The demand for digital access to care, health information and services ignited digital transformation during the months of the pandemic.
Now, as hospitals determine how to maintain digital relevancy, healthcare leaders must consider: “What types of digital offerings do people really want from healthcare providers—and how can we stay ahead of the curve?”
It’s an important question at a time when retail disruptors are leveraging digital innovation to provide highly personalized, highly convenient care. Today, it’s no longer enough to simply provide the interface for virtual care, especially when some experts question whether telehealth has lost its luster. Nor can leaders take a “Build it and they will come” approach to mobile apps, loading a range of offerings onto their app without paying careful attention to consumer needs, experience and design.
Further, consumers aren’t the only ones who stand to benefit from digital innovation in healthcare. Employees do, too. But while much attention has been given to the ways in which digital innovation can elevate clinical decision-making, to date, organizations have put less focus on leveraging digital to improve operations and even company culture.
In 2022, healthcare leaders can up-level their approach to digital innovation by keeping three key considerations in mind.
No. 1: How can digital tools improve employee satisfaction? The healthcare sector has taken a hit during the Great Resignation, with worker quit rates ranking among the second highest in the nation. Burnout is one of the top reasons physicians, nurses and others are leaving the field, especially as the surge in COVID-19 cases pummels hospital staff. For healthcare leaders, discussions around how to retain talent should include a close look at ways to leverage digital innovation—including digital health platforms—to create the workplace culture employees crave.
Three places to start include the following:
- Use mobile apps to deliver positive feedback in real time. Organizations that excel at employee recognition are 12 times as likely to generate strong business results. At University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health, use of a real-time digital recognition system led to a 5% to 10% improvement in HCAHPS scores in three areas. It also gave the hospital a better way to recognize and reward high-performing staff.
- Provide access to digital health resources that strengthen employees’ mental health. For example, providing options for behavioral health services via the health system’s mobile app helps direct these resources to where they are needed most.
- Find ways to use consumer-facing digital tools to relieve employees’ administrative burden. Examples include options for online bill payment, saving a place in line at urgent care, providing wayfinding assistance and finding a physician who accepts new patients.
No. 2: Does your mobile app serve as a “digital companion” for patients? What good is a hospital’s mobile app if it doesn’t provide a digital handholding experience at each stage in the patient journey? The right digital companion anticipates consumers’ needs and differentiates healthcare organizations from competitors by providing value at each stage of the patient experience, from home to parking to the point of care and beyond. Especially at a time when retail competitors are ramping up personalized digital offerings for healthcare consumers, hospitals and health systems need to do the same.
For example, map out every destination in a hospital patient’s encounter on their phone from one point to the next. This eliminates the stress of navigating a hospital environment. After the encounter, these apps continue building on the care connections established, putting follow-up options for care at their fingertips and alerting patients to new activity in their medical record or account.
No. 3: Does your digital experience resonate with consumers? Half of consumers say a bad digital experience can ruin their entire experience with a healthcare provider. That’s one reason why it’s important to know how your organization’s digital experience measures up.
One place to start: Ask staff to offer feedback on your digital health platform and mobile app—even if they have already been rolled out to consumers.
At WakeMed Health & Hospitals in Raleigh, N.C., health system leaders relied on employee input to refine their all-access digital engagement strategy before rolling the health system’s mobile app out to the public. Today, the app attracts 6,000 active users a month, with half a million sessions in two years. Services include the ability to determine wait times at local emergency departments, register for care—including the birth of a child—and communicate with a healthcare professional. One-third of users rely on the digital health platform for wayfinding services or to find a physician.
Differentiating Your Digital Offerings
A “build it and they will come” approach to digital services creation is like throwing spaghetti on a wall: Some services may have “stuck” at the beginning of the pandemic, but that doesn’t mean they have staying power over the long term. As consumers continue to evaluate providers based in part on the quality of the digital experience provided—and as well-capitalized retail disruptors use digital offerings to improve market share—looking for opportunities to up-level digital service, connections and convenience will be key to providers’ success in 2022 and beyond.
Author: Joshua Titus is founder and CEO, Gozio Health