The leaders of patient care organizations across the nation are looking for paths forward when it comes to the patient experience. And that is a subject that is eliciting great excitement U.S. healthcare system-wide, even as there are absolutely no “one-size-fits-all” solutions to how to optimize the patient experience.
One leader who has thought long and hard about the opportunities and challenges involved is Alex Nason, director of innovation at the 270-bed Frederick Health, a freestanding, one-hospital health system based in Frederick, Maryland. Nason spoke recently with Healthcare Innovation Editor-in-Chief Mark Hagland regarding the current landscape and the path—or paths—forward. Below are excerpts from their recent interview.
How are you thinking about the patient experience, broadly and strategically, right now?
As an independent, freestanding health system surrounded by academic health systems around us in Maryland, the District of Columbia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, we are focusing on the patient experience, to remind our patients that we have great here in the community, and we’re working on innovative ways to do that, whether it’s through online scheduling, an active patient portal, or alerts through kiosks to cellphones; we’re trying to meet patients where they are. And we do actually have a consumerism committee, different from a patient access committee, as we move forward.
I know that an early step for you was around kiosk-based check-in, correct? In some areas, patients can come in and register at the kiosks and get updates on their smartphones, rather than spending a lot of time sitting in waiting rooms, correct?
Yes, that’s correct: when you come in for walk-in service, like in the lab, you’ll enter your first name, last name, and cellphone number, you’ll get updates on your phone. This came out of COVID, where people wanted social distancing and wanted to wait in their cars. And there are still a lot of people who want to avoid social spaces. We have this up and running in four, soon to be five, lab locations. They’re walk-in environments. It’s a more dynamic queueing system. Five lab locations with a walk-in experience. It’s not a full registration tool, you can’t pay your co-pay.
What would your moonshot be for mobility?
Innovation in healthcare, and marketing, often blend, and kind of cross paths all the time. Here at Frederick Health, my innovation team works very closely with our marketing team. When I think of the mobile experience, I’d love to have a purpose-built mobile application that would allow an individual to have not just a full web experience in the mobile environment, but also real interactivity in that mobile space. Everything from find-a-doc to scheduling; we’re Meditech here, we’d love to create a mobile experience on a device that could really replace the need to sit at a computer.
What are the biggest challenges in your work right now, and how are you and your team overcoming them?
The biggest challenge right now is budget. In particular, so much of the technology is shifting to the cloud, so these things are operating costs rather than capital costs, and operating costs are more challenging. So budget is a challenge.
What lessons are you and your colleagues learning around innovating in tough financial times?
I would say that there are two things: number one, don’t stop innovating. As we do get to the other side of these challenging times, those organizations that have focused on innovative was of doing things, will be in a better position to launch. And two, we’re only using a small portion of what’s possible with the technological solutions we already have. And so I think those are two things that I think that I would pass along as advice, to say, you’ve got to keep going. You have to get creative.
How do you see innovation in population health management and care management, going forward?
We’re starting to figure out how to best meet the patients where they are. How do we help support population health initiatives, whether it means making sure we’re getting mammography or colonoscopy screenings? How do we embrace the technologies in order to close the gap? And whether it’s text-message reminders or email reminders, or creating clinical campaigns for patients—it’s no longer enough to send a letter to a patient that they need to schedule their annual wellness visit. So we’re trying to use technology and innovation to close those gaps, in a responsible way. We do have those HIPAA requirements that impinge on what we can do; but those are great opportunities for us.
Is there anything that you’d like to add?
I think that healthcare is different. But patients are looking for that consumer experience. How we find that balance between their experiences with other industries, like banking and retail and interacting with their vet, and their experiences in healthcare—that’s something that we innovative people are trying to find a balance for. We have checks and balances in place that other industries don’t have. But we do have to continue to work to meet the patient where they are and create an experience similar to online shopping and other experiences.
