Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1186182
41 PRACTICE MANAGEMENT THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Healthcare leaders: We'll all benefit if we reconcile the terms 'patient' and 'consumer' By Rick Evans, Chief Experience Officer, NewYork-Presbyterian I n recent years, I've found myself involved in conversa- tions at my health system and with my chief experience officer colleagues around the country about the nomen- clature for the people we serve. For years we've used the term "patients." More recently, we broadened the concept to include "patients and families." Now there is debate over adding the term "consumer" to our lexicon, and whether it cheapens or undermines the sacred relationship we have with patients. The word "patient" comes from a Latin root, meaning "one who suffers." This acknowledges the vulnerability of every- one who needs healthcare. It recognizes the imperative to see our patients as people with needs, fears and concerns. It validates the physical and emotional suffering that often comes with illness, or even going through a routine test or exam. Most importantly, it underscores the imperative for empathy in healthcare. These are all important, espe- cially as healthcare becomes more technology driven. Healthcare should always be focused on people taking care of people. While these concepts should be enduring and founda- tional, other emerging dynamics should challenge us to expand our thinking. First, society is changing. We live in an age where convenience is prized, and nearly everything we buy or interact with is rated with stars and reviews. Our world has become heavily digital. These trends have trans- formed industry after industry, and they've now arrived at the doorstep of our hospitals and clinics. The days of only going where our doctor recommends are waning. Choice is becoming more a part of healthcare. Ever increasing copays and deductibles are moving pa- tients to place greater demands and expectations on our system — and these demands are often connected to con- venience, accessibility and service. Patients are comparing their experience with us to those they have in other parts of their lives with sectors like retail and banking. Other sec- tors are also coming into the healthcare space, with com- panies like CVS and Amazon becoming competitors. Even the government has started to use star ratings and other mechanisms to respond to patient demands for increased transparency and choice. I believe we ignore or short-change these changes at our peril. And, even worse, we risk losing the trust of our pa- tients if we don't respond. So, rather than railing against the emergence of consumerism in healthcare, we need to embrace it. I believe we should be able to hold both con- cepts — of the people we serve being both patients and consumers — at the same time. Acknowledging that patients are also consumers recogniz- es that they often have choice. It highlights that we need to do much better at reducing the "administrative suffer- ing" we inflict on patients — long waits for appointments, paperwork and disjointed communication, to name a few. It reinforces that we need to constantly work to make ourselves more accessible in a digital world. Rather than cheapening the notion of what it means to be a patient, the term "consumer" recognizes that patients are increasing- ly customers who make choices. When you look at it this way, the term actually reinforces the dignity and needs of those we serve. At my health system, recognizing this dynamic duality of patients as consumers at different moments of their journey is driving us to be better, to evolve and to inno- vate. It's propelled us to become a national leader in providing virtual visits in numerous settings. It's making us rethink the entire patient journey and reimagine what healthcare should be. Seeing patients as consumers does not cheapen our work. In fact, it makes it even more exciting. I don't lie awake any- more debating these terms. Instead I'm thinking with my colleagues everyday about how we can better respond to our patients' deepest needs, including supporting and re- specting the choices they have in the process. n Q: What is one of the biggest mistakes that you think play- ers in the healthcare industry — whether on the clinical side or among those who are moving from the tech industry into healthcare — are making a lot in healthcare innovation? MS: Trying to do too much. Many of the vendors that have not quite made it to fruition have tried to take on too much too soon. e ones who have done it extremely well have stayed very focused on solving just two to three problems. ey don't try to become the end-all, be-all product that's going to solve everything for healthcare or that's going to compete with some of the big EHR vendors. ose who have done well aren't competing with the big vendors' functionality, but they've found a way to complement the existing system. Q: Do you have a final piece of advice for other healthcare innovators? MS: You can get caught up in all the dazzle that's out there right now with innovation and technology, but you have to stay close to the problems that you're trying to solve in your institution — they're different for every institution — and make sure that the innovation you're trying to lead has a solid ROI to it. Sometimes you can get caught up with going to conferences and seeing these new things that give you that "wow" factor and thinking you have to have them, but they may actually impede some of the other things you should be doing that would solve those core problems for your organization. is is an exciting time in healthcare. Most organizations are already tak- ing advantage of it, but we've all got to wake up and take notice of it. If you look at other organizations who had never traditionally been in health- care that are now in our space, they are disrupting it daily, and if we don't wake up and do something, we'll find ourselves in the same situation as Blockbuster and other companies that weren't paying attention to transfor- mation in their industries. A year ago, nobody could've guessed Walmart would get into healthcare, but they're here. Healthcare organizations either need to disrupt themselves, or be disrupted by somebody else. n