I recently read an article in Becker’s Hospital Review that purported to identify the top ten geriatric hospitals based on a report from U.S. News & World Report. Despite having our fair share of geriatric patients here in South Florida, somehow we didn’t make the list. That got me thinking.
For generations, healthcare operated under a relatively simple premise: When people needed care, they went to the doctor or hospital they trusted, and the experience largely revolved around the quality of the clinical care they received.
That is changing, as many forecasters predicted.
Today’s healthcare consumers have expectations shaped by Amazon, Uber, banking apps, online shopping and virtually every other service they use. They expect convenience, transparency, responsiveness, and easy access. Increasingly, they expect those same things from healthcare. And, quite honestly, I think some consumers now expect the Ritz-Carlton experience.
Clinical quality will always form the foundation of healthcare. But it no longer defines the entire experience.
Patients want to schedule an appointment without making three phone calls. They want to communicate with their physicians electronically. They want to know what a procedure will cost, or at least have a reasonable understanding of their financial responsibility. They want timely test results, understandable bills, and someone who will answer their questions.
More importantly, patients don’t necessarily distinguish between the clinical and administrative sides of healthcare. To them, it is all one experience.
That creates both a challenge and an opportunity for hospitals and health systems.
Healthcare remains an extraordinarily complex business. Hospitals operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, caring for patients with conditions ranging from routine to life-threatening. They navigate complex regulations, insurance requirements, staffing challenges, and financial pressures that most industries never encounter.
But complexity cannot become an excuse for inconvenience.
Hospitals have an opportunity to rethink the patient experience from the consumer’s perspective. Can technology make scheduling easier? Can artificial intelligence reduce administrative burdens? Can hospitals simplify registration and billing? Can we communicate with patients in the manner and timeframe they have come to expect from other businesses?
Perhaps most importantly, hospitals need to ask a simple question more often: If I were the patient, would this experience make sense to me?
Healthcare is not retail, and patients are not simply customers. The stakes are far too high for that comparison to be perfect.
But the expectation of a better experience is not going away.
Hospitals that recognize this reality will not abandon their clinical mission. They will strengthen it by making the journey to, through, and beyond care easier, more understandable and more human.
Healthcare may never become a traditional consumer business.
But the healthcare consumer has already arrived.
