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45 PATIENT EXPERIENCE Consumers want their digital healthcare experience to be more like retail: 4 things to know By Julie Spitzer H ealthcare consumers want their digital experiences for routine healthcare transactions — like paying medical bills or filling prescriptions — to be similar to retail, according to results of a survey commissioned by NTT DATA Services. The research was based on online responses from nearly 1,102 U.S. healthcare consumers during September 2017. NTT DATA specifically sought to answer three questions: • How satisfied are consumers with the digital customer experience across healthcare companies? • Where could physicians' offices or healthcare insurers provide more seamless care? • How do consumers prefer to interact with healthcare organiza- tions? Here are four things to know. 1. Seventy-eight percent of the more tech-savvy consumers say the healthcare digital customer experience needs improvement, and 50 percent said they would leave their current physician for a better digi- tal customer experience. 2. More than half (69 percent) of respondents expect their health insur- er to make it easier to navigate affordable care and wellness options. 3. Consumers want fast and easy digital experiences, but mobile healthcare is perceived as lacking ease of use and features, with 62 percent of respondents citing it is not able to accomplish what they want it to do, 42 percent of respondents citing a lack of relevant op- tions and 40 percent of respondents citing mobile healthcare takes too long to complete. 4. Here are the six areas consumers respondents said improvement is most needed in. • Searching for a physician or specialist (81 percent) • Accessing a family member's health records (80 percent) • Changing or making an appointment (79 percent) • Accessing test results (76 percent) • Paying bills (75 percent) • Filling a prescription (74 percent) "While digital experience may have a moderate impact on overall healthcare decisions made today, it is changing at an increasing rate," said Alan Hughes, COO of NTT DATA. "Providers, insurers and phar- macies taking heed of the trend will be best suited to fulfill patient expectations." n Study: Most patients forget physician instructions By Megan Knowles O ver half — 51 percent — of patients fail to recall recommendations and treatments their physicians give unless prompted, due to a lack of patient participation during visits and ineffective written communications presented to the patient aerwards, according to a study published in PLOS One. e research team recorded meetings between physicians and patients and later asked them to recall these interactions, said researcher Michael Barton Laws, PhD. Although some patients could recall most of the visit once they were prompted, the majority of patients could only recall one to two thirds of the physician's recommendations from that visit. Forty-nine percent of physician instructions were recalled without prompting, 36 percent of patients required a prompt to remember the instructions and 15 percent could not recall the instructions or remembered them incorrectly. e study revealed two significant patient-phy- sician communication issues. e consultations were usually disorganized since physicians have a number of visits to complete and could only give about 15 minutes per patient. is time limit oen le visits rushed and scattered, Dr. Laws said. "e problem is it's very difficult to get doctors to change their behavior." To respond to these issues, the researchers sug- gested using an agenda and checklist of topics for the visit to ensure each item is discussed. Addi- tionally, the researchers said encouraging open questions throughout the consultation and finish- ing with a wrap-up between physician and patient could create a more organized and thorough dialogue. "People can't be said to have shared in the decisions about their medical treatment if they don't know and understand what happened in the visit," Dr. Laws said. Improving patient-physician communication is crucial to improving patient education, the co-au- thors said. "It's probably the most important thing that happens in medicine: doctors and patients talking with each other," Dr. Laws concluded. n