Rachel Hall
EY US Consulting Digital Health and Smart Health Experience Leader
As a luminary in the health care industry, Rachel Hall works with organizations to enable personalized and simplified care interactions and improve overall wellness.
It’s no secret that COVID-19 greatly accelerated the adoption and scaling of telehealth and virtual care. With health systems now settling into their new reality, the industry is rapidly transforming to meet consumer expectations and bring capabilities up to speed.
RH: The most important conversation around the future of health is not about the inevitable move to digital platforms, it’s about people. This perspective will help organizations reorient around concern for delivering not only clinical sick care but also end-to-end well care that is personal and empathetic.
RH: Three shifts will be required as the health industry rallies around a smarter health experience. The first shift is that of a strategic focus on the individual, their experience preferences and needs with respect to health care. The second shift is creation of the foundations upon which a smart health experience occurs, namely, bringing together the complicated system of industry players into a smart health ecosystem. The third, and final shift, is how these changes flow through the system and are accepted by users through established long-term trust and optimized user experiences.
RH: The idea is to move beyond just aiming to satisfy in the moment, to deeply understanding what matters to consumers and clinicians. Systematically paying attention to the human side of care to get the health care experience right (whether at home, in the hospital or in other settings) means developing a clear value proposition around using technology, ecosystems, structures and data to drive a better experience for providers and consumers.
RH: As health care becomes smarter, the industry will transition from siloed and transactional to one where all elements of the health ecosystem work together. This includes traditional health organizations and nontraditional players. By pulling all key parties together into a network (online and offline), health ecosystems will be able to offer high-value consumer services and informed insights to change care, as well as enhance customer loyalty.
RH: This means not only understanding what it takes to build a digital-first health experience and weave digital into every aspect of an enterprise, but also how to engage and bring users along on the journey. As we accelerate toward a seamless integration of physical and virtual care, the task ahead is that health care organizations need to know how to move from just “doing” to start “being” digital.
At the end of the day, we need to think outside the comfort zone of business as usual and more like entrepreneurs. How can we design and build the best patient experiences at every moment of truth in a patient’s journey — whether that be at home, in the hospital or anywhere in between? For many organizations, this shift toward engagement and optimizing experience may be highly disruptive to a status quo built around utilization and volume. However, if the experience of care is elevated, organizations will be able to drive execution to reach the full potential of the quadruple aim: improved patient care experiences, better outcomes, improved clinical experiences and lower costs.
Health care is well on the path to creating a smarter health experience. Paying attention to these three essential shifts will be fundamental toward weaving digital into every aspect of an organization and improving the end-to-end health care experience for both consumers and clinicians.
To learn more about how to deliver a smart health experience, visit ey.com/healthexperience.
The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Ernst & Young LLP or other members of the global EY organization.
