As consumers, we live in an increasingly on-demand economy.
Whether it’s shopping on Amazon, ordering groceries to our door, or buying clothes from local stores for curbside pick-up, the internet is our gateway to the products and services we seek. We’ve grown to expect full transparency in our transactions, omnichannel communications and personalized matches.
The COVID-19 pandemic has only propelled this on-demand economy and its expansion to other parts of our lives—especially healthcare.
The healthcare industry often receives criticism for lagging behind when it comes to consumer experience and digital innovation. Long appointment wait times, cumbersome scheduling processes and lack of self-service options have caused both patient and provider dissatisfaction. However, even before the pandemic, the tide had started to turn due to a convergence of forces, including rising consumerism and competition from disrupters.
Still, most of the focus was on modernizing access to in-person visits; virtual care was an emerging area of focus but far from widespread.
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The pandemic has catapulted virtual visits—a dominant component of telemedicine and virtual care more broadly—as a means of obtaining safe and convenient care. Reimbursement changes that better compensate providers for visits now happening online or by phone have also bolstered the shift to virtual. According to a recent survey (PDF), 72% of consumers who had virtual visits in 2020 had never done so in the past. Now that they have, they want access to the option permanently.
As such, virtual care has brought a new dimension to access “on-demand.” As healthcare leaders adjust to the changes the pandemic brought to care delivery and build on pre-pandemic access initiatives, they should follow three imperatives:
Meet consumers where they are
As patients act more like consumers, they’re doing what consumers do: searching online for providers and care sites. According to the most recent edition of Kyruus’ annual survey (PDF), more than half of consumers search online when looking for new providers, and over 40% of them visit health system websites at some point during the search. The challenge for healthcare organizations is to meet consumers wherever and however they decide to begin their care journeys—including via search engines, health systems’ own websites, mobile apps and more.
With demand for reliable medical information surging, meeting consumers’ needs online also requires providing a means for them to obtain assistance without picking up the phone. Like virtual visits, virtual assistants have seen rapid adoption, especially for online symptom checking and triage, with some organizations implementing this technology in a matter of days. As they progress from these initial implementations, though, leaders will need to ensure that their digital technologies work together to provide a cohesive digital front door that ultimately produces a satisfying consumer experience and routes consumers to the right care.
Be the most convenient, hassle-free option
When it comes to scheduling, two key principles prevail: convenience and consistency. The ability to view available appointments and book a convenient time is paramount in the on-demand economy. Long elusive in healthcare, online scheduling is a growing focus for healthcare organizations, with good reason: Over 50% of people who prefer online booking would switch providers for it. The trend extends to virtual visits as well: 54% of consumers said they would prefer to book online (including 72% of Gen Xers and 64% of millennials).
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But “easy and quick” means different things to different consumers.
In fact, 55% of consumers still pick up the phone to book appointments. Amid the confusion around COVID-19 and its implications for in-person visits, that number is likely even higher now. With consumers engaging both by phone and online, organizations must ensure that the information on their website matches what is available to call center agents to avoid disjointed experiences. In addition, both channels must deliver clear visibility into virtual visit options and booking.
Engage existing patients proactively
Virtual care isn’t just telemedicine, though—it’s an ecosystem of technologies that include a health system’s front door but ultimately provide for longitudinal engagement. Organizations can stand out and build trust by engaging existing patients proactively through personalized and relevant communication about safety measures, virtual care options and how to get care for ongoing or future needs—including mental health and wellness. As patients gain access to care through virtual visits, organizations can automate the engagement process to manage their care and wellness with an end-to-end experience.
Healthcare organizations also need to understand social determinants of health when tailoring outreach strategies about their care offerings to capitalize on the opportunity for virtual care. Virtual visits offer a new opportunity to drive more equitable access to care across populations.
While accessing healthcare may never be as simple as shopping on Amazon, it can be far easier than before.
Ultimately, increasingly empowered consumers will set the new standards for consumer experience and the healthcare organizations that survive, and thrive, in the on-demand era will be the ones that meet or exceed them.
Ashwini Zenooz, M.D., is general manager and chief medical officer of global healthcare and life sciences at Salesforce, and Graham Gardner, M.D., is CEO at Kyruus.