The healthcare industry, like any other, is undergoing customer-centric digital transformation. Healthcare providers are not only in need of optimized efficiency and increased revenue but are also under heavy pressure to make sure customers (Read: Patients) are getting a better experience and improved patient engagement.
Patients today are growing increasingly aware and expect superior services from providers. Patient loyalty can be very fleeting when it comes to sticking to one provider – one unpleasant experience can make them shift to a new provider. Hence, healthcare providers cannot ignore patient experiences and focus only on their operational efficiencies.
Building a Patient-Centric Business Model
An online data platform that focuses on the following 3Ds can get a healthcare organization started on its journey of building a patient-centric business.
1. Digital Transformation, without Data Transformation, is like buying a McDonald’s Burger with a beautiful McDonald’s-printed cover and what you see inside makes you squirm. Data Transformation, without Decisions (Read: Actionable Intelligence) is like a speed boat without a rudder. Let us all remember that “Life of Pi” and “Cast Away” are just movies 😊. In reality, getting lost is equivalent to losing identity. Providers cannot afford to be in that state.
2. Data Transformation is so important in the healthcare providers’ world because – without well-organized, good-quality data, care delivery suffers. Data Transformation facilitates efficient data analysis and seamless data flow across systems like EHR/EMR to drive intelligent and informed decision-making. Providers cannot play around with patients’ lives and experiences. One wrong move can not only enrage patients but also enrage the regulators. And for this reason, data transformation becomes vital to build a patient-centric healthcare model.
3. Decision Transformation is another vital part of the patient-centric transformation journey, enabled through self-service analytics – empowering the non-technical user to analyze data without the help of an IT expert – to share insights, ask and answer questions, and delve deeper into data. But for this, the data must be democratized. Data democratization is important because data in silos is not good. Seamless access to data in a collaborative way leads to better business decisions.
To achieve such patient-centricity, providers must adopt ‘Patient 360’ – a comprehensive single view of the patient based on data to preempt what the patients want and yet be able to manage their operational costs to be profitable.
Let us understand why “Patient 360” is important with an example.
1. The Scene
John realizes that he is closer to his next checkup date and wants to fix an appointment with his healthcare provider for his usual physician visit. His past experiences have not been very seamless, and he has been contemplating shifting allegiances to another provider where his friend is serving as a physician. In two minds, he does end up calling his provider for an appointment, and “Voila”, he was in for a surprise!
- As soon as he called, he was addressed by his name by the personnel. (Personalized Experience)
- They asked him if he is calling for his next appointment and also thanked him for his straight feedback last time, which has helped them make some significant changes in their operations. (Opinion Mining)
- They also mentioned that John’s regular physician is available later in the week, but if he wants to advance his appointment, there is another equally good physician. (Appointment Booking)
- They requested him to check his WhatsApp for more details about the physician’s area of expertise, recent accreditations he has had, and more. (Patient Recommendations)
- Unassumingly, they also offered John that they can put him in touch with other patients that the physician has treated (without disclosing the patients’ details). (Patient Engagement)
- Finally, they also offered John a payment plan which would allow him to pay for the services in parts. (Payment Experience)
2. The Experience
John was quite impressed with what he had heard and was already thinking about dropping his plan to move from his current healthcare provider.
The patient experience in the above scene looks seamless, shows highly efficient use of time and effort, and provides John with a great customer experience.
3. The Inference
To deliver such an exceptional patient experience, providers must have an understanding of what their patients want and be ready to serve them before even the patient realizes the need. In other words, they must gain Patient 360.
4. The Solution - How is Patient 360 Made Practical?
Healthcare Providers need a framework that allows them to be “patient curious”, “build data driven intelligence”, identify services that a patient might “need in future”, analyse patient feedback and “bring operational efficiencies with velocity”, to create a “patient centric” business.
To attain “Patient 360”, providers need a robust data framework powered by the latest technologies that can:
- Allow providers to become “patient curious”
- Build “data-driven intelligence” based on patient journeys
- Enable data democratization to take data-driven decisions
- Identify services that a patient might need in the future
- Analyze patient feedback and be ready to bring operational efficiencies with velocity
- Create a “patient-centric” business
Snowflake Data Cloud Platform - Your Way to the 3Ds
The moment we talk about Data and Decisions, it creates a phobia in the minds of many organizations that they are in for a “money drain” ride. This was largely true until a decade ago.
Today, data platforms like Snowflake have become so robust that they offer a full menu of services on the cloud – offering reliability, resiliency, and rewards with less risk.
Here’s what the Snowflake Data Cloud Platform does for healthcare providers –
- Providers are empowered with a platform that can give them a ‘Single View of a Patient’, Patient 360, on the cloud. ‘Single View of Patient’ is so quintessential that it innately follows the ‘Patient First’ approach.
- Since the patient record is sacrosanct, this ‘Single View’ can be accessed by all departments and all systems. This helps provider organizations in proactively identifying at-risk individuals for health conditions such as Chronic Diseases, Congestive Heart failures, etc., and recommend proven treatment plans.
- Data can be very easily integrated from various provider ‘systems of records’ such as EHR/EMR, Imaging/Lab Data, Demographic Data, Financial Data, etc.
- The integration allows for better ingestion of data into cloud data lakes that are “pay as you go”.
5 key features that make Snowflake an all-in-one solution
- Snowflake’s ability to bring the concepts of Data Engineering, Data Lake, Data Warehouse, and Data Services into one unified platform is not only revolutionary but also very practical. This makes Snowflake the perfect tool to implement a ‘Single View of Patient’. Using Snowflake, providers can very easily move from a “Data Silos” to a “Data Seamless” state.
- Snowflake is a big seller of Data Democratization, which is quintessential for any provider. Data needs to be shared responsibly within the provider organization and Snowflake’s architecture makes that possible.
- Decision Transformation needs faster delivery of actionable intelligence to consuming layers. Snowflake again comes to the fore because of this in-memory data warehousing capability which allows for the faster transformation of data, and faster delivery of that data to consuming applications or data visualization tools.
- Data in Snowflake Cloud Data Platform is super secure, ensuring client confidentiality. Data can grow in Snowflake without any limits.
- Snowflake hence becomes a very critical tool in enabling a “Single View of a Patient” which enables healthcare providers to shift from simply managing patients to ensuring a delightful patient experience.
Now you can also make data-driven decisions while meeting HIPAA compliance and regulatory objectives. KANINI can guide you on how to transform your patient experience with Snowflake’s Data Cloud Platform which eliminates data silos so that you can access all your data virtually in a single, globally available cloud platform. What’s more, you can securely share live, governed data from multiple on-premise and cloud-based systems. Get in touch today to learn more.
Author
Anand Subramaniam
Anand Subramaniam is the Chief Solutions Officer, leading Data Analytics & AI service line at KANINI. He is passionate about data science and has championed data analytics practice across start-ups to enterprises in various verticals. As a thought leader, start-up mentor, and data architect, Anand brings over two decades of techno-functional leadership in envisaging, planning, and building high-performance, state-of-the-art technology teams.
