Derek Streat is founder, CEO and chairman of DexCare, a data-driven intelligence company focused on healthcare access.

Derek Streat 

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Consumers today are experts in online shopping. 

Whether you’re buying clothes, electronics, furniture, or nearly anything else, online stores allow you to sort items and apply filters to find the exact products you’re looking for, delivered exactly when you need them. The site may even recommend items it thinks you’ll like based on purchase history or other criteria. Once you find what you want, you can add it to your cart and check out with just a few clicks.

If online shopping can be this streamlined and simple, yet personalized to individual preferences, why can’t finding care be? By improving e-commerce capabilities in healthcare, it can.

The last time you tried to schedule a doctor’s appointment, what was your experience like?

Most likely, it wasn’t as simple as the last time you tried to buy a new shirt online. 

Maybe you had to visit multiple different sites before you found the correct one for scheduling, or you were directed to call the office and were inevitably placed on a long hold. You may have even found a provider you wanted to see, only to find out they didn’t have any appointments available.

This is the current state of appointment scheduling, and it’s incredibly frustrating. To simplify this process and optimize care access, health systems need to merchandise care – making care options, providers, and appointment times more easily discoverable, just like your favorite online retailer. 

Merchandising is the next frontier of healthcare, and health systems need to reach it in order to compete with growing threats in the industry.

Utilizing the same technology as online retailers, care discovery will be as easy as browsing your favorite store, and appointment scheduling will look like a digital storefront.

The patient can begin their journey by making a search on either a search engine or a website, including the health system’s digital front door. If searching on Google, for example, the e-commerce technology will route patients and drive traffic to the health system’s booking site. 

The platform then automatically filters search results based on the patient’s input of intent and need and displays real-time availability for the care options best suited to their needs. The interface also shows additional information such as the providers’ specialties – just like you’d be able to see the details of a product you’re considering buying. Providers that aren’t a good fit or are unavailable aren’t shown at all, so patients don’t waste their time pursuing options that aren’t relevant.

With all this information personalized for the individual, patients can feel confident that they’re finding the best possible care option for them. Once the patient has identified the best provider, location, and time, they can book the appointment in just a few clicks. The whole process is so intuitive that, ideally, the care finds the patient instead of the patient having to find the care.

Internal research found that 80% of patients who begin the process of booking an appointment drop off before they complete it – missing out on critical and potentially life-saving care. By simplifying the process, health systems can greatly reduce this alarming number and ensure that all patients get the care they need.

Why health system executives should embrace e-commerce

Merchandising healthcare may seem controversial. You might worry that taking an e-commerce approach will make the experience more impersonal and transactional, but this is not the case.

Merchandising can make care more accessible and custom-tailored by allowing patients to find exactly what they want and need. Healthcare is undergoing a massive transformation, and patients now expect to find and receive care with ease and convenience. Merchandising is the best path to delivering these experiences that will result in the highest patient satisfaction.

Health systems will also see immense benefit from merchandising. Turning care discovery into a storefront will enable systems to better capture, convert, and retain patients, which will drive greater revenue down the road. One health system that implemented improved e-commerce saw a 121% conversion lift, 39% increase in bookings, and 30% more net new patients while also significantly lowering the cost of delivering care.

Our current appointment scheduling platforms aren’t enough anymore. It’s time for health systems to get on board with the model of e-commerce that online retailers have seen so much success with.

Merchandising is nothing to be afraid of – it’s just about getting things to consumers more intelligently and effectively – and both health systems and patients stand to benefit from this.

Articles

Just as Americans are shopping online for the holidays, patients should be able to have the same convenience in finding the care that they need. 

Online shopping for healthcare? Why health systems should merchandise care | Derek Streat

Numerous foundational flaws of the U.S. healthcare system were exacerbated by the pandemic and brought to light among the public, including issues around health system staffing.

While workforce turnover and shortages have been a continuous challenge for over a decade, this issue has reached a point of crisis over the past year. The U.S. is currently on track to be short by one million healthcare workers by 2030 and, globally, the shortage is estimated to balloon to a staggering 

Derek Streat, founder, CEO and chairman of Dexcare

The current crisis has been compounded by several contributing factors and trends over the last few decades. At the forefront is today’s aging U.S. population and, with it, the increased need for long-term healthcare – a demographic trend projected to continue in the coming years.

The influx of older adults, many of whom have complex conditions, in combination with a drastically decreasing number of healthcare workers, has made it difficult for providers to manage demand and for patients to get the care they need.

In addition, the shift toward healthcare consumerization has changed patient expectations. Consumers are now seeking healthcare on their own terms and in new forms. While this trend has driven great innovation in telehealth, direct-to-consumer care, and other patient-centric ways of delivering care, it has also heightened patient expectations and demand of these options.

Patients now expect to be able to find care quickly, conveniently, and digitally, but this challenge is compounded by how many health systems are still working toward digital transformation, making it difficult to fulfill these demands for accessibility.

All of these factors have brought us to today’s dire situation in which patient load is rapidly outgrowing the shrinking healthcare workforce.

 of healthcare workers across all health systems are currently considering leaving their roles, and health systems have failed to invest in employee retention. 

While the list of actions that health system leaders should take to retain their workforce is vast, a strong place to start is implementing new technology.

By strategically utilizing data-driven tools, health systems can optimize operations, better balance staff and patient demand, and alleviate the historic burden being placed on staff.

Digital transformation of healthcare must gain speed

Leveraging data to ease the burden on patients and staff

Health systems today have no shortage of data between all the information contained in electronic health records (EHR) and encounter data when a patient interacts with a health system. The issue for the health systems is how to leverage data to gain actionable insights and make improvements for patients and providers.

Many health systems have adopted technology that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to assist with streamlining everyday tasks. But these tools can be further leveraged to improve upon load balancing, staff allocation, and resource optimization.

Health systems can employ predictive modeling that utilizes AI to intelligently match patients and providers. By applying ML algorithms that consider specific patient needs and provider capacity, the health system can create the optimal match for any type of care scenario.

Leveraging data science for predictive modeling enables the health system to get the most out of its people and resources by allowing physicians to practice at the top of their licenses. Not only does it help to alleviate the impacts of workforce challenges, but it also takes the guesswork out of a patient choosing a specific provider, ensuring that the patient receives the best possible care.

Many hospitals don't have a digital strategy

The benefits of leveraging data science have been exemplified by many U.S. health systems since the onset of the pandemic.

Providence was quick to adopt this technology in March of 2020, using data-driven insights to triage patients and strategically load balance between virtual and in-person care appointments. The technology enabled them to flex their workforce from in-person to virtual in mere minutes—because the system was aware of both patient demand and resource supply, it was able to orchestrate the two instantaneously.

This approach allowed physicians to focus on treating patients with severe Covid symptoms, while patients with less severe symptoms or other low-acuity conditions were advised to utilize telehealth and remote monitoring programs. By using these tools, the health system was able to scale their resources and adapt to increased demand at a time of high patient need.

Another success story is with leading health system Froedtert, which uses data-driven technology to intelligently triage musculoskeletal patients between physical therapy and surgery. 

Many patients with back pain are unsure what type of care is most appropriate—often seeing an orthopedic surgeon when less invasive therapies offered by physical therapists would suffice. By using data-driven technology to direct patients to their ideal care option, Froedtert has been able to strategically allocate staff, save time for patients and providers, and deliver more appropriate and cost-effective care.

Taking a data-driven approach can also effectively expand the provider workforce, which has been seen at Kaiser. 

This technology has enabled the health system to load balance across the country, pairing patients with providers virtually no matter their location or time zone. This approach not only eases the burden on staff in specific locations, but it also ensures that patients get the best care possible by expanding provider access.

Making progress in alleviating workforce challenges

Data-driven technology equips leaders with various metrics that can be monitored to measure health systems’ progress in alleviating workforce challenges.

Net promoter scores (NPS) are key in measuring overall satisfaction, in addition to other important indicators like resource utilization, patient throughput and costs. Though these metrics do not necessarily mean that the workforce shortage is being resolved, they can inform a health system about employing their staff and resources in the most effective way possible to help mitigate the effects of such shortages.

Health systems must be able to innovate and adapt swiftly in response to industry trends and challenges, like the current workforce crisis. Developments in data-driven and AI-enabled technology have already helped to alleviate some of the burden on health systems.

However, there is still much progress to be made in regard to fundamentally fixing the workforce problems that plague healthcare professionals and in ensuring that all patients are able to access and receive adequate care. 

With the workforce shortage in healthcare growing rapidly, taking a data-driven approach to staffing, operations, and resource allocation will be the key to offsetting the effects for health systems and helping to create a better experience for both patients and our over-burdened providers.

By strategically utilizing data-driven tools, health systems can optimize operations, better balance staff and patient demand, and alleviate the burdens on staff.



Derek Streat

Articles

Online shopping for healthcare? Why health systems should merchandise care | Derek Streat

How health systems can leverage data science to address workforce shortages | Derek Streat