5 Healthcare Imperatives that Speak to the Need for Personalization

Patient expectations are changing fast in the healthcare world.

A recent report by EMC showed that technology has greatly influenced patient expectations over the past few years:

• 47 percent want more “personalized” experiences
• Over 50 percent want faster access to services
• On top of that, 45 percent expect 24/7 access and connectivity to services
• 42 percent want access on a wider range of devices than they currently have

Given the results of this survey and others like it, there are several healthcare imperatives that providers must understand when creating a more accessible and personalized patient experience:

1. Predict New Opportunities

Greater healthcare personalization involves identifying areas where patients need care the most.

Value-based care and patient-centered medical homecare are a few examples of areas where service providers can reach out to patients outside of the traditional healthcare setting. To better predict these opportunities, providers must get involved with data studies and leverage this information in pilot programs. These test programs provide valuable information about network efficiency and how customers respond to each care initiative.

2. Promote Transparency

Transparency of treatment options, outcomes, and medical data is essential for personalization. The best patient outcomes stem from collaborations between patient and provider; transparency helps establish trust and lets patients take an active role in their care. The easiest way to personalize healthcare is to involve patients in the decision-making process.

3. Support Innovation

Healthcare providers must support innovation any way they can. This involves contributing to clinical research studies, integrating new technologies to support productivity, and leveraging the omnipresent access of the Internet to provide each patient better control over their data. As digital healthcare strategies become more tech-centric, providers must build internal cultures that promote innovation and growth.

4. Connect with Your Customers

Dave Diamond, the CTO of EMC, spoke on the value of patient interaction for greater personalization:

“The key theme is to know your customer,” said Diamond. “Go to your customer, the patient and engage them. Go with consumer-direct products like every other industry has. In the post-meaningful use world — providers are digitized like other industries.”

Providers must prioritize one-on-one interactions with patients to learn what values drive their behavior.

5. Provide Continual Access

The above EMC report highlighted the importance of real-time access of health services. Patients these days want to be able to connect to the services they want, through whatever devices they have on hand. Providers must understand this and use innovative channels and applications to create this access. Telemedicine, mobile health, and online web portals can all contribute to an infrastructure of patient connectivity.

Written by Desh Urs

Desh Urs brings more than 20 years of entrepreneurial, start-up and Global 500 corporate experience in sales, marketing, and general management to the customers of iBridge. He has led sales organizations as SVP at Qsent, Inc. and VP at Acxiom Corporation, and has focused on the usage of data in data distribution, direct marketing, fraud prevention, and law enforcement.

As a Vice President of Global Sales, Services, and Marketing at Silicon Graphics, Inc., Urs managed engineering and non-engineering functions, developing solutions in sciences, telecommunications, manufacturing, media, business, and defense intelligence, for companies with revenues of several billion dollars. During his tenure as Vice President at Think Tools AG and Brio Technology, Inc., he ran business development and alliances providing solutions in Business Intelligence and Decisions Cycle Management to Global 100 corporations worldwide. In the late 1980s, Urs founded Indus Systems, Inc., which he profitably sold to a systems integration company.

Urs serves on several Advisory Boards, as well as many company Boards, in the United States and India.