Personalization Builds Trust and Better Outcomes

What could be more personal than asking how a patient is doing, listening to their answer and, when appropriate, taking action to help them feel better? When patients know their provider is paying attention and cares, trust naturally follows.

That’s healthcare personalization in action.

Studies show that personalization can lead to better patient experiences, higher quality of care and even a reduction in avoidable healthcare costs. Personalization matters at every stage of the patient experience, beginning with preservice and continuing through clinical care, payments and post-care.

“Good follow-up care (such as ensuring medication adherence, adherence to the right rehabilitation and physical therapy, remote monitoring of symptoms and timely follow-up checkups) may lead to better outcomes. When this follow-up care fails, a patient is more likely to end up back in a hospital or with a need for additional care,” notes a recent study on post-admission engagement by the research firm McKinsey.

While the benefits are clear, personalization implies intensive time spent calling patients by staff members, nurses and physicians—time that most resource-stretched healthcare organizations simply do not have.

There is another way.

With careful use of analytics, it’s easy and efficient to leverage what is known about patients to tailor their healthcare engagement in highly personal ways. This type of “Know Me” intelligence enables providers to understand each patient’s preferences at every touchpoint, including their clinical interactions.

Such personalization begins with a central profile that provides a unified view of each patient, including which methods are most effective for different types of communication. Patients comfortable with text or email, for example, may respond to digital pain surveys. Built-in intelligence can alert providers if a patient responds at a level considered alarming or trigger a link for scheduling an immediate appointment. Technology used in these and other ways can help patients of even the busiest providers feel known and cared for.