mommyjenlin

With the rapid evolution of healthcare from a provider-dominated and directed industry, to a consumer- driven industry is forcing changes in how we market and do business. Being responsive, delivering an exceptional and consistent customer experience from first contact through evaluation to use and post purchase, meeting individual expectations and needs is never easy. But as many successful healthcare companies will attest, these are no longer nice to have business requirements, but got to have requirements in order to survive. Treating patients is at the heart of all that you do. Doesn't matter if it's a hospital, long-term care facility, medical device manufacturer, pharmaceutical manufacturer or physician. In one way or another we are seen sometimes as heroes, other times as negligent fools and most of the time as just okay along the treatment path by our consumers. So why then don't we make our customers, who become patients, staff, volunteers and others our heroes? I...

I have been thinking about this topic for awhile now. And it does fit into what I have been writing about in Customer Experience Management . Hospital and other healthcare leadership seem to be struggling with the concept of an empowered, informed healthcare consumer who is making active decisions regarding treatment and care, instead of relying on the provider of care making the decisions. This is leading to any number of hospitals and others advertising outcomes, satisfaction rates, awards for care, no wait ERs and other self proclaimed measures and for example, using web site clocks that provide real-time ER wait times, etc. Some innovative hospitals have even been cleaver in their ER advertising and other communication channels allowing customers to text a message and get the wait time back. Some ads make claims of being the number one in treatment because of the volume of cases. Some support the brand and brand promise very clearly. Others leave much to be desired. M...

With the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), impetus was created to drive providers to create Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Interesting in that the ACO model was left open. That is, patients can move outside of their ACO home for service and care. Unlike Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) where care was restricted to in-network providers, planners were afraid of the backlash that would occur if they created a closed-model HMO style, ACO model for Medicare beneficiaries. Studies suggest that up to 1/4 of beneficiaries enrolled in ACOs would not stay within the ACO network and would need incentives to do so. That is a big out-of-network churn rate and too expensive to the ACO. So what is a healthcare provider to do? 1. Make sure that you have a Customer Experience Management Program place. You need to be close to your members by understanding their current needs and how their needs change over time. This is consumer-directed healthcare not provider-directe...

Social Media in the B2B world has got a bit of a bad rap right now. Let’s frame the problem. The obstacles might be spoken (or whispered) as: • "These new communication platforms, and this social media movement within our company…is …who knows? Well, let’s just keep an eye on it. Let’s see what develops. But for the time being these are… • NOT the valid business-communications media we should be using to communicate with the serious audience we wish to reach. " These obstacles may be over-observed. Let’s broaden the definition and talk not about Social Media, but about "Social Business Transformation". The real Transformation lies not in what you see: with Twitter or LinkedIn or FaceBook. For personal networking, these tools may be the whole game: you are involved in connections that are one or two links deep. But at the enterprise level these tools are merely the surface layer. Social Business Transformation is about deep communications adaptation; changes in cultu...

For several weeks now, I have been blogging about Customer Experience Management Applied to Healthcare . The reaction and comments have been most interesting from around the world. Many have come from physicians, CEOs of hospitals, Consultants, Directors, Managers, line-staff and coordinators. The countries of origin for the comments include not only the United States, but Belgium, England, France, China, Russia and India to name a few. Several have asked for the materials offered up to help them internally to start or move forward their companies CEM process. Some major observations that can be drawn from the comments and discussions. First, is that leadership across many healthcare industry channels are struggling with the transition of the healthcare marketplace from a provider-dominated, decision-making enterprise, to a consumer-directed, consumer-controlled healthcare system. The consumer has slowly and most assuredly been taking a more active role in healthcare treatment de...