About 25 years ago, I received a call from my best friend. She called to say she was feeling a little off, with a swollen lymph node in her neck. For the next two years, I watched as a rare form of neck cancer became a terminal illness. 

I felt helpless as she navigated the complicated and broken US healthcare system, fighting for time on specialists’ calendars, waiting on hold to adjust appointments, carrying her medical records around in a purple milk crate from test to appointment to procedure, only to fill out five more forms with every visit.  

Of course, everyone who has ever navigated care has a story like this. Because, I later realized, healthcare access in America was broken.   

People deserve a simpler experience with healthcare

I’ve been on a mission to positively impact the system ever since. Though it’s been many years since I witnessed my late friend’s care journey in utter frustration, even the most basic parts of healthcare access – say, scheduling an appointment -- remain far more painful than they should, for patients and providers alike. And while the US investment in and transition towards electronic medical records has been important, we’re still frequently left with a digital version of the same problem.  

I think I understand intuitively why: scheduling is a colossal juggling act for providers, administrators, patients and families. But we all juggle the other things in life with a lot less friction. We can schedule with our clients and coworkers much easier than our doctors, and it goes without saying that we connect seamlessly with friends and family too. We can get our bank on the telephone whenever we want them, and it’s far easier to get a quick answer on that Uber Eats delivery that was incorrectly prepared than it is to get a miswritten insurance charge sorted out.

So why is every interaction with healthcare so jarringly slow and inefficient? 

The problems are complex, and rampant, and their effects cascade down through the entire consumer experience for patients, and back up the pipes as broken operational workflows for healthcare providers. Long story short, the current state is a legacy system mess, and it has come to a head amidst the pandemic. 

But, with a little effort, now could be the time to change the culture. To start, healthcare providers need to acknowledge that a more patient-centric and modern, digital-first approach is necessary. 

That is to say, patients should not be assumed to know every detail of the provider’s location, pre-visit policies, where they should park, and mask requirements.  Patients do not want yet another username, password or stand-alone app to engage. They want ease of use. Seamlessness. 

And providers should also recognize the importance of optimizing their capacity and calendar.  Staffing challenges, tight financial constraints and complex payment rules all mean one thing: we need more efficiency, we need to get more out of the schedule, and binders full of papers, covered in post-it notes is not going to be the answer. 

From complexity, ease

Our goal at Relatient, the creators of Dash (the leading SaaS-based patient engagement platform) is to optimize accessibility between provider and patient. 

Our end-to-end technology spans scheduling, outreach, messaging and intake to open the providers digital front door to patients while simultaneously creating intelligent, guided workflows for a provider’s access center.  No app for patients to download.  No username or password to remember.  No more binders and post-it notes.

We continue to learn from and embrace the challenges and changes brought on by the pandemic. As we all know, COVID-19 increased demand for appointments, albeit in new and different methods. The pandemic expedited several important trends this year in the healthcare industry. Perhaps most prominently, communication channels between patient and provider have started to become more like we interact everywhere else in our lives – moving from the one-way push to more bi-directional conversations. 

Historically, outreach has been a one-sided process in which the physician or clinic will issue text, email or voice communications with reminders or other information to the patient. But in the modern digital world of care, bi-directional chat is becoming a critical differentiator. 

And beyond the novelty of easy two-way communication channels in healthcare are all these wonderful benefits that the better communication to improve the provider and patient experiences can facilitate.

Imagine patient appointment reminders, via voice email or text, with automated reminder services for missed appointment rescheduling and recalls. Imagine instantly notifying scheduled patients and staff of delays, closures, and inclement weather. Imagine health campaigns to target gaps in care and reduce readmissions. Imagine patients self-scheduling an appointment, and then arriving to utilize mobile-first registration, check-in, check out and payment. 

Other industries have adopted tech to make experiences seamless. Why not healthcare?

In an era with so much information available (except from our doctors, unless we’re standing in the same room as them), it’s incredibly powerful to offer patients direct access to their healthcare team. And the benefits extend to providers too; better technology not only allows for more seamless communication and a pleasing digital front door experience, it also allows for clinical staff at the front desk and in the call center to focus their efforts elsewhere in the business.

Technology engineered to empower

As we look forward to the future in healthcare technology, we’re confident that the bi-directional chat communication model will evolve to become the prominent way providers and patients engage. Yet, we must continue to seek further improvement in workflows pre-visit, during and post-visit.  If I learned anything from my late friend all those years ago it’s this: for a great many, the conclusion of one patient engagement journey is just the beginning of the next one.

And so, I know from experience that we still have room to improve and advance both sides of the patient and provider experience. It will take a lot of effort to move norms in our healthcare system towards more seamless patient experiences, but better access and engagement capabilities are a noble (and crucial) place to start.