Today, organizations must focus more on the individual patient experience and outcome than operational efficiency. A consistent patient experience is the key to providing personalized care and building patient and provider relationships. When this doesn’t happen, patients often receive care that is not up to the standards they wish for.
Patients need physicians most during sickness or a health scare. During these times, patients are often extremely stressed and in their most vulnerable state of mind. Organizations should plan to make this a seamless and as stress free as possible. However, many patients feel a need to avoid the health system due to previously having poor experiences.
Often, patients get stuck on hold for extended periods of time just when trying to make an appointment, waiting weeks before actually getting to the appointment, then seen by the doctor for a short non-personalized appointment with a hefty bill to follow soon after. This process underlines the fact that patients are not receiving the personalized care they need.
Meeting a patient’s pain points and understanding the difficult times can make a huge difference in their overall experience. For example, making it a point to create a process that illustrates an understanding of the patients need to avoid waiting in uncertainty to see a doctor, get a diagnosis, or to make efforts to quickly and effectively communicate regular updates with a patient’s family members is a step in the direction to offering a stronger customer experience.
Using data to provide personalized care
It’s disturbing to think that many patients think their provider isn’t focused on improving their health. Patients want to feel like they’re more than just a number and more importantly that they’re understood.
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are great for keeping patient charts accurate and up-to-date, but they also store a wealth of data. Utilizing this data can help diagnose and even predict health problems. It then can provide ideal treatment plans for patients at each visits. From the patient’s perspective, anything health related is incredibly personal. Which makes getting away from the one-size-fits-all mindset and moving towards a customized patient experience a must for any health organization. A huge step to achieving this is by using insights from data to improve the patient and provider relationship and most importantly health outcomes.
Data typically captured during the admission process is focused around demographics, ethnicity, language, and communication. In addition to data captured during admission, it’s equally if not more important to pull a patient’s medical history, preferences, and feedback from previous appointments to gain a complete picture of the patient before they’re seen. Capturing this data prior to seeing a patient allows physicians the opportunity to real-time personalized care recommendations.
With the amount of data being captured, organizations are continuously becoming more equipped to create personalized care plans. The data captured provides physicians analytics that can predict medicine needs, annual appointment requirements, insights into diagnostics, and even the likelihood of certain diseases if the predictive analytics are set up and used properly. Predictive analytics are the future of healthcare, but don’t jump in without taking a look at the depth of this tool of the future. There are many steps that must be taken to implement predictive analytics, but follow the ultra importance of ensuring that the data is tied directly to making appropriate and timely decisions. Once you have a system in place, then you can perfect your risk scores, scenarios, and outcome predicting and planning for patients as individuals.
Patient experience can make or break the overall health care experience. Too many organizations are more focused on seeing as many people as possible than meeting the needs of each individual. By being there in times of need and offering tailored experiences, health care providers can create satisfied, loyal patients. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to predictive analytics, so be sure to check back at our blog for more coming soon!
To learn about more beneficial topics for your organizations, check out our recent white paper, The Future of Acute Care: Industry Predictions for 2019.