The healthcare sector has experienced a continuous rise in digital health solutions over the years, a transformation that has only been fast-tracked by the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, almost overnight, patient care leaders took action, converting standard in-person care into virtual care delivery in many instances due to shelter-in-place orders and the cancellation of many non-elective procedures at the onset of the crisis. This rapid evolution has impacted the entire healthcare ecosystem, as clinicians were thrusted into a new digital environment.
On the patient side, even prior to the pandemic, they were becoming more consumer-savvy, and now, they’re increasingly becoming more likely to take their medical care, and the costs associated with it, into their own hands. One recent report from Accenture found that two out of three patients said they are likely to switch to a new healthcare provider if their expectations for managing COVID-19 are not met. These include sanitary and safety protocols, access to up-to-date information and the availability of virtual care options. Based on a survey of more than 4,600 U.S. respondents, the report concluded that patients are looking for a safer, more secure and convenient healthcare experience. In addition, those who believe their healthcare providers handled COVID-19 poorly (25 percent of respondents) were three times more likely than satisfied patients to say they will either delay seeking services for at least a year or never return to that healthcare provider.
For health systems, the time to address patient experience is now, as it’s arguably never mattered more. There is a financial incentive to do so, too: the Accenture research indicated that those health systems that evolve to meet new consumer experience needs can expedite financial recovery and capture patients from competitors, potentially increasing their revenues by 5 percent to 10 percent pre-COVID levels within 12 months. For a $5 billion health system, this would mean between $250 million and $500 million in additional annual revenues.
At Banner Health, a 28-hospital health system headquartered in Phoenix, Az., Christopher Stallings, senior director of consumer digital, is indeed in charge of everything “consumer digital.” It’s a role that stems from the health system deciding a few years ago that its mission would change to doing whatever possible to make healthcare easier, which in turn makes life easier. As part of that, Banner Health leaders realized they needed to turn their business into a digital business, and within that part of the organization is digital specific to consumers, or in other words, using technology to make the customer experience a lot better than it has previously been.
What does this work entail and what have been the drivers for this change, especially in the wake of the pandemic? Stallings points to several key areas, including:
Overhauling strategy around healthcare search: “I actually had gone out to visit with folks at Google around healthcare search strategy, and it became very obvious that our consumers just don’t know how to navigate healthcare,” says Stallings. “So we said, OK, we have to make it so that once the consumer [chooses] Banner for the first time, we keep them, and that we make it so that if they schedule a primary care visit, they can also easily schedule a colonoscopy or a mammogram, too. So they become more [aware] of the services we provide.
Ditching the traditional waiting room: Due to COVID-19, “We have basically ditched the waiting room [from how it previously was structured] and made it so that patients can wait in their car and get texts, giving them updates on their wait time and when to come in,” Stallings says. The idea is to avoid the busy waiting room where there could be other germs that are spreading. Although the virtual waiting room model originated at Banner pre-COVID, Stallings says that with the virus “being as dangerous as it is, this strategy was definitely accelerated by the [pandemic].” He additionally notes that there have even been discussions to use the freed-up waiting room space for clinical purposes.
Changing the process around end-of-life visits: Due to infection rates rising across the nation, Stallings notes that many health systems have gone back to banning or limiting visitation rights. “That proves particularly difficult for families who are about to lose a loved one, and especially now when you go into our facilities, we have so many new safety protocols; it can be a little overwhelming if you haven't seen it or experienced it,” he says. So Banner quickly decided that this was not how families should be remembering their loves ones. It set up a system that leveraged technology from the patient engagement platform Luma Health that implements a texting tool, giving information to family members so they could prepare for their visit. A team at Banner also makes videos to help family members see what they are going to experience before coming in. “So instead of being overwhelmed by all the experience of putting on PPE, and of seeing their loved ones attached to monitors, they were prepared for it. This way, they could focus on saying goodbye,” Stallings says.
Responding to patients delaying care: One recent survey from the Primary Care Collaborative revealed that nearly 40 percent of clinicians said their patients with chronic conditions are in “noticeably worse health resulting from the pandemic.” This is due, in part, to visits that are not happening: 56 percent of surveyed clinicians have seen an increase in negative health burdens due to delayed or inaccessible care. Stallings notes that letting patients know it’s safe to come in for necessary care, and easing their concerns, is a huge focus area for Banner right now. “We started instituting a seal for our facilities for when they accomplish everything that needs to be accomplished to [reach that high-level safety status]. We call that the Safety Seal,” he says. According to Banner’s website, some of those protocols include: restricting visitors with certain exceptions; having all patients, employees and others masked up; cleaning and disinfecting lobbies and high-touch surfaces; isolating all COVID patients; testing all patients who are set for surgery for COVID; and having separate entrances for different groups of patients. Ultimately, Stallings believes that right now, everyone “kind of has an excuse to delay care with COVID. But people have made excuses to delay care forever,” he contends. “What I've learned is that in making [healthcare] a better experience and addressing some of the underlying issues in delaying care, we can actually get people to take care of themselves better, earlier, and more comprehensively.”
Getting quicker access to health records: At Banner’s MD Anderson locations, for new cancer patients, the process has normally been to sign documents that allow for Banner’s oncologists to gather someone’s health data from all his or her previous providers before having an initial consult. That process obviously takes time. But now, from a new cancer patient’s very first call, Banner can send out communication, through Luma’s platform, so they can sign their paperwork while they're on that initial phone call with the health system. “Now we have goals that were unheard of before, such as getting patients in within 24 or 48 hours [from that first call]. That’s extremely important, especially with newly diagnosed cancer,” he says.
In the end, Stallings and his team operate on the notion that if the customer experience can be made better, patients’ self-care will considerably improve. “And that's something I believe, regardless of a pandemic. Things have gotten in the way of taking better care of ourselves,” he says. “My hope is that by making the digital experience easy, and by making it safer for patients to receive that care, they’ll really start [engaging] more.”
