Building Healthcare Experiences Patients Love
Ditch the outdated processes, embrace the future, and create experiences that will have patients saying, “Wow, that was easy.”
// By Elaine Christie //
Let’s face it: When it comes to healthcare, we’ve all been there. You are simply trying to schedule a wellness appointment, but you’re stuck on hold with a doctor’s office, or you show up at the doctor’s office and have to fill in a sea of repetitive paper forms with a tiny, 9-point font. Not exactly the seamless experience you’d expect.
The truth is, patients today want more. They want digital experiences that are fast, easy, and personalized. If your healthcare organization doesn’t keep up with the times, it’s time for a serious digital makeover.
In a recent webinar, “How to Build Your Healthcare Consumer Experience Roadmap for 2025 and Beyond,” industry experts from BJC HealthCare, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Praia Health shared strategies for making healthcare more like the other modern, on-demand services patients use every day. Spoiler alert: It’s about more than just fancy tech.
Here’s how to create a roadmap that boosts patient loyalty, reduces friction, and makes your organization feel more like the user-friendly apps patients actually like using.
Why Patients Want More (And Why You Need to Give It to Them)
Patients today expect healthcare to be easy — not an administrative nightmare. Between work, family, and a million other things, they don’t want to spend hours navigating confusing websites, waiting for a callback, or hunting down forms from last year’s visit.
They’re used to seamless digital experiences — think online banking, food delivery, and shopping at 2 a.m. (Hello, Amazon?). When it comes to their healthcare experience, they want something just as smooth. They don’t want to feel like they’re living in 1995 when they’re booking a doctor’s appointment.
Modern digital experiences don’t just keep patients happy — they also keep them loyal. If patients don’t feel like your system “gets” them, they’ll jump ship. And if you don’t keep up with what they want, you’re wasting money reacquiring patients between appointments. It’s as simple as that.
Three Pillars of Transformation
Jennifer Carron Passon, chief patient experience officer at BJC HealthCare
Jennifer Carron Passon, chief patient experience officer at BJC HealthCare, breaks down her organization’s strategic priorities into three core pillars: Empower, Transform, and Simplify.
- Empower: Empowerment starts with equipping both healthcare providers and patients with the tools and knowledge they need to make informed decisions. This includes enhancing patient education to support care journeys and training leaders to act confidently in real time.
- Transform: Transformation isn’t limited to flashy innovations like AI; it’s also about addressing critical touchpoints that impact patient trust and satisfaction. For example, Passon highlights the redesign of BJC’s patient financial journey — often the final touchpoint in care — as a small but significant improvement with a lasting impact.
- Simplify: Simplification is about streamlining access and reducing system complexity for patients and staff alike. “While it all sounds very small, they all make a huge impact,” Passon emphasizes, highlighting the importance of reducing friction in healthcare interactions.
Five Areas You Need to Focus On to Stay Relevant
Empower, transform, simplify — got it! But what next? Here are the exact steps you can take to be able to put these concepts into action. According to the panelists, the secret to offering an experience patients actually want is to tackle five key areas:
1. Strategy and Goals: Get Your Head In the Game
First you need a solid plan. Start by defining clear, measurable goals like improving patient retention or decreasing appointment no-shows.
Jared Johnson, chief marketing officer at Praia Health
Jared Johnson, chief marketing officer at Praia Health, emphasizes that “when we’re talking about consumer experience in particular, we’re focused on loyalty, retention, and cost savings.”
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Look at what other forward-thinking organizations do right. Learn from them, set your goals, and adjust your strategy based on patient expectations — which, let’s face it, are only going to keep rising.
2. Change Management: Get Everyone on Board (Without the Drama)
Change is hard, especially when your team has been doing things the same way for years. Whether it’s IT folks or the people answering the phones, you need everyone to be on the same page. You can’t just throw new tech into the mix and expect it to magically work.
The trick? Bring people along for the ride. Show them why the new system saves time and makes their job easier. Communication is key here. If you can make the case that a seamless digital experience improves not just patient satisfaction but staff workflows, too, you’re more than halfway there.
Brian Carlson, vice president of patient experience at Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Brian Carlson, vice president of patient experience at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, stresses the importance of ensuring that any new technology or system is designed not only to ease the patient’s journey but also to support healthcare professionals in their roles.
“The guiding point should be, does it make their jobs easier? And if it makes their jobs easier, then we’re going to win in the end, because that’s just one less task that they have to go through to ultimately impact the patient who’s on the receiving end,” Carlson explains.
He notes that many organizations are getting more sophisticated every day: “We at Vanderbilt have project managers and change management professionals who are involved in many of these projects. They’re helping to implement new solutions.”
3. Tech and Platforms: Upgrade from the 1990s
No one loves outdated technology. But in healthcare it’s pretty common. For patients, old systems, slow portals, and clunky apps are a major turnoff.
They expect digital tools that let them book appointments, access their records, and get reminders without needing to call or log into five different platforms. The goal is to choose integrated technologies that connect the dots and make life easier. Whether it’s a mobile app that lets patients check in ahead of time or an AI chatbot, these tools should make every step of the patient’s journey easier.
It’s not about throwing out what you have. Rather, it’s about looking ahead and selecting technology that can integrate with existing systems and scale with future consumer needs.
Choosing the right technology is the first step, but it must be tested with real patients. Passon emphasizes, “There are quite a few organizations or solutions that we’ve engaged, and they’ve tested them in controlled environments or tested them with their own employees, but that can create biases in how we expect the patient to interact with it.”
She adds, “One of the requirements is that it has to be tested with patients. We like to see the data by demographic and broken out by service or care type. Then we have user design sessions [that] include all of those in the digital ecosystem. If, for example, it’s hospital in-room technology, we would invite nursing and physicians, case managers and such, as well as patients and families.”
4. Team Structure: Collaboration Over Silos
Marketing might think it’s all about the patient experience, IT is focused on the tech, and clinicians just want to focus on care. But unless these teams work together, you’re never going to get the experience your patients want.
The solution is cross-functional teams. Get marketing, IT, and clinical staff in the same room, collaborating to design a system that works for everyone. Marketing helps craft the messaging, IT ensures the tech is up to par, and clinicians provide feedback on how the patient journey actually plays out. This holistic approach creates a seamless, unified experience for the patient.
5. Measurement: If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Improve It
You wouldn’t launch a marketing campaign without tracking its success. The same goes for your consumer experience roadmap. You need metrics to see what’s working, and more important, what isn’t.
Passon stresses the importance of tracking things like patient satisfaction, retention rates, and how often patients interact with your digital platforms. For example, if you’re seeing a dip in engagement, it’s time to tweak your approach.
She highlights consumer studies comparing a negative or positive experience. “The number-one top action is that they tell another person about it. There is definitely a correlation to the experience that patients have and follow up with care, or just a continuation of care, so there’s that patient retention aspect, and definitely looking at those as measurements in the ROI.”
It’s not just about collecting data — it’s about using that data to make real improvements. If your new tech doesn’t deliver results you wanted, don’t be afraid to pivot.
Justin Dearborn, founder and CEO of Praia Health
Justin Dearborn, Praia Health’s founder and CEO, notes that these improvements evolve every day. “We’re now seeing patient experience officers and chief digital officers — things that didn’t exist years ago. I think it’s headed in that direction, depending on where the health system is at in their journey. But it’s evolving quickly,” he says.
The Future of Healthcare Is Digital (and Personal)
A patient-first experience should feel as simple as booking a dinner reservation. If your organization wants to thrive in 2025 and beyond, you need a roadmap that focuses on strategy, collaboration, and meeting patients where they are.
Your digital makeover is about consumer-centric care, not just about adopting the latest app or tool. Your cohesive strategy must empower patients, streamline workflows, and create lasting loyalty. By focusing on the little details, you can evolve into an organization that patients trust and prefer.
Watch the complete webinar here.
Elaine Christie is a trained journalist, technology advocate, and frequent writer about digital transformation, internet marketing, and cybersecurity.