Healthcare is a very different place today, not just because of the COVID-19 experience, but also because of patient expectations. Shaped by their interactions with retailers and marketing, patients expect personalized experiences and its presence – or absence – will determine what healthcare providers they select to provide care. Our colleagues at Modern Marketing Today published an interesting piece on how personalization shapes the patient journey by building relationships and trust. Read on to learn more.
Personalization is a familiar topic for patient-centric healthcare networks today; it is a concept that has been increasingly discussed regarding building patient relationships, fostering trust with patients, and improving the overall patient experience. Post-pandemic, personalization is taking on an even bigger role. Jill Grozalsky Roberson, Director, DX Product Marketing & Evangelism for Sitecore, specializes in helping healthcare network integrate personalization and offered some observations and insight into why personalization is so important for today’s consumers and how healthcare networks can implement personalization in their own practices.
“Foundationally, really the role of personalization is building relationships and building trust,” Grozalsky Roberson explained. Personalization demonstrates to consumers that a healthcare network understands and respects them fundamentally and cares enough to personalize the patient journey. In a world full of information, products, and constant marketing, patients feel a sense of respect and value when a healthcare network tailors appropriate information to their individual interests and doesn’t make them dig through their website, emails, or catalog to find what’s relevant to them. Grozalsky Roberson continued, “when healthcare network focus on building that relationship through personalization and personalized content, they increase the lifetime patient value for every patient with that healthcare network over time.” This lifetime patient value can come in the form of a onetime upsell, increased visits to a storefront or online retailer, and even more purchases over time.
A recent example of personalization done right comes from the UPMC, which decided to personalize the information being shared about COVID-19 on its website. The UPMC network includes hospitals in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York, as well as abroad in Ireland and Italy. Using feedback and insight on community members’ comfort and experience with COVID-19, the healthcare facility decided to tailor content on their website. Although the basic information presented was the same to each visitor, the way it was presented was different. Using a red, yellow, green classification scale for individuals, UPMC successfully personalized the experience based on a number of factors including risk and comfortability so that every person seeking information received it in a way that was most beneficial to them.
Demonstrating to consumers that a healthcare network understands their needs is done by putting all data points to work. If this information is collected and analyzed properly, it can show healthcare network incredible insight into their patients. Grozalsky Roberson recommends that healthcare network don’t wait for more substantial and involved data to begin adding personalization. She shared that “being able to start with personalization while you’re still figuring out some of that data strategy is definitely helpful because you don’t want to waste time.” For example, anonymous data, like how many pages someone has accessed in a session or their locations, can give you the backbone to start making the adjustments that show you know your patients. Grozalsky Roberson also emphasized the importance of investing in a strong CDP (customer data platform) to ensure that the data is not only collected but is also accessible across the organization. After all, data is meaningless if it is not available and utilized.
In today’s world, personalization is essential for healthcare networks to deliver moments that matter because it helps foster relationships and builds trust with patients. That feeling of being known, understood and recognized by a provider (similar to your local coffee shop knowing your order), helps differentiate healthcare network and is increasingly becoming a factor in the patient care process. The best news for healthcare network is that it’s easy to get started with anonymous data to understand your patients’ biggest concerns and needs, and then to progressively profile and deepen the personalization prowess.
To learn more about how to embrace personalization for improved patient experience, click here.
