Reimagining Patient Engagement – BPE Branded Patient Experience℠

Many commentators have heralded the rise of consumerism in healthcare, and others have decried the challenges that this trend creates for providers, suppliers, and payers alike. As health systems become more consumer oriented, many foundational habits and processes will change. Many, maybe most, healthcare providers are not ready to compete on the basis of consumer-oriented service delivery.

On the payer front, government and private payers are speeding the movement to consumerism by shifting more costs (and risks) to consumers through high deductible plans, and large minimum coinsurance requirements. Therefore, to ensure maximum payment and financial viability, providers need to increase their consumer-patient willingness to pay. Fortunately there is some synergy between the push to consumerism and current regulations. Both require a more engaged and satisfied consumer-patient.

The Challenge

To ensure reimbursement integrity while preparing for consumer orientated services, three aspects of healthcare services need to be enhanced, addressed, and improved.

First: the health system of tomorrow must create a more engaging patient experience today

• Creating patient engagement is difficult. Most quick fixes involve remodeling the gift shop and improving the cafeterias, and while these initiatives will help, they are insufficient. Customer service training has its limits, and simply labeling and calling every person on the premises a “guest” won’t make a lasting impact.
• Patient and consumer engagement is necessary for our healthcare system. Many providers, and payers understand that patient satisfaction is the corridor to better compliance. This compliance is essential for managing the health of a population suffering from chronic disease.
• For a number of years, we have been pointing out that the brand of the provider organization is extremely important in creating and maintaining engagement. This is because the brand of the organization represents the promise made by the provider to its patients and consumers. Prominent national brands like a famous Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio have begun to syndicate their processes and co-brand with local providers. This movement is designed to improve patient engagement, and financial viability.
• Supply chain managers are beginning to explore enablement of the next phase of branded patient communications stemming from a strategic supplier relationship. Much like the “billboard effect” of having a proton center will drive brand value and patient volume, other strategic alliances with major manufacturers can also be signals of excellence. Many long term contracts in place today only get industry press.

Second: managing clinical practice variation and reducing it can be very difficult

• Physician preference and clinical judgment are important variables to consider when evaluating a change. Creating alignment in this area is a long term initiative.
• If successful, reduced clinical practice variation will lead to a more predictable patient experience and allow for the enhancement of patient engagement.
• Similarly, reduced care variation also improves quality, and sometimes requires quality initiatives for support.

Third, quality improvement is a perennial struggle of process improvement

• The frontier in quality improvement is not only intra-organizational (or enterprise) process variation reduction, but now inter-organizational (across the continuum of care) process variation reduction.
• One of the foundational aspects of intra and inter-organizational process variation reduction is the use of a master patient index. Identifying who’s who, and treating them correctly is a common deficit for most aspiring population health providers.
• Core measures are still important, but patient risk-stratification is more important today and tomorrow.

In the end, each of these aspects (patient engagement, clinical practice variation, and quality improvement) need to be handled before consumer oriented service delivery can become variable.

The Solution

Achieving a Branded Patient Experience℠ on the same level as a branded consumer experience at an Orlando Theme Park, is not necessary. For example, it is unlikely that a patient is going want to take the hospital logo’d gown home as a keepsake. However, consuming healthcare as a patient, and a family member is one of the highest involvement experiences possible. Provider organizations deal with many levels of consumer-patient experiences i.e., life and death, fear and joy, pain and recovery. Because delivering a satisfying and engaging experience benefits from involvement, providers have the opportunity to create lasting brand equity with their populations and stakeholders.

This does require diligent focus on the entire service delivery episode, and the display of the organization’s brand along with other quality indicators. Clean attractive uniforms, images on the walls that suggest healing and satisfaction, as well as indoor foliage can make a strong impact. However, the highest impact area to focus on is the doctor patient interaction. The doctor’s name, as well as role and experience should be signaled by support staff. Further, credentials should be displayed prominently. Happy patients should be profiled in the facility bulletin, and in reading materials provided to patients. The role of strategic alliances also needs to be demonstrated within the entire care delivery episode. If the imaging equipment is part of a strategic alliance, the brand of that equipment as well as the reason for the selection can build consumer confidence even more. The types of devices used, and their quality as signaled by the brands of the organizations that make them as well as their adoption rate drive perceptions of quality. Finally the level of training, and caregiver to patient ratio should also be shown.

By:
Gunter F. Wessels, Ph.D., M.B.A.
Total Innovation Group Inc., Practice Principal, Partner
and
Sam O’Rear, MA, BS
Total Innovation Group Inc., Senior Partner

Total Innovation Group
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5401 W Kennedy Blvd
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Tampa, FL 33609
813-814-1902