Helping Consumers Find Care Everywhere

// By Jane Weber Brubaker //

At Northeast Georgia Health System and UPMC, improving access and making digital scheduling easier are top priorities.

What does it actually mean for health systems to embark on a digital transformation journey? Among the priorities are making it easier for consumers to find and access the care they need and making sure the organization’s digital front door is wide open and ready for business.

Sean Couch, executive director of communications and consumer strategy, Northeast Georgia Health System

Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS) serves a rapidly growing area of more than a million square miles, and access is an issue. Several years ago, says Sean Couch, executive director of communications and consumer strategy, “We knew we needed to get more active in the digital space. One of the first things we identified that we could use to make the patient journey smoother was how patients found physicians in our market and how they connect with them.”

UPMC, a large academic medical center with headquarters in Pittsburgh, serves the entire state of Pennsylvania. Articulating the challenge of being all things to all patients, Katie Scott, vice president of digital strategy and innovations, says, “What we do locally in the sub-specialty academic region may not be what we do broadly across the state; and how do we balance those two perspectives?”

Both organizations turned to Kyruus, a technology platform with solutions for provider search, scheduling, and data management. Scott Andrews, general manager of health systems at Kyruus, says the process of finding care can be broken down to four elements: engage, search, match, and book. “Each one of these elements is really critical to help with the patient journey, so that we can help you to attract, acquire, and ultimately convert consumers who are searching for care online,” he says.

Wrestling all the variables to the ground is not an easy task. Find out how these health system leaders forged ahead and helped their organizations adopt a consistent, data-driven approach to helping patients find care everywhere.

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