Leadership’s Role in Consumer-Centric Healthcare

In today’s fierce healthcare market, organizations are tasked with remaining competitive and disruption-proof. Increased consumer choice, self-management and a growing number of individuals responsible for their own healthcare costs, all lead to a more discriminating consumer. Healthcare consumers are increasingly seeking healthcare providers that provide the best value, support for achieving their health-related goals with a friendly, consumer-centric experience. Balancing the discriminating consumer with technological advancements, workforce challenges, and higher levels of care acuity are the next biggest challenges for healthcare leaders.

Developing a consumer-centric culture, one that listens, relates and supports the consumer, will create the competitive advantage necessary to successfully retain the loyalty of healthcare consumers. Not only does a consumer-centric culture invite customer loyalty but new research from SurveyMonkey shows that companies with consumer-centric cultures are significantly more likely to retain their employees and keep them engaged. Furthermore, the research found that 76% of employees who reported having high levels of customer empathy found meaningfulness in their work, compared to only 49% of employees who reported meaningfulness in work with companies exhibiting low customer empathy. Employees who report that customer satisfaction is an important part of their culture indicate they are more likely to stay with their company for more than two years, thereby reducing employee turnover and the costs associated with training replacement employees.

Key Elements of Consumer-Centric Healthcare

In a consumer-centric healthcare culture, customer service begins before the customer walks in the door. Creating such an environment means leadership must shift their current focus from service- or treatment-oriented healthcare to a consumer-oriented continuum of care, wellness, and prevention. In successful consumer-centric healthcare companies, three main areas must be developed: listening to customers, understanding their needs and advocating for the consumer while acting on those needs.

In order to accomplish these three changes leaders must set aside traditional silos and restructure the organization around the consumer experience. In some cases, the addition of the Chief Experience Officer has aided healthcare systems in adopting a more consumer-centered operating system. With a deeper focus on every aspect of the provision of care, the Chief Experience Officer organizes the experience for patients and well persons across the full continuum of care.

Leadership’s Role in Consumer-Centric Healthcare

To create and sustain a consumer-centric culture, healthcare leaders should pursue three primary initiatives: create an aspirational vision for stakeholder engagement; take bold steps toward making the patient first, and measure consumer-centric performance. Healthcare leaders must continually champion the consumer-centric movement, remain engaged in the process and understand that creating a consumer-centric culture is not a project, it’s a way of life. The evolution of health systems will continue for many years as consumer-centric models create a competitive advantage for healthcare leaders, if not embraced, will find their consumers diverted by non-traditional competitors.