A featured contribution from Leadership Perspectives, a curated forum for enterprise technology leaders, nominated by our subscribers and vetted by the CIOApplications Editorial Board.

Deborah Heart and Lung Center

Consumerism in Healthcare - It Has Finally Arrived, and Hospitals Need to Embrace It

I am sure it will surprise no one that modern consumers have come to expect quick, easy, and seamless experiences when they shop for goods or services, both in-person and online. E-commerce has made it so easy for consumers to search online for items they may wish to buy, load up an electronic shopping cart, securely purchase their goods, and be apprised of the progress on the increasingly rapid arrival of these goods at their front doors. Many industries have fully optimized the e-commerce experience over the years, but one area is now just coming into its own in this regard, and that area is healthcare (hospitals and medical providers, in particular).

Healthcare is a unique vertical in so many ways. For one, no one is out there enthusiastically purchasing healthcare on their own, they ‘purchase’ it when they are ill or their doctor tells them that they are in need of a particular (and likely very expensive) medical intervention. Taking the ‘purchase’ concept one step further, in most cases, people aren't purchasing their healthcare on their own; rather, an insurance company is paying for these services on the person's behalf and may have clinically complex requirements such as prior authorization for certain services that have to be adhered to in order for the service to be reimbursed. Co-pay and deductible information can be opaque and can vary, and the possibility of requiring additional tests or procedures that might not have been originally anticipated is always a possibility.

Against this backdrop, it’s been hard for healthcare providers to provide a digital experience that rivals the heralded Amazon customer experience. Too many complications, too many varying and moving parts come into play. However, in the last few years, and in particular, during the pandemic and post-pandemic era, this is rapidly changing. In the heat of the pandemic, patients simply, in most cases, couldn't easily come to a hospital or physician's office and had to see their providers through telehealth. Large-scale telehealth came to the fore almost immediately upon the advent of the pandemic, and a report from McKinsey & Company stated that telehealth use may have grown by as much as 50 to 175 times since before the pandemic.

With this exponential growth in telehealth came a need to do as much of the preparatory work in advance of the telehealth visit online (in many cases, through mobile apps) as possible. While things have calmed down a bit with the pandemic and patients have begun coming back into the office, there still is a dramatic increase in the ongoing use of telehealth. Allowing patients to self-schedule certain types of appointments became more commonplace, and the processes for capturing relevant clinical information about the patient prior to the encounter transitioned more and more to being captured online and, once captured, seamlessly integrated into the provider’s electronic health record.

Other very helpful online tools have also become increasingly prevalent. Patient portals have really come into their own. A 'patient portal' is a personalized online website that a patient can access to see his or her own medical history, test results, medications, diagnoses, upcoming appointments, and a multitude of other information. In many cases, the patient is able to see this information from other providers than the provider who is hosting the patient portal. This allows both the patient and the provider to have a much more comprehensive view of a patient’s clinical history to make better-informed treatment decisions. 'Doctor finders,' 'price estimators,' 'online bill payment portals,' 'quality comparison tools, and other new capabilities are becoming available.

While a lot of these changes have been driven by governmental regulatory requirements around patient empowerment and interoperability between providers, a lot of providers have seen benefits in these tools in terms of being a foundation for competitive differentiation amongst their peers. With a large number of younger people who have indicated in surveys that they make a lot of their decisions as to where to go for their care based on ease of access, these digital tools play an increasingly major role in offering both a favorable first impression and a favorable sustained impression among prospective patients.

With a large number of younger people who have indicated in surveys that they make a lot of their decisions as to where to go for their care based on ease-of-access, these digital tools play an increasingly major role in offering both a favorable first impression and a favorable sustained impression among prospective patients

Forward-thinking provider organizations need to make sure that their CIOs are front and center in these types of initiatives. Progressive CIOs need to have a broad and deep understanding of the entire process flow for patients, from the first time they reach out to the provider right through when they depart after their encounter. These CIOs have to couple this process understanding with the types of technology that are becoming increasingly available and be able to effectively marry the technology to the processes in a manner that optimizes the process through the judicious use of technology, not just randomly throwing apps at a process problem and hoping for the best. Being leaders in these types of digital initiatives reinforces the notion that CIOs need to be at the table for all major strategic and operational decisions, as they uniquely touch many areas of an operation and understand the technology and its, and can offer unique and valuable insights.

So, to sum up, healthcare providers may have been a little slower to jump on the digital train due to the unique complications in the healthcare space, but, as Bob Dylan famously said, "the times they are a-changin’.”

The articles from these contributors are based on their personal expertise and viewpoints, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of their employers or affiliated organizations.