By Sachin Kalra, vice president of customer success, healthcare, Infostretch.
Sachin Kalra
Are people who use health services patients, or are they health consumers? The reality is that in a world where consumer services can be accessed at the push of a button, our expectations about healthcare have changed. How a healthcare company engages with its patients has increasingly become an indicator of how well they are driving communication, service and value for their consumers.
The “Amazon Prime” mindset might at first seem at odds with traditional health systems, which are often bureaucratic, slow and costly. However, the consumerization trend can be an opportunity for better engagement and competitive differentiation.
If there is one thing health companies have a lot of, it’s data. Learning how to leverage and analyze data better could hold the key to unlocking greater value for consumers in terms of improved outcomes and engagement, but also in terms of operational efficiencies. For many organizations, however, pivoting their systems to deliver patient-centric care means they will need to improve the way they leverage digital technologies.
Prioritizing patient experience (PX)
Great customer experience often involves condensing a hugely complex system into a few simple steps that allow consumers to get where they need to be quickly and intuitively. In healthcare, the array of options is huge, involving a wide range of patient requests, potential ailments and resulting treatments. Getting it wrong can have serious, negative health consequences. On the other hand, getting it right enables patients to access treatment faster, resolve health issues more quickly and be better informed along the way. Intelligent triage and smart scheduling are just two ways that health companies can improve how they engage with their patients.
There’s been a spike in ERs using intelligent triage, accelerated by the pandemic, but this tool does not need to be confined to emergency situations. Intelligent, AI-based triage starts with enabling patients to make contact in a way that best suits them – smartphone, landline, text, desktop or via a virtual assistant. From there, a patient’s identity is verified and the system collects relevant information about their condition before recommending the most appropriate channel to resolve the inquiry.
Smart scheduling completes the initial intelligent triage phase with an appropriate action. This could be booking an appointment, something relating to claims or prescriptions, or recommendations for ongoing self-care. In cases where appointments are required, these can of course be in person, but where appropriate on video, over a chat platform or by phone. Crucially, all the information from this virtual encounter is entered into the patient chart to ensure a complete and up-to-date view of the patient.
Rethinking the patient experience in this way lowers waiting times for patients while ensuring faster, more convenient access to services. Health organizations also reap big benefits, with potential savings of more than 20% on running costs due to the elimination of manual processes and resource allocation.
The days of life science companies focusing on physicians and medical professionals as their main “customers” are numbered. Larger healthcare market trends, better access to real world data and increasing costs are driving the shift to a new customer – the patient.
As total spending on medicines globally reaches the $1 trillion level annually, payers are, not surprisingly, placing greater emphasis on ensuring they are receiving value for their investments. Payers are bringing closer scrutiny to all parts of the healthcare system they are funding. Patients, too, are spending more in today’s system and in turn are changing their expectations about value and outcomes. As a result, we are seeing a new focus on real world evidence as payers and patients seek proof that the medicines are contributing to improved patient outcomes, reduction in hospital admissions or re-admissions, and more efficient use of resources.
In response, life science companies are seeking new and more effective ways to leverage data and analytics across the clinical-commercial continuum and to adapt their go-to-market strategies to reflect their focus on patient outcomes. Capturing results-oriented data and making it usable is critical for this new model to work and for the patient to receive the most appropriate care.
With this shift to outcomes-based results and real world evidence, many questions arise around the data and analytics. Who defines “value” and what does success look like? Is it long-term value or short-term results? Additionally, how should this information be distributed to and evaluated by the various stakeholders? How do we achieve a level of consistency when data sources are not yet fully interoperable?
As the pharma industry starts to work through the answers to these questions and begins to redefine go-to-market strategies and commercial models, effective utilization of data and analytics will prove to be one of the greatest competitive advantages.
Defining Value in the New Healthcare Era
This focus on patient outcomes has broader implications for the industry with data sources now being aligned with the patient to enable decisions across the enterprise including drug development, market access, and commercial performance.
All change faces resistance, and the adoption of technology in healthcare is no different. Advocates speak of the advantages to quicker information access, paperless offices and speed of care. On the other side of the spectrum, technology laggards point to the physical and theoretical technology barriers during a patient exam, a perceived loss of nuance in capturing data and data security issues.
Today’s medical students are debunking the debating by adopting a modern medical approach that merges technology and a focus on patients. Coined as “patient-centric care,” future physicians are encouraging patients to be engaged in their care and live a healthy lifestyle with the aid of technology.
This fresh and engaging method of healthcare delivery, known as patient-centered care, revolves around three key approaches: shared decision-making, a care-team approach and adherence support.
Shared decision-making involves creating a more active discussion between clinicians and patients. This not only develops a mutual sense of trust and information sharing, but also leads to better outcomes. If a patient feels that the physician is speaking with him versus at him then they will be more willing to share information and widen the gateway of communication. Furthermore, the impression of physicians being the sole and final authority has been challenged by the pervasive availability of health information (accurate or not) on the Internet.
