According to a report from Accenture, patients are increasingly switching providers, and at least a portion say it’s because of the digital experience. In fact, the report goes on to show that digital engagement is a strong predictor of loyalty. Increasingly, patients say they are less likely to stay with a provider who doesn’t provide a good digital experience, and a bad digital experience effects how they feel about their entire healthcare interaction. In other words, great care or bedside manner doesn’t mean a patient will stay if the rest of their experience doesn’t meet their needs.
Today, health systems aren’t doing a great job of meeting patient needs on the digital front. There is a significant disconnect in what health system leaders have to say about it and what patients actually believe. In the CHIME Digital Health Most Wired patient engagement segment report from 2023, CIOs reported offering a wide range of digital patient engagement tools—up to 40 different ones. In that report, 100% of CIOs said patients had access to tools like lab results, refill requests, and secure messaging with providers. But in a survey released in early 2024 of nearly 700 patients on digital preferences, only about 65% of patients said they had these things available to them.
In that same patient survey, the majority of respondents said they had to use two or more apps or websites to manage their healthcare. In some cases, patients use up to six different apps. And, patients almost unanimously say that none of those apps meet their needs. This is the disconnect: Too many tools in too many places, which leads to patients not being able to find them or fully use all that is available to them.
In healthcare, the digital front door should be the solution to this problem. The 2024 patient survey mentioned previously showed that 89% of patients report wanting a single platform to manage their healthcare experience. Half of those say they would prefer to be able to access that platform on a mobile device.
Patients have also consistently said that what they want is a customer service experience in healthcare that reflects what they have in other areas of their lives like hospitality and retail. These, and other industries, consistently offer an engaging mobile experience. Think about OpenTable, Delta, or Marriott.
The vast majority of Americans now own a smartphone, including 96% of young adults as well as 61% of those 65 and older. Not only did half of patients surveyed report wanting to manage their healthcare experience on mobile, over 85% said they conducted their most recent interaction with their healthcare provider through mobile. This was true even when the experience wasn’t ideal (i.e., a mobile optimized web experience).
It’s clear from the data that the best way to drive high engagement, satisfaction, and patient retention is a through a mobile-first digital front door. To ensure it really meets the needs of patients and supports key health system goals, consider these recommendations:
- Put everything in one place. The one stop shop is what patients most want when it comes to their digital health experience. Patient portals are an obvious choice for digital, but patients also say they want telehealth visits, wayfinding, symptom checkers, price transparency tools, and much more in a mobile app. Remember, the more value provided, the more engagement. When an app has only a single feature or small set of features, people don’t tend to reuse it. Consider that the ONC recently released the data for portal usage in the U.S., and the scorecard for reuse was lackluster: Only 20-30% of patients return to portals more than once. By comparison, health systems like Piedmont Health, University of Miami, and WakeMed Health & Hospitals that have comprehensive mobile apps offering many features, have reuse rates of 70-80%.
- Buy, don’t build. There is really no time to waste, and building a mobile app that is native for both iOS and Android with all the integrations, features, and functionality that also supports HIPAA compliance is costly and time-consuming. Look for a solution that already has the foundational technology in place. Ideally, a vendor who just works in healthcare will also have many of the integrations built as well to support critical offerings like provider search, scheduling, and real-time wait times. With the right vendor, a high quality branded mobile app can be built for a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time.
- Be flexible. The other advantage to buying is that you get ongoing support, development, and best practices. So, when there is new technology or improvements to the user interface, you get those. The right platform should also enable you to add and change features and functionality over time as your organization changes or your patients’ needs change. A case in point is the growing use of AI assistants and chat in health systems’ call centers and websites. You want to be able to quickly and easily add that to your mobile app as well.
Mobile now consistently ranks ahead of desktop for search. Patients regularly indicate a preference for mobile tools like SMS text. Now, the latest research has shown that patients want a single platform on mobile to manage their healthcare. It is not only possible to do this, but in the search for the best way to truly engage patients, it is necessary.
Lea Chatham is an award-winning marketer who serves as the Vice President of Marketing for Gozio Health. For nearly twenty-five years, she has developed educational content for leading Health IT companies to help provider organizations increase profitability and efficiency. Prior to joining Gozio, she served in management roles at Innsena Communications, Solutionreach, and Kareo. She draws on her additional years of experience leading marketing and patient engagement at a small integrated health system. Lea often shares her insights at industry events and in healthcare publications.
