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Talkdesk(R), Inc., a global cloud contact center leader for customer-obsessed companies, in collaboration with the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), released a new research report, The Future of Patient Experience: Unifying Interactions in Healthcare. The report examines the causes and far-reaching consequences of disconnected patient experiences and sheds light on the barriers to technology consolidation.

Healthcare providers have made significant investments in recent years to better orient care around patients. Along with those efforts, many have adopted digital technologies, resulting in unintended negative consequences. While delivering greater access to channels and automation, the technology often takes the form of disparate point solutions, creating siloed data and fragmented patient interactions. In fact, 71% of survey respondents say their organizations have limited to no integration of patient engagement capabilities.

Fragmentation in patient interactions is a widespread problem for healthcare providers and can lead to critical information gaps, failure to effectively address patient issues, and even worsened patient outcomes. It can also cause friction for patients as well as patient services staff, and drive burnout and attrition for the latter. Survey respondents cite inconsistent (63%) and disjointed (58%) patient experiences among their most pressing challenges. As patients have more choices for their healthcare interactions and consumer expectations for great service become higher, it is essential provider organizations use technology that transform patient engagement capabilities.

"Consistently high-quality experiences before, between, and after clinical encounters are critical to the health and well-being of patients, but more progress is needed in the healthcare sector’s evolution to a journey that is truly patient-centric, transparent, and accessible," said Lorren Pettit, vice president, CHIME Digital Health Analytics. "Unifying the disparate components of patient interactions to deliver experiences that are straightforward and easy to navigate is a clear opportunity for bringing that vision to life."

In pursuit of this vision, more than half (55%) of those surveyed consider integration of their patient engagement capabilities a high priority for the coming year. A sizable number (84%), however, do not think this can easily be accomplished at their organization via any existing platform. They view de-centralized ownership of related capabilities and inflexibility of existing technology architecture as the most significant barriers such an approach would need to overcome.

"The internal barriers faced by healthcare leaders aren’t surprising given the high cost, time, and organizational will it takes to consolidate patient engagement point solutions," said Patty Hayward, vice president of healthcare and life sciences strategy, Talkdesk. "A cloud-based, integration-first platform that supports a range of channels and functional areas offers an alternative to custom integration projects and paves the way to more unified, seamless patient journeys."

Methodology

The report was based on a quantitative online survey conducted in collaboration with CHIME Digital Health Analytics, a global market intelligence and survey research hub. The survey was fielded in July 2022 to senior leaders in healthcare. Findings are based on 115 global interviews with executives from healthcare systems, hospitals, ambulatory facilities/physicians offices, and nursing facilities. Leaders primarily represented IT functions, but also patient experience, clinical experience, and operations.

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Posted by Veronica Silva Cusi, news correspondent
Source: https://www.businesswire.com