needs in ways healthcare has traditionally underperformed.

Raj Toleti, CEO and founder of HealthGrid, is a visionary with a history of building breakthrough, patient-facing technologies that are ahead of their time. He believes technology is the key to building meaningful experiences in every stage of healthcare.

The views, opinions and positions expressed within these guest posts are those of the author alone and do not represent those of Becker's Hospital Review/Becker's Healthcare. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The copyright of this content belongs to the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with them.

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