Pratik Maroo
Head of healthcare and life sciences
No one looks forward to the time of day when they need to take a pill or an instance when they must schedule a visit to the hospital because interacting with the healthcare system mostly feels sterile. Digital healthcare empowers people to take a higher level of control of their health, but it also magnifies the industry’s longstanding reputation of delivering a strictly clinical experience. So, with screens taking over the system, it is even more pressing to embed touchpoints with human-centered values.
Why is it so easy to lose sight of the end-user?
Systems are built for the patient as much as for the care delivery organizations. However, they are often designed to reflect the health care providers’ mental model. System providers tend to think about the process as one that gives institutions the best information and fail to consider the varying needs and limitations of patients. For instance, it might serve a fast and easy sign-up process because that’s what companies want whereas patients might need to dig deep to figure out claim approvals or custom coverage plans.
A big reason why people abandon health insurance related searches is because customers feel they must fend for themselves on the website, which is directly opposite to the face-to-face dynamic that the traditional industry was built on. The likelihood that people will never return to a site after one bad experience is as high as 30%, according to industry estimates. So, every incorrectly completed form or frustrated exit not only impacts reputation, cost overruns, and experience negatively, but also deters potential customers from returning to the site.
There must be cohesion built between all stakeholders if a platform needs to be fit for purpose.
It’s no longer enough to invest in digital tools and features, it’s equally important to invest in user learning and helping people navigate the transition. And that translates to greater awareness of customer needs, making customer journeys airtight and, building products and pricing parameters that are easy to understand.
Increases both employee and patient satisfaction.
Eliminates process inefficiencies.
Creates sustainable solutions.
Focuses on overall experience, not just improving efficiency.
Three strategies to foster long-term customer experience.
1. Meet the customer where they are at by design.
Today, healthcare companies are more focused on digital tools delivering adherence to the patient – a reminder to take the right medicine at the right time. But because patients are human beings, they respond to these pings inconsistently. Based on daily interactions, digital devices should tailor just-in-time reminders that consider impulses and workarounds anyone will invariably succumb to. The idea is not to bombard people with messages but tailor them per individual requirements.
2. Drive continuous value.
If meeting the customer halfway is a clear goal, discovering their needs is not a one-and-done phase that sits at the beginning of a project. Often, product development follows a definite vision and rigid timeline. We advocate a dual agile approach, which simultaneously manages discovery and delivery of the product development lifecycle within the same team. The idea is to infuse a culture of learning at every step of the implementation strategy, maintain agility, and respond to evolving insight. Human-centered design not only builds sophisticated customer journeys through user research but also ensures the product or service is evolved properly and keeps pace with shifts in perception and demand. It fine tunes details through iteration after it is in the users’ hands.
3. Adopt a practical approach to becoming AI proficient.
A recent survey conducted by McKinsey stated that although most healthcare leaders said their organizations are eager to use generative AI to help enhance how stakeholders work and operate, but some are still adopting a wait-and-watch approach. 60% leaders are either currently pursuing proof of concepts or planning to pursue proof of concepts. This doesn’t come as a surprise because since the time consumers accessed ChatGPT, the proliferation of AI has accelerated. However, not all the potential that AI promises has translated to actual business advantage. So, it is prudent to parse out the hype and invest in scenarios where AI can deliver actual business outcomes.
The proliferation of wearables and other medical devices combined with AI can oversee early-stage heart disease, enable doctors and other caregivers to better monitor and detect life-threatening episodes. Using pattern recognition to identify patients at risk of developing a condition – or seeing it deteriorate due to lifestyle, environmental, genomic, or other factors. These are clear areas where AI is beginning to take hold in healthcare.
