Putting the human in digital healthcare

According to a survey by Cedar, 49% of patients want their digital healthcare experience to replicate that of Netflix, Amazon, or Uber, with smoother integration and personalization. While other industries provide personalized and engaging technology, healthcare has often lagged in advancements and a more individualized experience. Taking a cue from banking, transit, and e-commerce systems that prioritize the consumer with holistic platforms that deliver a seamless and positive experience, today’s digital healthcare experience has come a long way. New advancements, greater connectivity, and personalized enhancements have transformed the patient experience to become more integrated and prescriptive than ever before.

An inclusive infrastructure
Early digital ecosystems in healthcare often operated in a silo, forcing patients to manage multiple applications and web portals to receive updates about their health. To help mitigate that complexity, new digital platforms are embracing inclusive infrastructures with open APIs. This advanced connectivity allows for greater data sharing across platforms with a more inclusive infrastructure that analyzes data and provides a single view of the patient, leading to a more positive digital experience.

Personalizing the experience
Driven by AI technology, today’s digital healthcare infrastructures unlock the power of data and enable “deep personalization.” For example, Amazon fosters engagement by tracking past orders and predicting what its users will want to order next. Spotify can recommend songs to listen to based on previously listened to playlists. New healthcare technology platforms can also gather information about the user to uniquely tailor the UX and UI and help to inform other aspects of the technology. This approach is transforming the digital patient experience to improve the quality and connectivity to patients’ lives.

Healthcare organizations are improving their personalization methods by unlocking user data from wearables, EHR, claims, and patients’ health goals in combination to inform their presented unique user experiences. Utilizing bits of data from various areas of patients’ lives that are already being collected support a more humanized experience through implementation rather than adding more steps to the process.

Technology is meant to act as an enabler, and although healthcare is behind, the industry is slowly implementing personalized strategies that improve engagement. Even simple items like recognition of time zones, or trends in medication use on weekends allow Medisafe to further personalize the experience for its users. This data collection is helping to share insights to create a robust user persona and guide in-person healthcare experience through connectivity to EHR systems.

Building around consumer expectations
When Netflix evolved its model from a DVD mailing business to a direct-to-consumer streaming platform, it completely revolutionized the industry and was a masterful strategy in engaging its customers through multiple touchpoints – smartphones, smart TVs, and tablets. Similarly, platforms like Amazon set the bar for the consumer experience extremely high. Now, consumers expect that same level of personalized, high-quality experience in every digital interaction across industries. And new pioneers in the consumer tech world are implementing proven blueprints for engaging patients and meeting – or exceeding – their expectations.

Healthcare technology is taking a page from Netflix and earning its place on the home screen of patients’ smartphones. But this is not easily won. The best digital health platforms require consistent engagement among providers, payers, pharma, and patients. This requires a consistent level of engagement instead of episodic. This level of personalization and frequency has shown to support more persistence and adherence by patients in their own health, with an “on demand” approach instead of a ‘fee for service’ model.

Through personalization, minding the patient experience and advanced technology architecture, developers in healthcare technology are transforming the industry with engaging, proven digital experiences that consumers have come to expect. By bringing the “Netflix experience” to healthcare and modernizing our ecosystem, digital health can make the patient experience simpler and more approachable. Humanizing touchpoints where patients once would have had an in-person encounter l assist in normalizing digital interactions. In turn, that approachability leads to increased engagement that can contribute to more positive patient outcomes.