Dan Prince

It’s pretty easy to tell people what they should do to live a healthier life. It’s been drilled into our brains – exercise, lay off the sugar, eat nutritious foods, get enough sleep, see the doctor for regular check-ups and so on. Sounds simple, right? Then why aren’t more people doing it?

If we are to make meaningful change in the way people experience healthcare and help them take responsibility for their own health outcomes, perhaps we need to put less emphasis on the laundry list of what they “should” be doing. Maybe, we need to find out what people truly need and what they are willing to do, then adapt our approach accordingly.

Ask anyone who has been told by their doctor to lose 15 pounds why they haven’t been able to do it, and more often than not, they’ll probably say a lack of time and energy – with work, kids, caring for elderly parents and/or many other daily responsibilities, there’s nothing left at the end of the day.

But if we asked that same person what would make him or her feel more fully alive, we might find out that it is raising a vegetable garden. Or cooking dinner for the family more often. Or perhaps spending more time helping others.

Bridging the engagement gap

Which brings us to an interesting project for reframing the way people engage with their healthcare experience. It is a health and wellness facility called Al!ve. The facility is under construction at Hayes Green Beach Memorial Hospital in Charlotte, Mich., under the guidance of JJCA, a Nashville healthcare architecture firm that is keenly interested in patient experience and patient satisfaction.

While this new facility will house a number of traditional wellness components, such as exercise equipment, indoor tracks and walking paths, these are just part of a much more comprehensive program that recognizes that there isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” approach to good health.

That’s why personal guides, called “creationaires,” will develop profiles on members that identify broad life goals, uncover the real barriers to achieving those, and then define individualized plans to achieve them. Most surprising, the plan may not even include a visit to the gym as the best approach for greater health and wellbeing.

Extensive research has already helped to identify some of the most common barriers to goal achievement, and the 80,000 square foot facility has been designed with those obstacles in mind.

According to David Johnson, the principal with JJCA leading the design effort, “research confirms what many of us already understand about barriers to healthy lifestyles.” Many times, those who most need to lose weight aren’t comfortable working out in traditional workout facilities where they must exercise next to “Barbie and Ken,” and they often have special needs and requirements that may not be met there.

“Patients leaving a brief, structured program of physical therapy following surgery often aren’t disciplined enough to continue some form of therapy on their own,” Johnson says. “Women recovering from breast cancer or other women’s health issues may feel overwhelmed and need a place where they can connect with other women to learn, share and heal. Al!ve is designed with an understanding of common barriers but with the flexibility to further customize the experience at the individual level.”

How Al!ve will roll out

Phase 1 of the project, scheduled for completion in the fall of 2011, focuses on the barriers of transitioning from surgery or medical issues back to health, as well as addressing dietary concerns.

• The “Empower” and “Bridge” areas of the facility will address outpatient rehab and transitional workout needs.

• “Journey,” a women’s health center, will provide an intimate, private haven for women featuring comfortable seating, a fireplace, research cubicles and a retail area to support those recovering from surgeries particular to women’s health.

• “Soar” provides flexible gymnasium space that can support anything from a pick-up basketball game to a community dance.

• “Nourish” will incorporate a café and test kitchen where healthy cooking techniques can be learned and balanced meals enjoyed.

Later phases of the project will include an extensive youth area featuring an experiential jungle gym among other unique learning opportunities, a walking trail, conference space, a medical spa, a community garden and expanded fitness areas.

Al!ve is a powerful example of a supportive healthcare experience that addresses the emotional and physical needs of people – an experience that potentially creates the lifestyle change necessary for long-lasting health and well-being.

Dan Prince

Health plans are increasingly becoming a focal point for customer experience research as various constituencies, from patients to politicians, look to them to save money and help improve wellness.

So what should plans be asking to learn how their performance is graded? Here’s a Top Five list:

1) Am I the “first stop” when my client is looking for healthcare information?

If your health plan is viewed as a trusted source of information, your standing will rise in the eyes of both your current customers and the potential customers who hear about you. So what kinds of information do you want to be the first stop for? Customers are likely to assume that you would be a good, easily understood source on such questions as how health insurance works, how claims are processed, and what plan must be “right” for them. But increasingly customers are assuming that health plans ought to know a lot about the quality of providers and what it takes to be healthy. How well are you meeting that challenge?

2) What messages are getting through to my members?

Some touch points are obvious places to look – advertising, for example, or your customer service department. But how is your health plan being portrayed when members interact with their physicians or with hospital staff? How about your Explanation of Benefits form – does it provoke befuddlement? Do your members know that you offer a wellness program? Are they engaging with you based on what you are telling them about the program?

3) Am I ready for the “Retail Revolution?”

Most everyone has seen commercials featuring Flo, the perky saleswoman for Progressive Insurance who dresses all in white. Progressive has good reason to set the commercials in an insurance “store” – people increasingly shop for auto insurance like they shop for any other retail product. The same is true of health insurance as more and more consumers become responsible for their own choices – either because they do not have employer-provided health insurance or because they are using a Health Savings Account. Does your plan understand the psychology of retail customers? Do you offer them the option to “shop by price?” Do you make “comparison shopping” easy?

4) Do my members perceive that it is easy to do business with me?

Have you done usability testing on your website? Basic usability testing captures actual online behavior while allowing customers to explain in their own words what they are truly experiencing as they navigate a site. This sort of testing is usually qualitative in nature – conducted one-on-one or in a small group setting. Cutting edge testing injects an emotional component into research through the use of video and can be done remotely with up to 200 participants. Usability testing is critical for understanding whether customers are finding what they need on your site and how they feel about their overall experience.

5) Am I connecting with my customers on an emotional level?

Traditional economic theory says that financial market prices reflect efficient, rational decisions based on the best information available at the time. But market bubbles in housing and Internet stocks show just how much emotion is involved in financial decisions, even for sophisticated high rollers. Is it any surprise that emotion is heavily involved in healthcare decisions and that some choices seem to fly in the face of a large volume of easily-accessed data? How well does your plan understand these emotional drivers?

In summary

In personal affairs as well as business, it is difficult to see yourself as others see you, yet it is vital to success in both arenas. Health plans that energetically seek answers to these five questions will have a deep pool of knowledge about their customers’ experiences. This knowledge will position them well for the challenges ahead.

Dan Prince

The video is endearing and disturbing at the same time. It records the experience of 8-year-old Benjamin Robinson as he undergoes treatment for a brain tumor at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. The videographer is Benjamin himself.

Benjamin’s video, also partly recorded by his parents, is being used to educate new patients and their families about pediatric cancer treatment. But it also provides a window into how patient-made videos can be a powerful research tool to improve patient experience.

The beauty of these videos is that they capture experiences and emotion in real time, rather than requiring patients to recall them later when taking a survey or being interviewed. As such, videos can provide qualitative insights that, in combination with quantitative data, can help build extremely valuable overall research findings.

How to make best use of videos

While patient-made videos are a cutting edge tool, some thoughts about their best use are already beginning to emerge:

• Use the videos to help shape larger studies. They can uncover operational issues that don’t surface in other ways and provide direction on what you really need to learn through a survey of your broader target audience.

• Recruit enough patient videographers in key demographic categories to reveal meaningful insight . It may take a panel of 25 to 30 camera-equipped patients to yield sufficient information around key issues.

• Supplement the patient-made videos with professionally-moderated interviews of the patients and families involved to probe for deeper insights about the stories they have shared.

• Strike a balance between giving direction to patient videographers to help focus their efforts while allowing them freedom to video what seems important to them.

• It almost goes without saying: keep HIPAA regulations in mind. HIPAA supports the patient’s right to grant permission as long as a media consent form has been signed and dated, unless there are state laws which prohibit such authorization.

Get even more value by repurposing videos

Healthcare providers should also think about how the videos might be repurposed. As the project at St. Louis Children’s Hospital demonstrates, videos can be valuable for patient education.

Consider them as possible marketing tools as well. Capturing video for research purposes often generates powerful stories that can be leveraged for marketing. If you are trying to help potential customers understand what their experiences might be like at your facility, there can be no better tool than the real-life evidence of the people who have been there.