There’s nothing better than learning about enhancing the digital patient experience than to hear from people who have been on the front lines doing it. As part of the Healthcare Analytics Summit 21 Virtual Event put on by Health Catalyst, attendees got to hear from Carrie Rys, MBA, Assistant Vice President, Pediatrics Administration, and Grace Karon, Assistant Director, Business Operations and Strategic Planning from Texas Children’s Hospital. In their session, Rys and Karon share how they used digital technologies and change management efforts to improve the patient experience.
Given their success in now having over 1 million appointments scheduled online, we wanted to share how they were able to achieve such incredible results. In this interview with Colin Hung, Rys and Karon share what’s made their efforts to enhance the digital patient experience a success. They address some of the technology, education, and process changes that were needed to accomplish their goals. This included really having this as an institutional goal that everyone was working towards.
They also share that many people’s fears around allowing online appointment scheduling is unfounded. In fact, they’ve found that most patients find it more convenient and it’s quickly becoming an expectation. This was particularly true in their pediatric population where the parent may be scheduling appointments at work and wouldn’t be able to call in to schedule.
Rys and Karon also talk about staff’s response to these changes. While some may fear automation, they’ve found that this has provided an opportunity for people to level up the impact they can have on the organization and patients. For example, online scheduling saves real call center dollars, but the call center is still busy. Part of this is likely due to COVID, but the other part is call center operators being able to spend more time to make sure patients have the best experience possible. This would have been harder to achieve if the call center queue was filled with those who couldn’t self schedule online because that wasn’t an option.
Finally, Rys and Karon share some of the key lessons they’ve learned enhancing the digital patient experience. Plus, they talk about the ROI they were able to achieve from these efforts. If you are looking at improving the digital patient experience in your organization, you’ll enjoy our interview with Texas Children’s Hospital.
If you want to check out other speakers at the Healthcare Analytics Summit like those featured in this article, registration is still open and it’s inexpensive to attend. Plus, most of the sessions will be available to watch on demand after the event.
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