Unlocking the potential of healthcare data to fuel stronger patient experiences

The amount of healthcare data being generated in today’s information age and digital-first economy is unrivaled. The healthcare industry alone generates 30% of the world’s data volume. That amount of data leads to incredible opportunities and daunting challenges. On one hand, if stored, managed and accessed at a high level of sophistication, data can inform exceptional patient experiences. On the other, that amount of data can create headaches for healthcare providers when the data exists in multiple disparate sources, is missing or outdated, is difficult to access, or is too complex to understand.

The reality is that every moment of the patient journey must be informed by data. Data impacts everything – from the quality of patient care and patient activation, to physician outreach, workflow processes and profitable growth. When data isn’t properly used, patient care suffers and costs rise.

Rapid digitization, heightened competition, a global pandemic and other disruptive forces have dramatically transformed patient expectations. Today’s patients expect personalized, seamless and digitally-enabled experiences across the entire patient journey – from the moment care is needed, to post-operative care. Data must enable and empower every step of the journey. But where do you start?

It can be tempting to jump right into your EMR when data projects surface. But a better first step is to audit your data landscape and identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. You’ll also want to pinpoint data gaps and systematic inefficiencies. You should consider how accessible, comprehensive, integrated, actionable and protected your data is. To effectively leverage data and provide powerful patient experiences, your organization will need to clean, standardize and harness data that meets all those standards.

Data is the foundation, but the other key is to gain an accurate understanding of who your patients are and how they prefer to interact with your organization throughout their entire journey. Developing a patient journey map is a great way of illustrating their experience and should function as a guide to creating and providing desired patient experiences and high-caliber care. Mapping your patient journey in coordination with your data and technologies will help you make informed decisions about patient experience improvement strategies.

Delivering better patient experiences requires a deep and intimate knowledge of your patients’ expectations.

Patients now expect frictionless omnichannel experiences that seamlessly integrate services across channels, platforms and devices, and healthcare organizations must adapt to provide them. Every moment of the patient journey must be enabled with integrated care services and omnichannel capabilities.

New care delivery models like telemedicine and virtual care have furthered this expectation of a digital health interface. And because healthcare is now driven by choice, the ability to meet unique patient needs and desires means having a digital-first, adaptable and automated strategy.

A digital front door strategy offers a frictionless and integrated patient experience across every touchpoint. Healthcare customers want to be empowered to research care options, schedule appointments and manage their care delivery easily and effectively, on their own terms.

A properly executed digital front door strategy helps providers and payers easily adapt to emerging healthcare trends and better engage patients and members.

An EMR system is the cornerstone for patient history, information and records. The millions of data points within the EMR offer a framework for every interaction and experience your healthcare organization has with your patients – from acquisition, to post-appointment follow up care.

But to provide seamless experiences across the entire patient journey, the data seated within your EMR needs to be referenced by a number of other system,s like your contact center platform or your customer relationship management system.

Patient activation has been identified as a critical component of good health outcomes. Disengaged patients might fail to schedule routine screenings and physicals, follow up on care after a diagnosis or seek proper treatment for issues that require emergency care.

When looking to improve the quality of care, reduce costs and meet patients’ unique needs and preferences, patient activation is critical.

Avtex, a TTEC Digital Company, designed a Patient Activation Program to help healthcare organizations engage with those patients most at risk, improve patient experiences, increase patient engagement, reduce care costs and enable better health outcomes.

Lastly, you’ll want to leverage your data to execute and evolve post-care communication strategies. It’s mission critical to implement communication and engagement strategies that nurture patients in a way that makes them feel cared for, seen, heard and uniquely valued.

If you’re looking to get more out of your data and to deliver seamless, next-level patient experiences, the customer experience experts at Avtex can help. The team has authored The 10 Step Checklist to Unlocking the Golden Record in Healthcare, a resource designed to help healthcare organizations transform and adapt to the impacts of technology and data disruption.

Avtex, a TTEC Digital Company, is a full-service customer experience consulting and solution provider focused on helping healthcare organizations build meaningful connections with their customers, members and constituents. Avtex offers a wide range of solutions and services to support CX transformation planning and orchestration of experiences for clients.