iPhone-like UX In Hospital

Patients want to navigate care as easily as they buy books on Amazon. But is it possible in hyper-regulated and under-digitalized healthcare? Mayo Clinic shows how to deliver a 5-star user/patient experience.

I know, therefore I care

All clinics and hospitals have one thing in common: a mission statement with quotes like “the patient is at the center” or “the patient first.”

In fact, they often fail to follow their values: While healthcare professionals do everything to translate the promise of patient-centricity into practice, healthcare providers struggle to build workflows that ensure seamless patient pathways. Their hands are tied by fee-for-service systems, budgets, and the lack of a data exchange infrastructure.

Meanwhile, with a growing gap between the technologies individuals use daily and digitalization in healthcare, patients’ expectations are rapidly growing. Breakthrough technologies like ChatGPT and Apple’s upcoming augmented reality platform will further expose these contrasts.

Are patients who want to navigate healthcare like their iPhones—intuitively, with no cognitive burden or frustration—expecting too much?

“Patients want healthcare providers to meet them where they are,” according to Mark Schumacher, Director of Digital Experience at Mayo Clinic Center for Digital Health.

Shanda Blackmon, M.D., the Medical Director of User Experience at Mayo Clinic Center for Digital Health, adds that they expect healthcare institutions to know them, their preferences, and their problems. It’s a fundamental element of empathy.

“No matter how many patients a healthcare provider serves, patients don’t want to be just numbers. They want to be known by their names and their worries. Imagine you go to a restaurant, and a waitperson greets you with your name and asks if you wish to have that dish you enjoyed so much last week. Suddenly the experience is even better than in a 5-star restaurant where you are anonymous,” says Schumacher.

Patients differ, but they share similar values

Schumacher and Blackmon are responsible at Mayo Clinic for ensuring the best user—patients and healthcare professionals—experience in digital care. Mayo, known for its excellent quality of care, has recently been intensively developing a “digital front door” to make health services accessible and personalized while making the overall experience frustration-free.

Bradley C. Leibovich, M.D., the medical director of the Center for Digital Health at Mayo Clinic, admits that building digital services is challenging: they have to be integrated with health systems and aligned with the patient cohort’s expectations. Thus, UX in digital health starts before any application or IT system is designed and implemented. It’s rooted in core values and culture and based on staff capabilities and digital literacy.

“Focusing on the needs” requires considering both patients’ and healthcare professionals’ expectations. Even if they are inhomogeneous, individuals share a common sense of what they need: “Individuals expect seamlessly orchestrated online and on-site visits, check-ups, follow-ups,” says Blackmon. And this can’t be provided when the tools used by the doctors and nurses are user-unfriendly and time-consuming. The UX experience of healthcare professionals and patients is interconnected.

Make the border between human and digital care invisible

Improving the UX is nothing other than making healthcare intuitive.

“Initially, every digital experience needs to begin with research. You have to know what employees, patients, and customers want. Then, you need constant iterative feedback on the experience,” according to Schumacher. Constant feedback requires access to data and data analytics capabilities.

Although UX is often associated with tools like patient and employee surveys, there are many other ways to measure experience, brand perception, and usability.

The UX strategy should be grounded in KPIs—it should be measurable. And this means that besides patient satisfaction, the UX can also be measured by analyzing financial outcomes. They also might indicate that IT systems are not used as they should be.

“Our team has spent years acquiring a deep understanding of what our patients need after upper digestive interventions.“

When asked about the most-repeated signs of UX in digital care, Schumacher answers quickly: The attention to the details must be spread across the entire institution; otherwise, you don’t have buy-in that could be used. This “attention” to every aspect of care adds up to a coherent patient journey and eliminates “care islands.” Disconnected high-quality care fragments will never lead to patient satisfaction, no matter how perfect they are. Care is a process in which every moment matters to the patients.

First, when you have suitably connected technologies, you can use them like a toolbox for improving the user experience.

“As a surgeon, I understood what UX means. I collect different technologies to create a personalized experience for every individual,” remarks Blackmon. “When I have reliable tools and know how to use them to augment my capabilities, I can create empathetic care pathways within a seamless care ecosystem where human and digital elements complement each other.”

“For example, our team has spent years acquiring a deep understanding of what our patients need after upper digestive interventions. This knowledge enabled us to create the UDD App to measure the degree of severity of their symptoms and give them a dashboard back as a communication tool to use with their local providers to improve symptoms. We made a tool to give patients what they told us they needed. During the development of that tool, we tested different ways to present the data so the final product was easy to read and interpret for a variety of patients, regardless of their level of education. We even took into account that some patients might be colorblind. Making patient-centric tools to serve an identified need is what we do best at Mayo Clinic.”

Follow the data, not the tech

Experts from Mayo also advise making a detailed assessment of every IT system, platform, and application before implementing them. A mistake in the early stage of technology deployment can cost money, stress, and time.

“The digital experience starts with research, and research requires data.”

They also warn against deploying technologies just because they are novel and thus exciting at first sight. “Having the capabilities doesn’t mean that you need to introduce an innovation.”

Too much technology can be just as destructive as too little. “Understanding your values as an organization is the best compass that will lead you through decisions regarding navigating an ecosystem of rapidly changing technologies,” concludes Blackmon.

According to Schumacher, to improve the user experience in digital care, healthcare organizations should ensure that leadership is data-driven. UX in digital care is a synonym for digitalization governance.

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