Healthcare feels like it’s in a perpetual state of a renaissance.
A decade ago, it seemed it was hardly spoken about at all. People either had it and never thought about it, or lived without it, and worried about it constantly. According to Gallup’s “Confidence in Institutions Study,” 80 percent of Americans trusted the medical system in the 1970s. By 2015, it had fallen to 37 percent.
In the era of COVID-19, people are more distrustful than ever, but we appear to have reached a tipping point. Pew Research Center’s most recent survey reveals that roughly 60 percent of Americans would “definitely” or “probably” be comfortable receiving a Covid-19 vaccine. A minor majority.
If nothing else, this moment shows the depths of the trust fall in healthcare as an institution. Think about it. We’re a year into the most pervasive, deadly pandemic yet and 40 percent of Americans are batting away the hand that aims to help them. A whopping 62 percent are uncomfortable being part of the first round of recipients.
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Is trust about science or storytelling?
There’s a lesson to be learned here, but it may not be the one that comes to mind. Alan D. Duncan, VP Analyst, Gartner says, “Data and analytics teams working on responses to the COVID-19 pandemic must communicate complex and often challenging analytical ideas to key stakeholders and to the public, who tend to respond emotionally rather than rationally.”
It’s a perspective I have found to be a universal truth across healthcare. A few years ago, in the shadow of healthcare’s last major shakeup, The Affordable Care Act, Lippincott set out to understand what made members emotionally engaged with their insurance.
First, for the skeptics, let’s start by saying there are huge benefits to emotionally engaging healthcare members. Not only are the +1.6x more likely to be satisfied with their service, but they’re also 1.4x more likely to renew each year, and more impressively, 1.3x more likely to adhere to health regiments, like, say, annual vaccines.
So, how can healthcare brands emotionally engage people in service they typically only think about when something is wrong? After surveying over 3,000 members across major payors, the diagnosis was clear. The biggest driver of emotional engagement? They valued payors who made healthcare easy to understand.
In fact, aside from affordable and quality coverage, all the major drivers of affinity were rooted in communications.
Source: Hitconsultant
