Let IT Clear the Chaos with a Connected Patient Experience

We often talk about the importance of a connected patient experience. Not only does a connected experience increase patient satisfaction, it generates multiple practical benefits for provider organizations. For the next few months, we’d like to focus our attention on this topic from the perspective of data and technology.

Information Technology (IT) solutions that work together are critical in converting chaos to connection, from pre-care all the way through a patient’s final payment. Yet it’s not uncommon, particularly in large health care organizations, to find up to a dozen different vendors providing or managing some piece of the patient information flow. Each system is separate, leading to information silos.

Silos emerge when there are multiple and disconnected systems. The resulting chaos reduces the ability to innovate and provide a consistent patient experience. Patients are forced to navigate a complex web of information, disparate (and sometimes conflicting) communications and redundant requests for action.

Clearly, data that works together creates a holistic patient experience, but often there are IT challenges in connecting that patient experience.

Reduced visibility and access to information, and inconsistent data are common. Think about an environment where estimates are being created in one system and balances are created out of another system. If those are incongruent, it creates uncertainty and may result in hesitancy around making a payment.

Inefficient processes and workflows are another challenge. You may be overcommunicating with a patient because you lack awareness about what’s happening in other parts of the system. If you can’t look holistically at all of the patient experiences and all points of interaction, it makes it more difficult to make decisions about how to optimize the patient experience. Costs are increased with over (and unnecessary) communication, not just from managing multiple vendors but also from a pure cost standpoint.

The good news is that there are proven technological remedies for these and other challenges, which we’ll explore next month!