These days, consumers have some tall orders they want healthcare providers to fill. Among them: Enhancing access to care and clinicians through various means, such as retail clinics, virtual visits, online scheduling, extended hours and patient-provider messaging. Other improvements consumers want from their healthcare providers include addressing common problems such as long wait times, fixing confusing billing communications, improving staff behavior and fixing website problems and poor wayfinding.

Healthcare providers apparently hear loud and clear. A new survey of 425 healthcare executives at more than 200 health systems from Chicago healthcare research and software developer KaufmanHall finds that 90% of respondents rate improving the consumer experience as a top strategic priority and nearly two-thirds of hospitals say developing digital tools was a high priority. Findings also indicate an increasing level of activities designed to meet consumer expectations, particularly in access and experience.

But plans and expectations are one thing and actual implementation of more digital healthcare tools is another. Only 8% of organizations responding to the survey are rated ”tier 1” performers for aggressively pursuing consumer-centric strategies, and only 23% are rated “tier 2” performers for piloting consumerism initiatives and identifying needs relative to the organization’s overall strategy. Among smaller hospitals KaufmanHall classifies as “tiers 3 and 4,” nearly 70% indicated that they either have not yet begun, or are in the very early stages of their consumerism efforts.

“Healthcare providers have been slow to adapt because they’ve never had to be consumer-focused in the past,” says KaufmanHall senior vice president Dan Clarin. “This shift requires a new mindset and new way of thinking that go beyond traditional approaches.”

Among other survey findings:

• 64% of respondents identified using digital tools to engage consumers as a high priority for their organizations; only 23% said they had strong capabilities to do so, but that is still a sizable change from 14% in 2017.
• Only 27% of respondents reported retail clinics as widely available and only 14% the same for video visits.
• About three quarters of respondents report full implementation or pilot tests of same-day appointment scheduling and patient-provider messaging.
• About two-thirds report full implementation or pilot tests of extended hours for diagnostic and primary care clinics. More than half report full implementation or pilot tests of online self-scheduling.
• Most organizations (81%) provided contact information on the main landing page, and the remaining 19% had it available within less than five clicks.
• 28% of organizations had self-scheduling available either on the landing page or within less than five clicks, while 34% had it available only through a patient portal, and 37% had no self- scheduling available at all.
• Virtual visits: The majority of organizations—74%—did not provide access to virtual visits on their website, while 5% had them available only through a patient portal, and 21% had them available on the main landing page or within fewer than five clicks.
• Price estimators: 21% of organizations had a price estimator on the landing page or within fewer than five clicks, while 17% had them available through a patient portal, and 61% of organizations had no price estimator on their website.
• Posted wait times for emergency or urgent care and/or check-in services: Wait times or check-in for emergency or urgent care were only available at 22% of organizations.

“Work is underway in all of these less traditional, largely digital modes, but slow progress remains a vulnerability for traditional providers at a time when consumers increasingly are demanding new levels of access from healthcare providers,” says Clarin.

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