Customers or Patients? An Individual’s Unique Relationship with Health Systems

After my oldest daughter was born, I received a weekly newsletter from my doctor’s office with helpful tips for new parents. The information about what development milestones my newborn would be reaching and the practical advice about taking care of her–and me–were so valuable. In addition to the good patient experience I had, this customer experience made it an easy decision to stay with the same provider when I had my second daughter.

I share this story to illustrate how my customer experience directly informed my choice as a patient. And I’m not alone. People who feel like their care providers are working to earn their loyalty when they are customers are more likely to give them the right to care for them as a patient, resulting in stronger and more genuine loyalty over a longer period of time.

Creating a customer loyalty framework

So, how can health systems use these two competing ideas to create a loyalty framework for their organization? I recommend starting by answering these three questions:

1. Do I understand and have insight into the end-to-end journey across the care continuum? Do I have a clear understanding of my patient population and the typical care journey’s they are on?

2. Are my patient and customer experience initiatives balanced? Can I categorize my strategic initiatives and know whether they will impact the customer or patient experiences or both?

3. How do I know if the initiatives are effective? What do optimal patient and customer experiences mean for your organization? How will you be able to objectively measure success and progress against those defined goals?

Answering these foundational questions is the first step in building a comprehensive loyalty program. But what about the roadblocks to building that program? Challenges like resource constraints, change fatigue, financial pressure, the speed of innovation, a lack of visibility across your organization, and competing priorities are impacting every health system in the country.

SETTING YOUR FRAMEWORK UP FOR SUCCESS

The solution starts with evaluating the tools and technology you already have. In recent years, there’s been a push to introduce more, newer, better, faster things. Adding to that list won’t meaningfully shape your health system; but, making plans to take your existing tools to the last mile will.

Look at the technology investments you’ve made and how they are currently being used. Is there room to consolidate or integrate? Are there un-tapped or underutilized functionalities that can be leveraged to build your health system’s loyalty program? Lean on your established governance and organizational structure to inform your next steps:

• Project management offices, whether centralized, decentralized, or hybrid, significantly contribute to the ability to prioritize initiatives, deliver consistently, and report on progress and impact.
• Process improvement programs with defined methodologies and playbooks that are consistently used across an organization have a significant impact on the patient experience, providing a unique visibility to the front-line challenges and fostering the ability to address those challenges.
• Enterprise analytics organizations that are utilizing the right technology and leveraging a sophisticated data management and governance methodology provide significant value to an organization through the ability to quantify and measure the opportunity for improvement and the impact that is made through various projects and programs.
• Finally, organizations with robust automation platforms and capabilities can automate key functions, and continuously identify opportunities to shift tasks from labor-intensive/time-consuming activities to be automated, freeing up the capacity to work on higher value, more complex activities, and spend more time with patients.

Most organizations have each of these functions operating at some level of maturity. Any one of these functions is powerful, but when orchestrated together, they unlock an incredible amount of value. Orchestration does not have to be administratively heavy or costly, but it does require aligned governance, engaged leaders with clear roles and responsibilities, and open communication channels.

Ready to see what building loyalty might look like for your healthcare organization? Fill out the form below to connect with one of our consultants.

By Amy Goad