Throughout our Healthcare series, we’ve explored the increasing demand for personalized experiences and the strategy Gartner recommends for adapting to this trend.

Meeting consumer demands is typically good for business. But when it comes to the medical field, there’s more on the line.

In the last post of our Healthcare series, we’re looking at how an omnichannel customer experience (CX) gets to the heart of the matter: better health outcomes.

Are healthcare consumers getting the personalized care they need?

A recent survey conducted by our partner Redpoint Global with The Harris Poll revealed a gap between what healthcare consumers experience vs. expect.

  • When asked: which industries deliver a consistent CX that demonstrates a thorough understanding of the customer, healthcare ranked third.
  • Yet when asked: which industry should provide the most consistent experience and understanding of the customer, healthcare polled first.

This gap between expectation and reality can partly be explained by common frustrations with the healthcare journey — from confusing processes and long wait times to difficulty scheduling appointments.

Silos in data, processes, and business functions are also to blame. Healthcare consumers say that providers and insurers lack the necessary contextual information to deliver a seamless experience, with 71% dissatisfied overall.

How can healthcare organizations put consumers first?

We believe there is a better way to meet healthcare consumer expectations. The path forward involves adopting a healthcare consumerism model — one that recognizes that the consumer is in control of their health journey across physical and digital channels.

Gartner frames the healthcare consumerism model as three distinct generations of consumer engagement, laying out a roadmap for healthcare organizations to advance to a customer-centric state.

In Generation 1—where most healthcare organizations are today—organizations use customer data to optimize one or more consumer journeys.

This initial phase is more of a mindset shift: a recognition that putting a customer at the center of the experience requires determining a use case, breaking down entrenched siloes, and beginning to coordinate engagement across two or more channels.

Generations 2 and 3 advance an organization’s readiness to put the customer at the center of a holistic journey, first across an entire organization and then across an entire healthcare ecosystem.

You can learn more about Gartner’s generation model here.

What type of technology is best for a personalized healthcare CX?

Amplifi recommends a customer data platform (CDP) for delivering a personalized, omnichannel healthcare experience. Data is key to treating the consumer journey not as an episodic series of events, but rather as interactions that comprise a holistic health journey.

When it comes to customer data, Amplifi helps healthcare organizations design and implement the Redpoint rgOne platform as a single point of operational control over data, decisions, and interactions.

Let’s look at a couple of real-world examples.

Lifelong Coordinated Care

A chronic illness healthcare provider wanted to offer more individualized treatment plans. They understood that designing hyper-individualized programs could help them more effectively answer questions and keep patients engaged at every step.

By implementing rgOne as their single operational platform, the provider can coordinate care not only for its organization, but across an extensive provider network. With every lab, testing facility, clinic, specialist, and caregiver accessing the same real-time data, the patient experience is as frictionless as possible.

Understanding that a chronic diagnosis is a life event, the provider sought to eliminate as much of the confusion, anxiety, and uncertainty as possible. This use case gets to the heart of the matter: an omnichannel experience that supports better health and, crucially, patient peace of mind.

Personalized Marketing & Consumer Care

Another healthcare provider—with an extensive network of caregivers and healthcare facilities—turned to rgOne to move from a doctor-centric to a consumer-centric model.

Before the initiative, its brand marketing efforts were typically not personalized (namely billboards). Leveraging rgOne, the provider pivoted its media outreach with personalized and measurable campaigns targeting a smaller group of potential at-risk healthcare consumers.

“To do this, we knew we had to leverage data and give marketers access to first-party patient information to build out those campaigns,” says the organization’s VP of marketing platforms and analytics.  “But we had an EMR system and financial systems that were completely siloed and couldn’t reconcile data.”

The first step, she says, was to bring all consumer data together, which required a significant mindset change. By targeting a smaller audience with personalized messaging, the provider can better predict the likelihood of care for a specific diagnostic use case.

“The platform connects the right consumer with the right message at the right time,” she says. “It’s all HIPPA compliant; it’s targeted, relevant, personalized, faster, and at scale.

“What we’ve done is connect the pieces of the consumer/patient journey,” she adds. “These independent points used to be siloed. Now all the points of the journey are monitored and visible through rgOne. The model has the patient at the center of the experience.”

Start the Transition Today

With an abundance of personal data at their fingertips, consumers view their health as a journey that they control. Healthcare organizations must respond and deliver a holistic experience that matches patient expectations.

By adopting a generational approach, striving to “act as one,” and implementing the right technology, healthcare organizations will be on their way to improved satisfaction, reduced costs, and better health outcomes.

Not sure where to start? Amplifi and Redpoint Global can guide the way. We understand the power of customer data like no one else — and provide the technology and expertise you need to reach your CX goals.

Reach out to our team or learn more by downloading our healthcare industry guide.