Consumers get a more high-tech experience from their Chick-fil-A app than they do from most health system mobile apps, and it’s a major dissatisfier, even when the quality of care is strong. It’s one reason why mobile strategy has moved center stage as table stakes for meeting health system’s business goals, including around consumer loyalty and engagement.
But delivering the types of mobile experiences healthcare consumers crave takes more than launching a health system app. That’s true even as the vast majority of consumers own a smart phone and more than half prefer to access their healthcare via a mobile device. To make an impact in a crowded and competitive space, healthcare leaders must take a purposeful approach to designing unified mobile experiences, with retail-like levels of personalization and satisfaction.
This means abandoning flat, featureless mobile apps and upgrading to unified mobile experiences that emphasize convenience, efficiency, and most important, the elimination of uncertainty in the patient journey.
Here are three essential ways to gain a competitive advantage with mobile by elevating the patient experience and engagement.
- Eliminate Uncertainty in the Patient Journey
In healthcare, we often say that consumers are looking for the same mobile experience they get in other industries, which are years ahead on the sophistication front. And that’s true on one level. But technology leaders also need to consider the nuances and emotions tied to the patient journey. What patients and families really want is for their healthcare partners to eliminate uncertainty in the patient journey—not necessarily provide bells and whistles to create a “magical” experience.
Achieving this end goal starts with a unified framework that provides convenience and removes friction where pain points exist in the patient journey. Foundationally, health systems must leverage a mobile platform that can bring all consumer-facing digital elements together into a single mobile app.
Imagine that a patient opens a health system app to schedule an appointment with their cancer specialist. The app scans oncologists in the health system’s network and seamlessly connects the patient to their physician, who may have clinic at different locations throughout the week, then offers the ability to schedule an appointment online.
Ahead of the appointment, the app pings the patient with a reminder along with a link to pre-register. Wayfinding from home all the way through the building to check-in is provided through the app on the day of the appointment, helping to ensure no hiccups occur in the patient journey. After the appointment, the patient can easily access follow-up instructions from the appointment, access their explanation of benefits and pay their bill. Everything they need is in one place – their hand.
The above scenario is one of an endless sea of use cases for leveraging mobile to eliminate friction in the patient journey. The key is to start with a unified experience provided through a single platform rather than multiple apps.
- Create Customized, Best-in-Class Experiences
The best health system apps consider the organization’s unique geography, the needs of its patient populations, and the specialized services it offers in providing a range of services that meet consumers’ needs.
At its core, a mobile app should reinforce the organization’s cohesive brand, with every aspect of functionality contributing to patient satisfaction. Especially in competitive markets where brand differentiation is critical, healthcare leaders will want to create some exclusivity in their mobile offerings, such as by providing unique features and services that are only available through the app.
In addition, the infrastructure supporting mobile app design must allow for customization and the ability to bring in best-in-class offerings. For example, patients increasingly have high expectations when it comes to the appointment scheduling process. If a health system is not able to provide the most advanced offerings around self-service through its mobile app in a seamless way, overall patient experience may be at risk. People expect an “Open Table” experience when booking or modifying a doctor’s appointment.
Bottom-line, mobile apps must be built from a vendor-agnostic platform that allows the health system to tailor mobile offerings to their population’s needs to provide optimal value.
- Deliver on the Power of Personalized Experiences
From Amazon to Netflix to travel, consumers are used to mobile apps that recognize their preferences and proactively engage them. Healthcare is, of course, a different animal when it comes to personalization, but foundationally, strategies should consider mobile app design that becomes 100% relevant to the patient journey.
For example, let’s say a patient accesses a mobile app to check test results. If the mobile app pops up and the whole screen is full of locations, find a doctor and other “clutter” that is not relevant, the experience becomes cumbersome and frustrating for patients who may be in duress. A better approach considers how to add dynamic content that addresses the individual patient—such as lab results front and center waiting on the patient. Or, from another vantage point, an appointment reminder pops up, navigating a patient to the mobile app, where the next steps of the patient journey are already mapped out.
In today’s healthcare climate, convenience and relevance rank high for patient engagement, and mobile strategy is central to success. Handheld devices increasingly govern how consumers interact with the world around them. Health systems that recognize the opportunity for getting mobile right will be best positioned to meet the heightened expectations that are commonplace in other mobile solutions.
About Lee Jones
Lee Jones is the Chief Product Officer at Gozio Health. With over 25 years of experience, Lee excels at helping rapid growth companies scale through building relationships, developing technology and products, engaging new markets, and building strong, effective teams. His experience includes engineering management, marketing, strategic relationships, management consulting, and JDAs while operating in both small and large companies. Prior to Gozio Lee was privileged to have been part of three start-ups that were successfully acquired.
