Remember the excitement and anticipation you felt as a young child on Christmas morning? That’s the same feeling many healthcare leaders experience when they get ready to launch their organization’s latest branded app. They can’t wait to see it on their smartphones and watch their digital engagement skyrocket.
It’s a great feeling. But once the honeymoon period ends, too many health systems feel a serious letdown as they struggle to achieve widespread mobile app adoption. The reason: Because in 2022, merely launching a patient-facing app isn’t enough. To truly drive ROI and create a digital experience that patients will crave, healthcare organizations need a complete digital strategy.
Our team at DeliverHealth wants to give you the hints, tools, and knowledge you need to build a framework for patient engagement success. That’s why our new-for-2022 webinar series focuses exclusively on digital health and the patient experience. In our first webinar, Jeff Harper, our Chief Products Officer, Patient Experience, offers 5 steps to create a winning mobile strategy. Here’s a quick recap:
Step 1 – Be Comprehensive
Mobile apps that give consumers access to an organization’s patient portal offer a nice foundation. These apps allow existing patients to get test results, pay bills, and message their providers, among other features. But using a patient portal app as a digital front door leaves patients lacking. That’s because it doesn’t offer the comprehensive experience consumers expect today. It also doesn’t help drive new patients or encourage brand loyalty.
So, when crafting a digital strategy, the first step is to incorporate all the areas of the patient journey into your digital front door. The more comprehensive your mobile app, the more opportunities you have for engagement. Some areas to integrate into your patient-facing mobile app:
- Pre-visit – Health risk assessments, symptom checkers, price transparency
- On-the-way – Wayfinding, valet parking, neighborhood guides
- In-the-visit – telehealth visits, touchless arrival, virtual triage
- Financial – Bill pay, payment plans and options
- Continuing care – Prescription refills, personal care reminders, whole-person health
- Loyalty – This step is future-focused; consider loyalty program ideas from successful brands like Marriott or Amazon and whether they might fit into your digital strategy.
Step 2 – Transact
The easier you make it for consumers to transact, the more you can turn each patient experience touch point into a profit center. One example: Your hospital’s Find a Provider feature. When optimized, it can drive new patients and increase revenue.
To show you how, Jeff shares a visual comparing a buyer’s journey on Amazon and a patient’s journey using the Find a Doctor feature from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Ohio State MyHealth app. The app’s user experience, built on the Gemini platform from DeliverHealth, mimics the Amazon experience. That means, with one tap, Ohio State MyHealth users can learn more about a physician, see whether they’re accepting new patients, read their reviews, and call to make an appointment. Easy!