Discover how modernization and digitalization can help healthcare organizations optimize CX.
In light of prolonged staffing challenges and shifting patient expectations, healthcare organizations must improve the patient or customer experience (CX). One approach is to leverage automated communications solutions, which can help brands upgrade legacy processes and better utilize patient data.
While the primary objective of any healthcare organization is to ensure the best care outcomes, an often overlooked responsibility is providing successful end-to-end patient experience across channels and programs. The necessity of a great customer experience cannot be understated – especially in healthcare. Since the pandemic, consumers have become increasingly digitally savvy and have grown accustomed to highly personalized experiences from big-name companies like Amazon and United Airlines.
Nevertheless, several barriers prevent healthcare entities from improving CX. Namely, outdated manual processes, antiquated communication technology, data inefficiencies and security and compliance concerns. Moreover, staffing shortages continue to beset healthcare businesses, affecting patient experience and the timeliness of care.
Healthcare providers need a comprehensive and robust communication solution to help address patient needs, such as setting up pill reminders, automating prescription refills and delivering medications.
Many steps of the patient care process, like appointment requests and reminders, patient forms, follow-up communications, prescription refill notifications, etc., are manually managed. It is significantly challenging to consistently complete these repetitive tasks at scale, resulting in higher operating expenses, poor data compilation and increased risk of human errors. Additionally, healthcare practices continue to use antiquated communication technologies, which can cause delays and poor patient satisfaction scores. However, by automating communications, these interactions will boost efficiency and enhance CX.
“Industry-leading communications platforms have powerful tools that can intelligently automate patient interactions, including chatbots, AI and natural language processing. From automating prescriptions requests to bill payment notifications, these features help healthcare organizations deliver a seamless experience for patients through the channel of their choice, be that SMS or voice,” commented Paul Von Autenried, Board Member and CEO Advisor to technology companies like IntelePeer.
And, when it comes to supporting end-to-end CX, it’s paramount that pharma brands also automate post-appointment interactions, like patient surveys. AI, for example, can collect information and even detect sentiment in the patient’s voice to help companies refine CX.
Communications Automation solutions can likewise enable self-service options (such as chatbots and virtual assistants), allowing patients to resolve their own prescription requests rapidly, conveniently and at any hour of the day. These automation-powered self-service features remove much of the tedious and time-consuming work from under-staffed office administrators, empowering them to focus their time and efforts on projects that improve CX.
See More: Why Connecting Your Customers With Your Product Is the Most Critical Aspect of CX
Perhaps the most outdated process preventing providers from enhancing CX is appointment management. Missed appointments cost the US healthcare industry roughly $150 billion annually. Not only do appointment-no shows hurt businesses, but it also frustrates the patient as they may not have been fully aware of their upcoming engagement. To deliver a best-in-class patient experience, organizations can leverage communication automation platforms to send automated voice and text reminders, including options to cancel or reschedule appointments. If the patient doesn’t respond, a pre-set workflow trigger will automate a follow-up for an alternative time and day.
One of the nation’s largest physician-owned outpatient radiology and imaging practice improved CX enormously by automating its appointment management. Before implementing a communications automation platform solution, the radiology and imaging practice would manually look up patients in its database and send appointment-related communications, which was highly inefficient and expensive. By automating these monotonous processes, the practice decreased costs, saved patient lives and enriched CX through its streamlined scheduling and rescheduling.
Healthcare entities receive massive patient data from various sources, such as medical records, transcripts or clinical notes. However, many cannot integrate this data, preventing them from realizing its true potential. As a result, the patient journey remains siloed; information cannot move freely from one workflow to another, creating a disjointed and inconsistent CX. Plus, with limited data, these organizations will struggle to personalize CX for individual patients. In particular, they will be unable to send tailored messages to the patient’s preferred channel.
Nevertheless, communication automation platforms can integrate easily with existing infrastructure, like a CRM, database or billing system, to unify data capture across different patient touchpoints. Similarly, AI tools can compile and extract insights much faster and more accurately than any manual procedure. Equipped with this all-important data, healthcare companies can configure end-to-end personalized workflows over SMS, voice, chat and email.
An ideal example of workflow increasing patient engagement is a hotline for medication information, which can connect the generic welcome message with flows specific to each medication. After a patient goes through the same menu as every other caller, they arrive at a flow specifically built for their unique needs, enhancing CX immensely.
Superb CX is not only fast, individualized and accessible, but it is also secure. Considering that from 2019 to 2020, HIPAA found 39.82 million compromised healthcare records due to email phishing attacks, healthcare providers must prioritize the safety of their patient’s sensitive information. Continuously apologizing for data breaches will damage the brand’s reputation and erode the patient experience.
Healthcare organizations must have security measures to protect against various cyberattacks while communicating. Such practices include two-factor authentication, encryption and access control. Moreover, automated communication solutions should comply with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) and STIR/SHAKEN (Secure Telephony Identity Revisited/ Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information using toKENs). Similarly, establish a reputation management solution to ensure critical medical-related communications and prescription reminders reach patients without getting labeled as spam or phone fraud. The benefits of a robust security posture are twofold: first, it minimizes harmful data breaches, and second, it improves CX by demonstrating to the patient that the organization has its best interests in mind.
Key Considerations When Selecting a Communications Automation Platform
When selecting an optimal communications automation platform, choose one that is simple to operate. Recall that the healthcare industry is experiencing labor shortages, particularly among nurses.
Additionally, a considerable lack of software developers plagues every industry; one report notes that by 2030, vacancies will rise by almost 22%. In light of these difficulties, it is pivotal that healthcare providers leverage a communications platform equipped with no-code and low-code applications. These easy-to-use tools allow anyone – regardless of technical proficiency – to rapidly build communication workflows that take CX to the next level.
Which other tools can be used to bolster CX? Share with us on Facebook, X, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
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Chief Marketing Officer, IntelePeer