by Allison VanLue
With our smartphones in hand, we are all instantaneous consumers of vast amounts of information related to products or services. However, medical consumerism lags behind other industries in terms of placing information in consumer’s hands. Being a consumer of medicine should not be any different than being a consumer of other industries in which we all want the same things: convenience, real-time information, and immediate action. This consumer-driven demand for information concept is associated with what many forward-thinking health systems call their digital front door strategy.
A ‘digital front door’ provides a simple and convenient entry point for patients. It simplifies care coordination by meeting patients where they are. It makes patients feel known and cared for by creating personalized engagement options. It also helps organizations attract new patients, retain current patients, and compete in the future of digital or virtual healthcare.
Unfortunately, a digital front door is not something simple to build. It is more than a patient portal. It encompasses many different digital health products and coordination across marketing, IT, operations, and other departments. Most organizations have disparate patient engagement efforts or teams: the outpatient electronic medical record (EMR) team owns the patient portal, the marketing team works on initiatives to attract and retain patients, and the IT department works on a website that makes it easy for patients to find the correct services. The first effort in creating a digital front door strategy is to combine each of these efforts, allowing you to create a cohesive vision for your digital front door. Consider creating a digital front door team that includes marketing, IT, clinicians, and most importantly patient consumers themselves. Patients, such as those with chronic diseases, who have numerous interactions with your health system each year will provide great insight on what they need to better manage their health and for you to keep them happy as a consumer.
Once your team is assembled, consider these factors when designing a digital front door strategy.
Enticing and memorable patient marketing: When you are feeling unwell, what is the first thing you do? Go online to check your symptoms. If patients remember that your organization offers a simple symptom checker or easy-to-find medical information, they will use you as a trusted source of information allowing you to attract and retain more patients.
An easy-to-use website or mobile app that guides patients to the correct treatment: Once patients are steered toward your website or have opened your mobile app, it needs to both be simple to use as well as guide them to the correct action. Symptom checkers should be able to suggest the right care path based on the severity of their symptoms, such as presenting to the ED, scheduling an outpatient appointment, connecting for an immediate video consult, or self-treatment, such as over the counter medications. Each path should allow the patient to take immediate action electronically.
Continuous engagement throughout the patient journey: After a patient interacts with your organization for treatment, you need to have tools and checkpoints in place to routinely follow-up with patients, keeping them engaged and healthy. For healthy patients, incentivize them by having them sync activity trackers and other home devices in order to achieve wellness milestones. For chronically ill patients, integrate with health coach applications to keep them taking medications, recording vitals, attending appointments, and assessing mental health.
While creating a digital front door strategy will not be easy, it is imperative that you start now. Patients are demanding digital convivence in medicine and if you do not provide it, some else will. Healthcare is changing rapidly, and to avoid losing patients and to reap the benefits of patient consumerism you need to stay ahead of the curve.
