Striving for Mobile Engagement? Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

In a recent survey of health system executives, the majority of respondents said they believed that a robust patient-facing mobile platform could help deliver on digital strategy goals while also addressing critical business issues.

However, in a focus group of healthcare CIOs, several attendees said that the biggest challenge in creating that mobile experience is making it happen successfully without taking on a huge burden.

I came to healthcare after spending decades in engineering leadership roles at consumer technology companies. During that time, I learned a lot about driving consumer engagement. Since founding Gozio Health, I’ve refined some of those ideas based on the nearly 350 million mobile interactions we’ve supported.

One of the biggest lessons has been not to reinvent the wheel. That may sound simple, but I routinely consult with health system leaders who share plans to focus their resources on building custom digital solutions for their health systems from scratch. The motivation tends to be a combination of wanting something tailor-made for the needs of their patients, visitors, and staff combined with a desire to control their digital destiny.

The good news today is that you can achieve these goals without starting from scratch. Instead, let someone else provide the foundational framework that includes the 80% of things that are common to all modern healthcare systems while focusing your resources on building the 20% of things that are genuinely unique to your system and those you serve.

There are several reasons why this makes sense:

1. First, it takes tremendous time and resources to create the underlying technology for something like a mobile platform. Building a foundational, cloud-based platform with a content manager and an analytics portal takes significant effort. Healthcare organizations have many priorities and challenges. Focus that time and money on other critical priorities.
2. Health systems employ many experts, but most are not experts in digital user experience. Technology companies have teams of user experience experts who think about things like user stories, navigation, iconography, colors, accessibility, etc. Take advantage of all that expertise.
3. In the tech world, there are constant updates and innovations that can impact your solution. It takes tremendous time and energy to keep up with the state of the art. Just the process of getting approved by the app stores and supporting their frequent OS updates can be tedious. Let the technologists worry about app stores and software and hardware updates from Apple, Google, Amazon, etc. so you don’t have to.
4. When it comes to the foundational framework, beyond the nuts and bolts and the user experience of the platform, every healthcare executive I talk to knows that patients expect a certain set of features. Those generally include, provider search, wait times, appointment scheduling, virtual visits, access to the patient portal, and experiential wayfinding. The best partners will have an open platform that allows you to connect the best-in-breed point solutions you already use, or want to use, as well as offering options for off-the-shelf integrations to meet your needs. Again, for many of these features there are great existing options and no need to start from scratch.
5. That open framework is a critical part of enabling the other 20% of solutions that are unique to your system or community. The right partner should be able to help you figure out the best way to address those needs whether you build it, partner with a third party, or the vendor builds it for you. And an open framework will make it easy to connect those customized solutions as well.
6. Finally, the demands on healthcare are always changing. An open platform helps you remain flexible. Allowing you to adjust your strategy and vendor selection over time while avoiding the universally dreaded "platform lock-in". The day after you launch, things can change. It is critical to have the ability to add, remove, update your selected point solutions and the features and functions they provide as your needs change.

With a foundational framework approach there is no longer a reason to build technology solutions from scratch in healthcare. Just follow these simple guidelines:

1. Choose an established technology vendor with deep experience in that arena so you can feel confident the underlying framework will continue to be enhanced and supported.
2. Take advantage of all the experience and insight that vendor has to offer. Ask to talk to their other clients who have already launched applications like the one you want to work on to get additional ideas and insights from people who’ve been there.

You’ll quickly find that you can stand up the framework and core functions of a platform in months versus the years it could take to do it yourself. By letting the vendor focus on the technical foundation, you can dedicate your time to the few things that are truly unique to you. With this approach you'll end up with a solution tailor-made for the needs of your patients, visitors, and staff while maintaining control of your digital destiny but in a fraction of the time and with far less work, cost, and resources than if you did in fact try to reinvent the wheel.