Insights Series, Issue 28: "Frictionless healthcare"

Insights Series Issue 28 siemens-healthineers.com/ insights/improving-patient-experience siemens-healthineers.com/ insights/digitalizing-healthcare ON B $ IS Frictionless healthcare Why it matters, how to get there A thought leadership paper on “Improving patient experience” and “Digitalizing healthcare” co-authored with ECG Management Consultants SIEMENS Healthineers Preface The Insights Series The Siemens Healthineers Insights Series is our preeminent thought leadership platform, drawing on the knowledge and experience of some of the world’s most respected healthcare leaders and innovators. The Series explores emerging issues and provides you with practical solutions to today’s most pressing healthcare challenges. We believe that increasing value in healthcare—delivering better outcomes at lower cost—rests on four strategies. These four principles serve as the cornerstones of the Insights Series. Expanding Transforming Improving Digitalizing precision care patient healthcare medicine delivery experience Our Insights portfolio is an integrated collection of events, speaking engagements, roundtable discussions, and an expanding array of print and digital platforms and products all carefully curated to share ideas, encourage discussion, disseminate original research and reinforce our position as a healthcare thought leader. Please visit siemens-healthineers.com/insights-series Executive summary There seems to be little dispute that the quality of This paper outlines some approaches that organizations healthcare available today is high in developed countries can take if they want to reduce or even eliminate these compared to ten years ago.1, 2 Patient surveys confirm points of friction. These include ways of improving care this.3 But surveys also indicate that there remain points access, care navigation and care delivery – all of which of frustration in interactions between patients and the would result in a more frictionless experience for healthcare system, and these are numerous enough and patients. To eliminate friction for providers, there are serious enough that they can influence patients’ choice proposals for eliminating waste, reducing non-value of their healthcare provider. adding activities through automation mindfully, and enhancing value-added activities. These points of frustration can also be thought of as points of friction, because they have the effect of acting At the heart of almost all of these proposals is the as obstacles that slow a patient on his or her journey to necessity for healthcare organizations to build better obtaining care. Friction can occur in the booking of an relationships with their patients by thinking of them as initial appointment, while checking in, before a follow-up individuals, with individual needs and desires that need test, while filling prescriptions, waiting for referrals, to be understood, respected, and acted upon. Once that interacting with healthcare teams, perhaps due to is understood, selecting the right technologies, processes language barriers, and myriad other points along the way and frameworks to eliminate those frictions becomes where patients want to make rapid forward process, and easier. circumstances prevent them from doing so. Interestingly, healthcare providers feel the effects of friction as well. The inefficiencies that result in patient frustration tend to increase provider workload, which over time can result in burnout among team members. And indirectly, of course, providers feel the effects of friction when it erodes their patients’ loyalty and trust in them. Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 3 Introduction There was a time not long ago when discussions about The beginnings of an answer to that question can be healthcare centered on the quality of care being found in a NRC study. It has shown that however happy delivered. Decisions about providers were made based patients might be with the quality of care they are on how patients felt about the care they received, and receiving, nearly half of healthcare customers have some the outcomes they experienced. Today, discussions tend frustration with their current providers.4 Despite the high to revolve around something loosely referred to as quality of care, they are not receiving the patient experience patient experience. they want or expect. And when they are asked about the things that leave them dissatisfied, they raise issues that This is because times are changing. High-quality care is include check-in, wait times, or appointment availability. obviously still important, but it is in fact so important One NRC study puts it this way: that it is basically taken for granted. It is the minimum requirement in selecting a provider, because low-quality “These trends make it clear: healthcare customers are care is simply no longer an option. Studies have shown growing increasingly intolerant of the obstacles to care that 85% of consumers from developed countries report that they must navigate.”5 having a high level of satisfaction with their clinicians.3 Which raises the question, if patients are happy with the In healthcare, as it turns out, there are a great many quality of care they are receiving, how do decisions get points of friction. They make navigating the system more made about which providers to use? difficult for patients, and make delivering quality care more challenging and frustrating for providers. This paper explores these various points of friction and proposes steps that might be taken to eliminate them. In the process, it lays out a roadmap of sorts for frictionless healthcare. 4 Issue 28 · Siemens Healthineers Insights Series “Convenience, autonomy, personalization, flexibility and respect is what tomorrow’s healthcare consumers are expecting, these are the corner- stones of a frictionless healthcare experience.” Christina Triantafyllou, PhD Vice President Head of Improving Patient Experience at Siemens Healthineers What is friction in healthcare, and is it necessarily a bad thing? The first part of this question is easily answered. In the What is actually happening in cases such as these is that world of healthcare, friction is a term that has become decisions are being consciously made about whether the synonymous with paperwork. It has less to do with clinical friction of delay is necessary, and the verdict is sometimes outcomes than it does with speed, convenience and that it is. While refilling a prescription should be as access – or the lack thereof. In other words, friction can frictionless as possible, diagnosing and treating a disease occur at every point where patients transition from one may need some friction built in. stage of healthcare to another – interactions such as an initial appointment, a follow-up test, receiving and filling And so for the purpose of this paper, when we talk about a prescription, a referral to a specialist or other physician, frictionless healthcare, we mean creating healthcare a surgery or other procedure, and discharge. systems where unnecessary points of friction have been eliminated. It is accepted that there are situations where The second part of the question is a bit more complicated. the care process is slower to ensure desired outcomes Because friction is actually not always a bad thing. And while remaining mindful of the patient and relatives’ the simple reason for that is that speed is not always a processing of the disease, but we also know that good thing. For example, there are complex medical identifying and removing unnecessary and unwanted processes that involve a high number of clinically relevant friction can create value for patients and providers alike. medical decisions. This is the case, for example, with cancer treatment. In the case of multimorbid patients over the age of 65, there are more than 50 relevant clinical decisions along the typical lung, breast or prostate cancer journey, of which more than ten are critical decisions. These decisions take place during patient consultations and in tumor boards, and this number can grow to several hundred relevant clinical decisions when it involves issues such as adaptation of drug intake or interactions, consideration of the right imaging approach, and radiation therapy choices. Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 5 The challenge Financial impact of superior patient experience In addition to striving for better patient outcomes, there is very high incentive to differentiate by delivering excellent patient experience. Accenture research reports that hospitals and providers who deliver a superior patient experience tend to have 50% higher margins than their peers.6 The pattern holds true for hospitals of all sizes and categories, from stand-alone to systems-owned, nonprofit or for profit, urban or rural. And there is growing realization amongst provider organizations that the road to +50% better patient experience is a smooth, frictionless one. There is also an emerging understanding in Increase in margin as a healthcare circles that it is not just patients who result of superior patient benefit from reduced friction – providers do as well. experience. How patients experience friction To understand the ways in which patients are frustrated by friction in healthcare, one needs to consider three basic expectations that all consumers have when entering into commercial transactions: speed, access and convenience. In that context, none of the following frequently expressed patient complaints are a surprise:7 • Wasted time – patients frequently feel that everything just takes too long • Repetition – forms frequently need to be filled in more than once, and unnecessary tasks must often be repeated • Unnecessary delays in communications – test results are not available nearly as quickly as they could be • Tortuous system – it is difficult to find, access and navigate different providers, services, and insurance coverage • Access to the facility – providers may not contemplate access for patients who are bed-bound or dependent on a wheelchair, or help to take them to the facility8 • Experience is not consistent – different providers treat patients differently • Lack of personalization – Providers and staff don’t see patients as individuals and anticipate their needs 6 Issue 28 · Siemens Healthineers Insights Series How healthcare providers experience friction For providers, the effects of friction are usually felt in one The factors contributing to clinician burnout include: of two ways. • Excessive workload The first is a loss of patient loyalty. Increasingly, patients • Unmanageable work schedules are acting as consumers when it comes to the healthcare • Inadequate staffing they receive, and what consumers want is convenience, • Poorly designed work systems flexibility and acknowledgement of their needs and • Inadequate technology usability individuality. If they don’t get these from one provider, they switch to another. It is all too easy to understand how these factors also contribute to the friction points that are so frustrating The second effect of friction on healthcare providers is to patients. reflected in the high rate of physician burnout, which the World Health Organization has recognized as a symptom that results from the chronic distress associated with the job. One survey from Medscape with over 15,000 respondents concluded that across 29 medical specialties, the overall rate of burnout in 2019 stood at 42%.9 X Lack of speed, Physician burnout access, and conve- rate could be as nience could influ- high as 42%. ence patients to switch to another provider. × Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 7 The solution How do we achieve frictionless healthcare for patients? There are a number of steps that providers can take to reduce or eliminate friction for their patients. They all Case study – Bon Secours begin with a better understanding. Mercy Health CRM Bon Secours Mercy Health is a health A personalized experience: understand your patients system serving patients across seven states in the U.S. and in Ireland. Like many Not all patients are the same. If you want them to leave healthcare providers, Bon Secours Mercy Health had to hit pause on elective care your hospital feeling positive about their appointment, procedures to divert resources during the you need to understand who they are and what they COVID-19 pandemic. However, elective care need when they engage with your health system. A way can make a huge difference in a patient’s quality of life. As soon as the cases dropped to start doing that is to assess your patients according to and it was ready to receive other patients, their generational cohort – baby boomers, millennials Bon Secours needed to schedule postponed generation Z, etc. This will tell you a great deal about treatments and procedures. their world view, their preferences and their expectations. Providers needed to avoid being On top of that, however, you need to understand the overwhelmed by the huge patient backlog. particulars of each patient’s life situation. What is their To tackle this, Bon Secours utilizes its customer relationship management (CRM) family situation? Are they retired? What do they do for system, which enabled them to prioritize living? What is their level of health literacy? What is their patients who needed rescheduling level of digital familiarity? The better you understand immediately, factoring in patient safety and providers, as well as facilities with capacity. your patients, the better you can prioritize the types of They grouped patients based on the frictions in their care experience that need to be prioritization and sent appropriate removed. On top of which, everybody likes being communications around scheduling, virtual care capabilities, and next steps. In two understood as an individual rather than just a name or weeks, Bon Secours Mercy Health saw close a number on a patient chart. to 25% growth in people registering with and activating their patient portal, a hundred-fold growth in virtual visits, and successfully rescheduled approximately 60% of patients with previously canceled procedures.10 Its CRM system helps them to keep track of their patients’ needs and understand their patient population. 8 Issue 28 · Siemens Healthineers Insights Series Improve your service experience at potential friction points Based on the understanding you have gained about the Low-friction website preferences and needs of your patients, you can prioritize which service experience to focus on in removing friction: A survey of more than 1,700 U.S. adults found that nearly two thirds (63%) of respondents will choose one provider over another because of a strong online 1 Care access presence.12 Which is to say, a low-friction website, where patients are able to find the information they need, Online scheduling perform the functions they want to perform, without confusion or delay. Friction for patients often starts the moment they begin seeking help. Simply booking an appointment can mean Medical websites must consider factors that other repeat phone calls, long delays waiting on hold, only to businesses may not. They must be accessible for visitors find that there is no time available on the day you have of all ages and literacy levels. They must account for free. One solution may be online scheduling. various health conditions that may affect their ability to use the website, such as poor or altered vision. This Ascension, a Missouri-based health system that operates in could be a potential friction point and should inform 21 states, offers a Click-to-Schedule service which allows your design. patients to see appointment availability and schedule online easily. This simple scheduling process is important Finally, and this is of ever-increasing importance as the not only for retaining current patients, but making it easier number of smartphone-dependent people continues to to attract new patients. Since the rollout, Ascension has grow around the world, patients must be able to get the seen a 779% increase in primary care online visits same quality of online experience while browsing the scheduled, and approximately 100,000 additional visits site from a mobile device. over the previous year.11 Imagine Imagine What if after online What if caregivers search, an instant no longer have to chat function can set their schedule help patients find weeks or months the right clinician ahead, and AI can and book an optimize the appointment? booking schedule for both patients and caregivers? Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 9 Technologies that can help remove friction 2 Care navigation Contactless and self-service options Strong online presence The longer the wait time, the greater the decrease in patient satisfaction, and inefficiencies related to patient check-in are the prime culprit. An intuitive online self- service check-in platform not only gives patients the Contactless and self- feeling of managing their experience, but also reduces service options the need for staffing in patient registration. It also ensures that fewer data input errors are made with regard to personal information. Contactless options such as providing an easy way to pay for parking may seem Location services like a small thing, but it is a real convenience, and that is the name of the game. Other, more advanced kiosks can even perform basic diagnostic tests on patients.13 Price estimation tool Geo-mapping Hospitals can be extremely difficult to navigate, with Patient-friendly literally kilometers of near-identical corridors leading to technology door after door of similarly named wards and treatment rooms. Roughly 40%-to-50% of people visiting a large healthcare facility say they have trouble finding their Telehealth and remote destination. patient monitoring UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital has dealt with this problem head-on, with an app called “Find your way” that displays a map of the entire UCHealth complex floor- by-floor. The app is also connected to UCHealth’s Epic electronic medical record, so it will show patients their appointment on a map. They need only press “Go” and it will guide them all the way from home to the parking lot, to the doors of the clinic.14 10 Issue 28 · Siemens Healthineers Insights Series “Digitalization is one of the most important enablers to meet consumer health expectations and achieve frictionless healthcare.” Ralph Wiegner, PhD Global Head of Digitalizing Healthcare at Siemens Healthineers 3 Care delivery Price transparency Patient-friendly technology Eighty percent of patients have at one time or other been Frictionless care involves removing emotional frictions surprised by a medical bill.15 Many patients also skip as well. Patients should feel comfortable and secure recommended medical tests or treatments due to while accessing, navigating and receiving care. Medical affordability.16 One way to avoid unpleasant surprises and equipment designed with patient-friendly technology at least support planning for future bills is to take the avoids the chance of patients experiencing anxiety and mystery out of healthcare prices. fear during diagnosis and examinations. This could range from technologies that give patients a regular update on Cleveland Clinic, a major academic medical centers in the what is happening, to MRI scanners with wider bores, to U.S., identified that billing is a source of frustrations for the use of Virtual Realtity (VR) to help patients relax many patients years ago. To help address this, the during the examination. finance teams engaged with the patients and together they designed a single unified bill for patients, instead of sending patients a different bill from every single hospital.17 Telehealth and remote patient monitoring Baylor Scott & White Health (BSWH), one of the largest non-profit healthcare systems in the U.S. based in Dallas, Telehealth removes many friction points, a fact that has Texas, with more than 50 hospitals in its network, been strongly reinforced during the COVID-19 pandemic. eliminated a very manual process of price estimates by It can decrease wait times, eliminate travel costs, and implementing an automated, machine learning-based remove the possibility of contracting an infection at the price estimation tool which generates estimates of hospital. Remote patient monitoring tools can give patients’ out-of-pocket costs before they receive care. patients better access and quality of care, while giving Since implementing the tool, BSWH has received positive them peace of mind through improved support, feedback and a 60-100% improvement in point-of-service education, and feedback. collections across various clinics and hospital departments.18 Imagine What if transportation is automatically scheduled for patients who need it, or an app guides patients directly to their destination in the hospital and checks them in? Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 11 “Imagine a future where care has been fine-tuned and optimized to be as frictionless as possible. It is not only satisfying the patients; it satisfies the economics making care more accessible and breaking down the inequities and barriers pervasive in our current systems.” Nick Van Terheyden, MD ECG Management Consultant Imagine a future of frictionless healthcare For patients: For caregivers: Decision support Decision support augmented by AI augmented by AI What if patients’ wear- What if AI helps to able data is automati- support clinical cally uploaded and an AI decisions, and searches home health agent in for rare medical an app checks in with diagnoses that the patients, identifies are unusual and needs for escalation, often forgotten or and sends reminders for overlooked, follow-up consultations? but important to rule out? Experience Experience What if patients’ What if passive ambient emotional friction is listening tracks details removed by using of the consultation and patient-friendly captures all relevant designed equipment clinical details and so that anxiety is information? minimized? Everything in one place Everything in one place . ........ 00000 What if patients can review What if all patient their medical history and consented data is in one information, and they can share it with any hospital U place, including their social and personal with their permission? information, which provides a complete picture of the care that has been offered, accessed, and delivered? 12 Issue 28 · Siemens Healthineers Insights Series How do we achieve frictionless healthcare for providers? A frictionless environment for caregivers is one where One way to avoid searching through duplicate information the workforce is highly productive. A productive is a dynamic record that captures everything in a succinct workforce enables better patient experiences, and format much like a Wikipedia page. All the changes are still eases the stress and strain on providers, thereby preserved, and caregivers can still search through archives reducing healthcare team burnout. What follows are for previous versions, but the record is dynamically three proposals for reducing friction by increasing updated and presents the latest data. productivity. Unwanted travel: Staff members having to physically 1 Eliminate waste and rethink workflows travel too far to complete a step in a process. This might occur when office or hospital layout is not consistent with The first step in reducing friction for providers is to eliminate workflow, requiring more walking than ought to be wasteful activities. These are activities that do not add necessary. Examples of this would be supplies not being any value for the caregivers and should be eliminated stored where patient care occurs, and equipment not being immediately without any impact on the patient outcome. conveniently located. They include: University of Missouri (MU) Health Care in the U.S. offers Errors: Any mistake or process step taken out of order that a full range of advanced diagnostic imaging services. requires staff to do more work in order to correct the issue. Appointment availability, however, is limited to only the Examples include incomplete or erroneous medical sites where expert technologists are present. Senior records, the entering of incorrect codes, the ordering of technologists have to constantly travel between locations unnecessary or duplicate diagnostic tests, improperly filled to align protocols and perform advanced examinations. To medications at a pharmacy, and voluminous notes that are overcome this inefficiency, the radiology network employs filled with duplicate information, or repeating errors, that a solution for remote scanning that allows medical staff to make searching difficult. connect remotely to scanner workplaces, allowing expert technologists to support complex procedures remotely and eliminate the need to travel to different locations.19 n Imagine What if when clinicians seek consultations from colleagues in other specializations? What if they had an overview of who is available and can “conference video chat” to organize a plan? All while the patient is present and participating, and any further testing or procedures are scheduled immediately. Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 13 Unnecessary waiting: Caregivers being required to 2 Replace non value-adding activity with stand-by for longer than necessary. An example of this automation would be waiting too long for test results from the lab. Non value-adding activities are necessary activities but One way to minimize waiting time for laboratory result is do not provide a direct value to the patient. Examples to adopt remote data management software. It reviews include patient registration, copying and filing of results based on user-defined verification rules and documents, device maintenance and compliance with automatically releases results so that senior laboratorians regulating requirements. These activities are carried out only have to attend when exceptions occur or abnormal within an organization’s Electronic Health Record (EHR). results require manual review. This is how Turner Labora- The EHR is the main source of friction for caregivers, tories in Sante Fe, Argentina, who serves the city with causing them stress and burnout. According to the over one million inhabitants, accommodates the growing American Medical Association, physicians can spend up demand for testing while improving turnaround time.19 to two hours in an EHR system for every hour they spend with their patients. First-year residents, or interns, spend nearly 90% of their work time away from patients, half of which is spent interacting with electronic health records and documentation instead of providing care or developing their essential clinical skills.20 Imagine What if a patients’ family receive regular updates from the clinical team through the communication channel they prefer? 14 Issue 28 · Siemens Healthineers Insights Series “Today’s patients expect to be more involved in their own care pathway, decision making and their well-being and for that, their interactions with healthcare to be frictionless.” Christina Triantafyllou, PhD Vice President Head of Improving Patient Experience at Siemens Healthineers The solution is to move these types of activities away from staff by automating physical and mental tasks. Imagine a personalized Self-service registration and check-in, which was discussed in the previous section, can not only reduce DOX future friction on the patient side but also for caregivers as well. What if there is no more testing to see if a drug works for an individual because patients’ individual genomic makeup will Natural language processing (NLP), for example, has real help select the right therapy right away? potential to change the way documentation is carried out in hospitals and clinics. Natural language processing is a specialized branch of AI that allows computers to understand unstructured written or spoken data. In other words, instead of entering medical records into the right 3 Enhance value-added activities fields in the EHR system, NLP through ambient listening can extract the right information from the patient visit If the first two steps in reducing friction for providers and automatically record to the EHR. Reducing friction involve eliminating what is not desirable, the third is all points such as these allows providers to have more about emphasizing what is. Value-added activities refer focused time with their patients. to any work activity that contributes in a meaningful way to the care patients receive, or information about that CommonSpirit Health, a nonprofit health system serving care. For example, early recognition of a patients’ most 21 states, uses NLP to improve patient and provider urgent needs, timely test results, time spent talking with experience by automating health information collection patients – all these support clinicians’ decision-making and making clinical record systems interoperable. During and contribute to patient care. Therefore, anything that appointments, physicians can dictate notes directly into helps clinicians focus on their patients’ needs would the electronic medical record (EMR) and order tests. enhance the quality of care. The digital assistant uses NLP to generate notes into the patient’s record, while simultaneously assigning the appropriate codes to streamline the billing process. The sophisticated algorithms also learn physicians’ behaviors and work patterns to proactively assist them with related administrative tasks. Early results show that physicians who use the digital assistant for dictation and charting save between 30 minutes to two hours a day.21 Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 15 “To achieve a truly frictionless experience will require intelligent augmentation of clinicians expanding their capability and guiding care with the latest up-to-date data, insights and sciences applied at the point of care, automatically.” Nick Van Terheyden, MD ECG Management Consultant Knowledge and resilience training for healthcare professionals At the same time, many providers have experienced that There are several ways that digitalization tools such external factor such as caring for children or relatives as AI can augment caregivers value-added activities: magnify the need for flexibility and resilience on both sides - the employee and the employer - to avoid frictions Clinical decision support tools – The more accurate and in the service provided. Helping healthcare professionals relevant information clinicians have, the better their find value and well-being in their work also ensures that decisions will be. Johns Hopkins promotes best practices they work towards a frictionless experience for patients. across its health system through a clinical decision Northwell Health, New York State’s largest healthcare application called Evidence-based (EB)-Guidelines. provider and private employer, recognizes the importance This application allows medical providers to build and of healthcare professionals’ well-being. It provided a share their own guidelines in the Epic electronic medical special bank of time off to frontline workers and other records system and include institution-specific information. staff members to use as needed. Tranquility spaces were The goal is to promote best-practice decision-making by also created at hospitals so staff could rest and temporarily giving clinicians seamless access to the information and recharge in a serene environment outside the clinical documents they need. It doesn’t eliminate individual setting. The care team clearly appreciates it, as Northwell decision-making, but it makes it easier for clinicians to received the Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award in know what the best practices are and tailor those to their 2021, while the workforce was still fighting the particular patient context. COVID-19 pandemic. Stony Brook Medicine also creates a similar “resilience room”, which is a permanent, peaceful area featuring plants, calming wall art, privacy areas and meditation materials to ease the spirits of employees.23 Imagine What if caregivers have ample time to recharge and tranquility spaces to rest? 16 Issue 28 · Siemens Healthineers Insights Series Data-driven patient prioritization tool – Another way Real-time dashboard to support caregivers is with a tool that prioritizes patients based on urgency and severity of their condi- What if a typical day for caregivers starts with a dashboard view of the whole tion. Mayo Clinic, the second-largest critical-care provider population, and AI prioritizes patients who in the U.S. decided to, in effect, triage the deluge of data require immediate intervention? that is constantly pouring into hospitals. After conducting 1,500 interviews with clinicians from Mayo Clinic ICUs nationwide, the team identified that out of tens of thousands of pieces of data pouring through EHR, roughly only about 60 pieces are crucial patient information that clinicians need to access quickly and easily for effective care. With that in mind, an EHR interface for clinicians in the ICU called Ambient Warning and Response Evaluation (AWARE) was built. AWARE provides a real-time overview of every ICU in the Mayo Clinic system. It uses visual displays that make it simple to scan so that clinicians can easily identify patients in need of urgent interventions. Imagine What if caregivers knew if patients did not (re)fill their prescription or took the medication that was prescribed so they can intervene before patients’ health declines further? Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 17 “Virtual care, remote patient monitoring, decision-support tools, these technologies can make an enormous difference in achieving a frictionless healthcare experience.” Ralph Wiegner, PhD Global Head of Digitalizing Healthcare at Siemens Healthineers Operational decision support for staff – Other industries A group of researchers at UC San Diego demonstrated such as airlines, hotels, theme parks, restaurant chains how this can be done when, in response to the resource and banks are using sophisticated data analytics to grow strain posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, they developed their businesses and more precisely match capacity and an open web-accessible simulation-based decision staffing levels to meet customer demand and experience support tool to detect a shortage of finite resources such expectations. The time has come for hospitals to do the same. as staff, medication and medical equipment early on. This has proven to be very useful when making decisions For example, airlines are adept at using AI and prediction about resource provision and allocation as well as models to help with dynamic staffing, ticket pricing and contingency planning. scheduling. Through advanced analytics, hospitals can also integrate and synthesize datasets from disparate IT systems, gain a comprehensive view of hospital-wide operations, and use this information to support staff and operation decision-making. Imagine What if data allowed for planning of future services based on historical usage so there is no more purchasing of equipment that becomes under-utilized and a financial burden? 18 Issue 28 · Siemens Healthineers Insights Series Conclusion Suggested follow-up on siemens-healthineers.com/insights/ improving-patient-experience siemens-healthineers.com/insights/ digitalizing-healthcare • Siemens Healthineers Insights paper issue 27: Reframing the patient experience;a thought leadership paper co-authored with Jason A. Wolf, Ph.D., CPXP Achieving frictionless healthcare will require organizations Available at: siemens-healthineers.com/ and their healthcare professionals to build better relation- insights/news/reframing-patient-experience ships with their patients. If healthcare providers want to • Siemens Healthineers Insights paper issue 26: deliver not only great care but a great patient experience – How are innovators driving digital transformation and they should want to, because they risk losing in healthcare?; A thought leadership paper with ECG Management Consultants. customers if they don’t – then they must think about Available at: siemens-healthineers.com/ patients as people, not transactions. Healthcare providers insights/news/digital-maturity-in-the-era-of- need to understand patients’ needs, their desires and their patient-consumerism preferences, and identify the points of friction that Information: frustrate those needs, desires, and preferences. And the next step is to eliminate those points of friction. H. The Siemens Healthineers Insights Series is our preeminent thought leadership platform, drawing Digital tools, education, and process improvement based on the knowledge and experience of some of the on frictionless design can help remove much of the world’s most respected healthcare leaders and friction experienced by patients. Leveraging analytics and innovators. It explores emerging issues and provides using data is the best way to achieve personalization, practical solutions to today’s most pressing healthcare challenges. which is one of the best ways to reduce friction, improve the patient experience, and retain loyal customers. All issues of the Insights Series can be found here: siemens-healthineers.com/insights-series It doesn’t stop with patients, however. Achieving frictionless healthcare will also require organizations to better Contact: support their healthcare teams, empowering them by eliminating the points of friction that interfere with their For further information on this topic, work, alienating their patients and causing them to burn or to contact the authors directly: out. This will require them to understand where the Christina Triantafyllou, PhD waste is, and use for example, digital tools such as Vice President Head of Improving Patient automation to eliminate it. It will also require providers to Experience at Siemens Healthineers enhance the way their healthcare teams are caring for christina.triantafyllou@siemens-healthineers.com their patients, and they could look to AI and machine learning in order to do this. Ralph Wiegner, PhD Global Head of Digitalizing Healthcare Healthcare organizations used to be in the business of ralph.wiegner@siemens-healthineers.com delivering care, and this will never change. However, improving the patient experience is now a big differentiator. Nick van Terheyden, MD To win that particular competition, organizations must ECG Management Consultant begin offering care that is not only good, but frictionless. njvanterheyden@ecgmc.com Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 19 References 1. How has the quality of the U.S. health- 6. Recommendations for Creating Frictionless 12. New Research Shows Why Doctors Need care system changed over time? - Patient Experiences | Windstream Enterprise a Strong Online Presence [Internet]. Inc. Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker [Internet]. Windstream Enterprise. 2021 com. 2021 [cited 19 October 2021]. [Internet]. Peterson-KFF Health System [cited 19 October 2021]. 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Available from: northwell.edu/employees/news/the- latest/northwell-among-glassdoor-s- best-100-places-to-work Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 21 About the authors Christina Triantafyllou, PhD Isabel Nieto Alvarez, MSc Vice President Head of Improving Senior Key Expert on Improving Patient Patient Experience at Siemens Healthineers Experience at Siemens Healthineers Christina Triantafyllou, Ph.D. is Siemens Healthineers’ Isabel Nieto Alvarez, MSc. is passionate about innovating Head of Improving Patient Experience, where she and transforming the experience of care to be human explores ways in which this field can be enhanced and centered. She is an expert of the Siemens Healthineers made more accessible to healthcare providers. She Global Innovation Network on mental and physical develops strategic approaches to deliver high value care stressors in the experience of care. Isabel leads cross- by providing patient experience focused solutions, best functional teams in innovative projects on patient experi- practices and thought leadership content. Christina ence. Prior to her current role, she has served as a began her healthcare career at Harvard Medical School, marketing manager and business developer for the Boston, U.S., where she worked as a medical physicist company, and as Professor at the Universidad Anáhuac, and advanced to a faculty position focusing on devel- México focused on sustainability in healthcare for oping innovative imaging technology and studying the medical students and psychology. Passionate about human brain. Her scientific career continued at Massa- improving the patient and care team experience, she chusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston, U.S., at presents and writes globally on the subject. She is a the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department. At biomedical engineer from Universidad Iberoamericana in Siemens Healthineers, she served as the Director of Mexico, holds a Master in Science on Mind and Body Global Ultra High Field MR Solutions, focusing on busi- Medicine from Saybrook University in California, U.S. and ness strategy, KOL-based collaborations in innovation/ Certifications on Leadership in Healthcare without Harm clinical translation, and product management for the first and Design Thinking. Her scientific background on mind worldwide clinical 7TMR system. Christina studied and body health and neuroscience, combined with expe- Physics and holds a Ph.D. in Medical Physics from Kings rience in medical technology innovation are cornerstones College, University of London, U.K. of her expertise and passion. 22 Issue 28 · Siemens Healthineers Insights Series Joanne Grau Thought Leadership Manager Digitalizing Nick Van Terheyden, MD Healthcare at Siemens Healthineers ECG Management Consultant Joanne Grau focuses on current trends and thought lead- Dr. Nick is a physician leader and business strategist who ership content for Digitalizing healthcare. Prior to this draws on his clinical experience, technological prowess, role, Joanne has had ten years of marketing experience and relationship management capabilities to craft and in Siemens Healthineers as marketing director for the implement transformative, patient-centered strategies diagnostics division based in New York and as Head of aimed at improving operational performance and effi- Marketing for ASEAN countries based in Singapore. ciency. He is an industry thought leader and a prominent Joanne graduated from UCLA with a degree in Molecular, healthcare IT influencer, having been featured in the top Cell, and Developmental biology. Before joining 5 of The #DigitalHealth Power 100 list of leading health- Siemens Healthineers, Joanne was a research scientist in care tech and AI influencers to follow. As such, Nick Quest Diagnostics (formerly Celera) and has authored brings unparalleled expertise on the critical role digital multiple publications. Joanne is also currently a faculty innovation plays in improving patient outcomes and member in Union University of California. ensuring the long-term success and financial sustain- ability of organizations in the ever-evolving healthcare landscape. Having served as an executive leader at orga- nizations such as Dell, Nuance, and Philips and led the implementation of digital transformation strategies for multiple national and international healthcare clients, Nick has grown to become one of the industry’s most trusted advisers on executing groundbreaking tech- Ralph Wiegner, PhD nology solutions to drive remedial change. Global Head of Digitalizing Healthcare at Siemens Healthineers Ralph Wiegner and his team engage in thought leader- ship and portfolio-related activities for Digitalizing healthcare. Earlier, he worked as head of Improving patient experience, head of Marketing Strategy and in global key account management. Prior to joining Siemens Healthineers, Ralph worked for several years in the Banking and Asset Management practice of McKinsey & Company on various European and international assignments. Ralph holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from University of Erlangen, Germany, with several research engagements at the Oklahoma State University, USA. Siemens Healthineers Insights Series · Issue 28 23 At Siemens Healthineers, our purpose is to drive innovation to help humans live healthier and longer. Through our products, services and solutions we help physicians, medical staff, and healthcare providers prevent illnesses from occurring and to correctly diagnose and determine siemens-healthineers.com/ the right treatments for people who do become ill— insights-series resulting in fewer complications, shorter hospital stays, and faster patient recovery. Our mission is to enable healthcare providers to increase Did you enjoy the read? Make sure to subscribe to value by expanding precision medicine, transforming our newsletter to always receive the latest thought care delivery, improving the patient experience, and leadership insights. digitalizing healthcare. With our comprehensive portfolio— from in-vitro diagnostics and imaging to therapy and All issues of the Insights Series can be found here: siemens-healthineers.com/insights-series follow-up care—we address the complete care continuum for many of the world’s most threatening diseases. Every hour, more than 240,000 patients are touched by technologies provided by Siemens Healthineers. We are at the center of clinical decision making with almost three-quarters of all critical clinical decisions influenced by our solutions. We are a leading medical technology company with over 120 years of experience and more than 66,000 highly dedicated employees around the globe who are innovating every day, truly shaping the future of healthcare. 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