Patients increasingly expect their healthcare providers to offer apps and other digital health tools to assist with a multitude of tasks, including making appointments, checking their personal health data, messaging care teams and accessing virtual care. While many hospitals and health systems have rolled out digital health offerings, a new research report from the Center for Connected Medicine (CCM) finds that these tools may not be keeping pace with patient expectations.
Report Background & Methodology
CCM partnered with HIMSS Media to conduct a survey of 136 professionals at U.S. hospitals and health systems in September 2019. The goal of the research was to better understand how health provider organizations are approaching the adoption of patient-facing digital health tools.
The report, “The Future of the Digital Patient Experience” points to challenges, including costs, data integration obstacles, and operational roadblocks. This is to say achieving success involves much more than rolling out great technology. Health systems need to not only prioritize these tools, but provide the investment, resources, vision, and timeline to get them up and running, maintain them, and integrate them into the overall environment.
5 Key Findings
1. Digital Health Tools are a Priority
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The report reveals that fewer than 1 in 3 respondents believe their organization is providing a best-in-class digital experience for patients. The result suggests traditional health care providers could lose ground to more tech-savvy competitors.
2. Consumer Experience is Lacking
While a majority of respondents said their organization has at least one digital tool available to patients, fewer than one-in-three believe their tools offer the best possible consumer digital experience.
3. Digital Health Tools are Currently Focused on “Basic Tasks”
Digital tools in use today help patients manage relatively simple tasks, such as accessing their health records, making an appointment, paying bills, and searching for a doctor. While tasks such as digital appointment scheduling may face layers of complexity, health systems are working to master the basics. But respondents said their organizations are planning to invest in tools to address important differentiators such as patient check-in and arrival management and monitoring and managing chronic conditions
4. Improving Access, Care Satisfaction Driving Use
Respondents said the biggest drivers for implementing patient-facing digital tools are to improve access to care, help patients monitor and manage their health, and deliver higher patient satisfaction.
5. Cost Cited As Top Implementation Challenge
Respondents cited a number of challenges to adopting digital tools with the cost to build, buy and maintain tools, difficulty integrating tools with existing systems such as EHRs, and operational roadblocks topping the list
Why It Matters
“Patients now assume they’ll have the same digital experience in health care that they get everywhere else in their lives, and they’re dissatisfied when we don’t deliver,” said Katie Scott, vice president of digital strategy and innovation, UPMC Enterprises. “Increasingly, if hospitals and health systems can’t provide a feature-rich and seamless digital experience for their patients, those individuals are going to look elsewhere for care.”
Source: HIT Consultant
