Phygital Healthcare Experience? Which hospitals can learn from retail CX standards

The retail industry continues to work on perfecting the “Phygital” customer experience: a hybrid of physical and digital interactions that feel fast, smart and customized. Now, as patient expectations continue to move towards consumer health and value-based care reshaping incentives, it’s time for healthcare to get pages from retailer best practice scripts.

The good news is that today’s technology makes it more possible to transform vision into reality than ever before. In this article, we will use innovative examples from the retail industry’s fibrous journey to show how healthcare can follow in its footsteps.

Customer Experience ((CX) Expectations are pushing the shift to Phygital

Phygital has changed the definition of retailing and provides an excellent customer experience. Today, stores like the Sam Club use “scan and go” to remove bottlenecks for self-checking. Resume allows customers to unlock product cabinets through quick app scanning, so they don’t have to wait for employees. Indochino employees can instantly access customers’ online measurements to personalize the in-store tailoring experience.

Of course, these innovations did not appear overnight. But they are rapidly shaping customer expectations across the industry. One of the reasons shoppers love them so much? They are designed to alleviate many of the biggest pain points associated with brick-and-mortar retail.

Hospital leaders can adopt a similar clinical empirical approach. Despite the substantial investments in digital investment over the past decade or so, the reality is that many patient interactions are still frustratingly simulated – and therefore often feel clumsy. Just as a slow checkout process can cause shoppers to abandon their carts, a high friction clinical environment can cause patients to delay their feet when booking their next appointment – if they even book (or choose another doctor for the next appointment).

As healthcare’s value becomes increasingly central, leaders must focus on inspiring confidence from the start of each patient relationship. In the next section: Plants are able to enable this.

Phygital Hospital Experience Commitment: Happier Patients and Better Results

Nearly 70% of healthcare leaders have believed that investing in digital front doors can bring huge benefits. By bringing digital technology to the physical clinic, hospital leaders can create an in-person experience that reflects the many conveniences patients enjoy in retail.

For example, imagine the experience of a hospital…

• Smart parking and roadfinding integration eliminates speculation. Your patient portal may offer a Spothero-style menu to simplify parking before each appointment. From there, interactive hospital maps can help patients navigate to their doctor’s office (just like they would find a box of screw boxes using Home Depot’s mobile product locator).
• Digital entries simplify arrival. Patients can fill in ingestion forms, log symptoms or problems in the app for physicians to view and provide their insurance information during appointments. While not exactly the same, the Crumbl Cookie app's diary feature allows customers to record flavour profiles they liked in the past, and can also make better decisions on the next purchase of cookies. Prior to an office visit, a similar opportunity is provided to the doctor’s ability to take notes and questions, giving patients more control over their health journey.
• Waiting for time visibility to stop frustration. The digital wait time estimator can set expectations before each visit. Everlane is a related example in the retail space, one of the first retailers to offer brick-and-mortar shoppers a line-up to install rooms through their smartphones, helping them save time during retail visits.
• Transportation after access improves security and optimizes convenience. Certain types of appointments (e.g., vision care) may trigger ride-sharing advice on the patient’s portal for patients who are unable to drive or perform public transportation after surgery.
• Empathetic promotion and follow-up actions. Your application can gently prompt patients to book an annual actual or rescheduled visit. It may even pair each nudge with useful educational content related to chronic diseases. This is similar to many food and beverage brands that acknowledge abandoned orders and remind customers not to give up on their snacks.
• Nursing staff will automatically stay in the loop. Designated caregivers can receive a summary after digital access, as well as program reminders, making it easier to coordinate support. In retail space, Instacart’s family cart is a huge inspiration for bringing the right stakeholders together to decide.

By careful execution, these experiences may have a positive impact on patient satisfaction. The happier each patient is, the more likely they are to follow their care plan. Long-term effects: As time goes by, the results are better.

Phygital relies on strong technical foundation and new ways of working

Most importantly, the key to doing botany work in healthcare is a strong technical foundation. After all, every innovation outlined here requires patient data. In many cases, patients are happy to share what they need to improve their overall experience. But they also want to believe that their data is being processed with caution and are used to effectively improving their experience.

This is why investing in excellent data governance, interoperable software and modern application development practices in hospital leaders is very important. These elements are necessary for super-appearance and super-appearance.

As hospital leaders upgrade their capabilities in these areas, they will notice many downstream benefits. For example, with better data governance, patient data will become more traceable – simplifying compliance audits in the process. It is easier to get to know the patient and the nursing team to improve the continuity of care.

In the process, remember that true digital transformation is not just about changing what tools a team uses, but how the team works.

To maximize success, the team must ensure that every step of the journey can be brought together so that efficiency can be leveraged rather than wasting critical performance metrics. This way, they can better measure and achieve ROI.

Turn possible reality into reality

Retail shows what is possible when people-centered technology is used to improve in-person experiences. Now it’s health care turn.

By learning from the Phygital journey of retail, hospital leaders can transform patients’ experiences and provide a more modern vision of compassionate care. With today's technology, this work is more likely and practical than ever.

Photos: Prasit Photos, Getty Images

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