mommyjenlin

Patient experience and satisfaction is no longer a nice too have, but a got to have in the evolving consumer-centric healthcare market place.   Consumers are paying more out of pocket and when consumers pay more they expect more.   A better healthcare consumer and patient experience in the end means a more compliant patient pre and post treatment.   Higher level of service and medical process satisfaction brings the healthcare consumer back in a sea of providers who all offer the sameness.   It is one of the primary drivers for a reason to return. And when all things are equal and undifferentiated, experience and satisfaction become a major determination of return and for their recommendations of you. Difficult to achieve and tough to competitively beat once you have it, experience and satisfaction with your medical products, clinical services and processes regardless of the vertical, be it specialty pharmacy, medical device,   pharma, hospitals, doctors...

In an article that received little fanfare in healthcare circles, the Pew Research Center issued a study on the social networking by online adults.  And this has profound implications for the healthcare industry that has been slow to adapt to social networking in meaningful ways. Which raises the question, are healthcare organizations missing the opportunity to increase adherence, engagement and experience by participating in the social networking usage revolution by adults?   In an interesting study, Internet Social Networking , Joanne Brenner, August 5, 2013 points to an accelerating trend of online adults actively engaged in social networking platforms. And if I remember correctly adults age 50 and above consume healthcare resources and would be a prime audience to engage in many levels.   I summarize but only seven percent of online adults participated in social networking in February 2005 compared to 60 percent of adults age 50-64 in May of 2013.   But wait it g...

It has been a most interesting year of change for healthcare in 2013 in anticipation of ACA 2014.   Medical Homes, ACOs, patient- centered care, risk-base payment models, a growing understanding of the importance of healthcare marketing and branding and talk about patient adherence and engagement.   But, none of this will be successful unless you have a patient that is adherent and engaged. It’s really two sides of the same coin that is based on their experience with you the provider. It think adherence starts first with experience that leads to leads to an adherent and engaged patient. As you view the landscape wondering how you will reduce cost, improve the health of populations, you have to focus on how you will begin to engage in a logically defined measureable process, along the dimensions of experience, adherence and engagement.   And it's not just wellness programs, seminars, community events or material copied on bright neon paper. It takes strategy, commitment an...

Over the past week there has been a great discussion going on in LinkedIn in the Modern Healthcare discussion group based on a recent blog post in HMM. So for the benefit of everyone here are the questions I was asked, and my response. Why do I think price is important to the healthcare consumer? It really centers on whether or not you believe that healthcare, especially hospitals, are moving into a market that is becoming consumer-centric and dominated. Now dominated in our sense is that the healthcare consumer is becoming more actively involved in the treatment decision making process, and the price/cost side through a variety of mechanisms, whether that is higher co-pays, participating in exchanges, working for an employer that has moved to defend contribution and telling them to figure it out, etc. In the end it results in a greater awareness of the choices they make because it hits them in the pocket. Some people will pay a higher price because they believe that higher price means...

We all read and hear about patent engagement and experience, and what healthcare organizations think that means. But little discussion if any centers around how do you engage the patient’s family along the same lines? Regardless of what payment model-risk, value-based or bundled, full or partial capitation, in an ACO or Medical Home, the patient’s family will be involved. So from a healthcare marketing standpoint as you develop your patient and healthcare consumer experience/engagement strategy, you need to address how you will engage the family too. And for your understanding, when I write or speak about patient engagement, it’s a view along a continuum from first contact as a healthcare consumer through diagnosis, treatment, and post care. It is a far more encompassing view of engagement which heavily influences the experience that loops back to either reinforce positively or negative the level of engagement. And guess who is there at all times making comments, coloring observations ...

Your price information is out there. Your outcomes information is out as well. And you already have developed by word-of-mouth either a positive or negative patient experience reputation. Whether you like it or not, the horses are out of the barn and it’s too late to corral, get them back into the barn, and pretend like it never happened. As the hospital segment of the healthcare industry evolves to a more consumer centric model along the three dimensions of price, outcome, and experience, will you use that publicly available data to differentiate yourself to potentially establish market dominance along those brand dimensions that you excel? This is not a frivolous marketing question. This is about how you are going to be competing in the near future. The healthcare brands of hospitals and health systems will come to be defined by these attributes. And don’t think that the industry is so unified that no one will make that first attempt to define their market vies a vie their competitor...

Seriously, this is not just a sarcastic attempt to get your attention. It's an honest question about what hospitals and health systems do not get regarding the importance of the patient and healthcare consumer experience from first touch-point to last. The experience story for the patient or searching healthcare consumer isn't just about the patient care or the test. It is for all practical purposes the entire experiential encounter. Let me relay a story of an encounter with a health system hospital. By the way it's about my recent experience, so no HIPPA is involved here and it's not hearsay. It wasn't bad, but sure did not met my healthcare consumerist expectations. My personal physician orders a test and faxes it to the hospital central scheduling department. Central scheduling calls during the day when I am work so I call back the next day. Now, if they had really had been on top of the experience and technology, when I called back it would have gone straight to...

The evolving healthcare consumer is seeking information on great experiences and outcomes. That's right, great outcomes and experiences, not ordinary outcomes or experiences. You are expected to care. You are expected to provide high-quality care. Telling the healthcare consumer that you provide compassionate care and high-quality medical care, is falling on deaf ears. Especially when the experience doesn't even come close to the claim. So when the healthcare consumer matches their expectations with your experience, chances are you are falling short somewhere. And in the reality of a healthcare market place that is evolving to one driven by cost, outcome and choice, healthcare consumers will bypass those hospitals, healthcare providers and insurance plans that have less than great outcomes or experiences. I am not saying that is fair, or right. It is a reality of a changing marketplace. When healthcare executives are surveyed, the majority say that patient/customer experience i...

As it stacks up in 2013, we will see monumental shifts in the healthcare landscape as healthcare organizations of all types seek ways to not only survive, but thrive. Technological and care delivery innovations, specialty pharmaceuticals, healthcare consumerism and reform are coming together to create the perfect storm. Hospitals who were once at the top of the food chain are now are the bottom swimming upstream to regain top position. Some will make and some won't. My bet is with those healthcare organizations that recognize the role of the healthcare consumer in all of this and changes their marketing operation, message and resource allocation to engage the healthcare consumer will succeed. It's a tough balancing act when you have never really had to market too or communicate with the healthcare consumer, aka the patient in meaningful human terms. Terms that grow your brand, build stronger customer connections and answers the question, what's in it for them to use you? So...

One of the great challenges in reform is the engagement of the patient in lasting and meaningful ways, as well as improvement in the patient experience. Uncharted territory really and the old ways of doing things just won't cut it. New market realities and the rising of healthcare consumerism demand new innovation and thought. Unfortunately there is little disruptive innovation in healthcare to meet those challenges. Enter gaming theory. Gamification is not a new topic in marketing. It's been out there for a long time and used successfully by businesses to attract, retain and build the loyalty of its customers to the brand. Okay, I can hear it now, "but we are healthcare taking care of people in complex and mysterious ways that they can never understand and this isn't a game". It's not a game, but how you engage the patient and improve the experience is closely related. And my opinion is that you can't do one without the other. Look at this through the ey...

The other day, I received a call from my PBM. Not being home, they left a message and return number. Now this is where it gets interesting. When I called the number I just didn't reach an individual in a call center, the line was answered with thank you Michael for calling us back. Really. I called a return number expecting to be told all lines are busy and please wait for the next available person, or if you know the persons extension lease dial it now, right to a personalized greeting. Pretty slick and the start of a great patient experience. For me, that was an excellent example of how technology deployed and utilized leads to a better individualized patient experience. And this PBM has millions of members. How are you keeping up with technological advances to allow you to customize and improve the patient experience? Technology when applied creatively can be used to customize and improve the experience of an individual even when those patients number in the millions. When you ...

As hospitals and health systems continue to search for ways to integrate physicians in any number of ways, an oft overlooked aspect in the integration efforts is activity aimed at improving the physician experience. Sadly it appears that little effort is made in the critical success factor. What's wrong with this picture? If you are really serious about integrating physicians, beyond the control of patients and while in still the fee-for-service payment model growing revenue and volume, you must, not need too, but you must make changes in the physician experience in your organization. No matter that the healthcare consumer is in the beginning stages of learning how to be empowered. No matter that the payment model is changing from a production-based, to a risk and quality-based. No matter, that you are employing physicians. If you want to successful integrate and grow, you need to change the physician experience with your healthcare organization. Face it. Nothing happens unless you...

With a dynamically changing healthcare industry, employment of physicians is making a big comeback to the hospital industry. Born of necessity, hospitals and physicians are being driven by reimbursement declines, effectiveness and efficiency pressures, retail clinic competition and new opportunities. The drive to create ACOs in a value-based payment environment demands a different type of physician relationship.  With this new opportunity to reinvent, revitalize and recapture what previously before had been an adventure on the part of hospitals with mixed results, it's time to discuss how one goes about marketing the employed physician. First break from the past...... It's easy to look at this and say we'll just do what we did in the past in promoting employed physicians and be done with it. That is a dangerous mistake. Healthcare consumers/patients are making physician choices based price, location and convenience due to increasing co-pays and rising deductibles. If you...

Patient experience and satisfaction is no longer a nice too have, but a got to have in healthcare. Difficult to achieve and tough to beat once you have it, experience and satisfaction with your medical products, clinical services and processes regardless of the vertical, be it specialty pharmacy, medical device, pharma, hospitals, doctors etc., will drive revenue. Revenue from the standpoint of Pay-for-Performance (P4P) programs and volume from consumers aka patients, selecting you in a very commoditized and provider undifferentiated healthcare market place. As you create your networks, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), Medical Homes (MHs) and other yet undefined organizations, you have the opportunity to "get it right" this time. The healthcare consumer of today, will view your services as: value= f(cost, quality, satisfaction) as compared to the near past where value= f(cost, quality). Value here is the defining moment and is a function of cost, quality and satisfactio...

Any number of healthcare organizations are looking to increase admissions to drive revenue and volume by physicians. Some providers are returning to the days of employing physicians, and that seems to be making a big comeback for health systems ACO development. Anyhow, sales staffs are popping up all over like weeds-in-a-field, complete with goals and objectives, territories and sales quotas for specific docs, along identified disease-states. In most cases, they are managed by people who have never sold anything in their life. The first time the sales person comes back to the organization with, "This needs to change" request, it all breaks down, because nobody internally wants to really change anything. Besides, with all the Stark considerations, we really can't do too much anyway. What's wrong with this picture? If you are really serious about growing revenue and volume, you must, not need too, you must, make changes in the physician experience in your organizat...

This may seem like a silly question to ask, or even to write about. But truth be told, beyond the customer or patient satisfaction numbers, chances are, your employees may not like your customers or patients all that much. I am not saying that your employees are treating customers and patients with open disdain or contempt. But, the lack of employee enthusiasm, concern and caring, communicated verbally and shown non-verbally in the workplace, with average to mediocre employee satisfaction surveys, may be a pretty good indication that your employees may not like your customers or patients a whole lot. And that doesn't really help your efforts to improve the patient or customer experience. When little differentiation exists to tell hospitals, doctors, specialty pharmacies, home health care and other providers apart, employees, liking their customers and patients, can set you apart from your competition. And with little opportunity existing now, and in the future, to differentiate you...