Creating 'the Amazon experience' in healthcare: Why patients want personalization

The pace at which the healthcare industry is evolving has accelerated over the past few years, largely the result of newly introduced regulatory requirements and the shift towards value-based care solutions. But it's also been in part due to rising expectations among healthcare consumers.

Many industries are shifting to a more personalized, digital business approach to consumer engagement, which some are calling an effort to replicate "the Amazon experience" as services are personalized to suit an individual's needs. As we are all becoming more accustomed to consumer centricity in everything we do, as evidenced through ever-reducing transaction costs, better transparency, coupled to ever-increasing quality and service levels, it follows that patients and health plan members should, too. The consumer-centric approach offers many benefits to both patients and healthcare providers and goes hand-in-hand with the ideals of value-based healthcare models, where strategies aim to improve health and satisfaction while also controlling and reducing healthcare costs.

Considering the range of operational changes required to transition to a more consumer-centric approach, many healthcare organizations might find it difficult to shift their patient engagement strategies. Despite these challenges, the future of healthcare is certain to be patient-centric, and healthcare organizations need to start adopting this mentality to remain ahead of their competition.

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In fact, 92% of the health systems surveyed by Deloitte are hoping to achieve better patient experiences and consider digital capabilities a path to fundamentally change their relationship with consumers. Now is the time to prepare for the shift.

Modern tools and technologies
As technology evolves, so too are consumers' day-to-day experiences, from shopping online to ordering food for delivery. Consumers are seeking a certain level of convenience and personalization in their transactions.

Health plan members' expectations of their health plans are evolving, too: Since the onset of the pandemic, consumers are more comfortable and willing to use telehealth and virtual services than ever before. Payers are now finding themselves forced to adapt to this shift in expectations by providing a wider range and higher levels of service options. With the growing number of regulatory requirements that are also putting pressure on aging technology, new market entrants with more innovative approaches are threatening the market share of traditional payers. The result? Payers need to find a way to be more agile and creative.

Adopting new technological solutions will be critical in adapting to the shifting infrastructure. Aging technology systems directly impact administrative costs by creating unnecessary manual work that could lead to missed opportunities. Legacy systems are incapable of seamlessly exchanging data with newer systems and require manual data entry, increasing labor costs and introducing the risk of human error. As payers plan their response to the increasing market demands, they must consider whether to continue investing in an aging system and more manual resources, or move to more modern and flexible systems.

Shifting from fragmented care to a connected Ecosystem
Although different healthcare stakeholders — including payers, providers and pharmaceutical companies — have found more effective ways to work together, the healthcare system is still very much fragmented. Fragmentation not only causes frustration for patients, but it also contributes to system-wide inefficiencies. Individual silos across the healthcare continuum need to be connected and working together in a meaningful way in order to achieve a patient-centric approach.

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In order to implement "the Amazon experience" consumers desire, organizations will need to consider ways they can add convenience to their consumers' experience, and then identify the most optimal ways to achieve these goals. This will require either building capabilities internally or partnering with a modernized technology solution. Collaboration will be key, as it's important that healthcare organizations think of themselves as part of an ecosystem rather than a lone entity. Recent survey results show that this infrastructure shift is on the minds of health plan leaders, as aligning business and IT has gone from being the lowest priority to top three among health leaders within the past year.

How digital payers are paving the way
A digital payer can be defined as a payer who is bringing its business and IT areas together to create a modern, digital organization that constantly improves health and financial outcomes. Digital payers are leveraging digital tools to improve end-user and member centricity and by doing so, achieving higher levels of quality to deliver better outcomes for members and communities.

By increasing business transparency, which breaks down the silos that traditionally worked as separate entities, digital payers are better equipped at exchanging information across the healthcare ecosystem. By empowering teams with next-generation solutions, digital health payers are advancing customer service while also constantly reducing transaction costs through automation and connectivity. 

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The pressure to adopt a digital foundation will become increasingly critical for payers to remain ahead. Transforming to a digital payer will be key for providing the digital patient-centric experience consumers are craving. By leveraging an interoperable health IT system, payers can increase member satisfaction. Improving operational efficiencies so that patient data can be shared seamlessly among authorized practitioners and individuals, all parties - including the patient - can make more informed decisions, improve healthcare quality and lower costs.