Mind the Gap—The Generation Gap, That Is.

Healthcare Makes No Sense to Anyone

Healthcare. It’s not one thing—it’s not one experience, it’s not static, it’s not set in stone. It’s wildly unique based on the individual, the problem and the solution.

But what Healthcare should be about all the time, is meeting the needs of people who become patients. But all patients do not have the same needs. Yet the healthcare system, as it is currently operating, treats everyone the same, regardless of their needs, or preferences or age.

Boomers and Millennials Have Different Expectations

When people become patients, they are forced into ‘our healthcare world.’  The Healthcare World is slow, full of waiting rooms, blood draws, scary diagnosis and drawn-out and unclear treatment plans. The Healthcare World is error-prone and slow to adopt new ways of doing things.   

Just consider the ‘waiting room.’ The waiting room is a physical representation of a sub-optimal process—or industry: We have waiting rooms in every doctor’s office, clinic, laboratory office, and pharmacies. Oh—and we have other kinds of ‘waiting’ too including waiting to get lab results back, to get a call-back from your doctor, and so on… We are used to waiting—in fact, we expect to wait.  

For people who are about 50 years old and older, they’ve come to accept that waiting is simply part of the ‘experience of care.’ But not so for people under the age of 40, as they’ve been raised in the era of digital experiences which promises and produces the immediate response to a request.

And while this healthcare world makes sense to no one, it is especially confounding to ‘Millennials’ who were raised in the era of digital experiences which promises and produces immediate responses to a request.

In Most Industries, There Is Almost Zero Waiting

Do you think Amazon has a waiting room in their warehouse when they’ve got too many packages to deliver?  Do you think that banking industry has a waiting room where it puts your cash when their ‘cash room’ is full? No and you know why? Because these industries have modernized, unlike healthcare.

Outside of healthcare, 92% of consumers shop online and 83% of Americans bank on-line too.  Inside of healthcare, 85% of patient satisfaction surveys are mailed!  Outside of Healthcare, full 66% of people aged 18-40 note frustration with their healthcare provider’s lack of adoption of digital patient administrative processes such as bill automation, virtual care and on-demand care. But inside of healthcare, only 9% of doctors and hospitals have implemented technology for remote monitoring and/or integration of data from wearables. Outside of healthcare, adults aged 18-40 are four times as likely to already have switched or stopped going to a healthcare provider because of poor digital experience compared to those over 65 years old. And who can blame them?

When you look at other industries, Healthcare looks particularly, well, old.

Move Over Old Healthcare Models—Here Comes The New Consumer

These New Healthcare Consumers—the ones who are frustrated that they cannot receive healthcare the same way they shop and bank--are wired, impatient and indifferent to how and where they get their medical needs met. Many health care services are considered ‘substitutable,’—‘fungible’ even.  And these people are finding ways to get and receive their healthcare other than going ‘to the doctor’s office.’

To those who were raised in the digital world, waiting equals inconvenience, wasted time, and opportunity lost—without a fair exchange of value. The New Healthcare Consumer is building a New Healthcare Model, which is emerging now. This New Model allows people to spontaneously, almost randomly, veer-off schedule during the day to zip in-and-out of a retail clinic, or ping a doctor on an app to get a virtual visit. They are not going to a traditional doctor’s office. In fact, more than ? of all-aged individuals have used virtual, health apps or e-clinics for complex care like diabetes or asthma, and simple issues like cold treatment or sports injuries—and this number is growing.

Next Wave of Consumerization of Healthcare

So, what does this all mean? It means that the New Healthcare Consumer is here and comes with a new set of expectations and demands, which the current legacy model of care delivery cannot address. These New Healthcare Consumers are utilizing new models of virtual, remote and disseminated care delivery and will do so in growing numbers. 

Healthcare As Usual Is Toast

Make no mistake: ‘Healthcare’s business as usual’ is threatened and, (in my opinion,) will not survive in in its current structure. My belief is that the Hospital of Tomorrow will serve a very narrow population which fills a deeply technical need (e.g., a surgical need) and the Doctor’s Office of Tomorrow will either become a super-wired ‘experience’ (Ala Apple Store), or will go the way of Blockbusters.

Because this is almost a ‘winner-take-all’ market where the most wired, most convenient experience will win-over the population the doctors and hospitals do not want to lose--healthy patients.

Must ‘Do’s’ To Stay Alive

These legacy organizations need to think of themselves as entering an emerging market, which requires a serious evaluation of their customers and then building a new ‘go-to-market’ approach including digital and disseminated capabilities.

So, my advice to these legacy industries is to conduct a hard restructuring of operational processes to ensure the focus stays on the patient.  Regardless of how however healthcare organizations dish-up goods and services, and regardless of whether that patient is in the room, on the phone or digitally present,  the one—and only one—‘North Star’ to success is to become doggedly ‘consumer-centric.’

References: Cedar; Accenture; 

About the author: Julie Kliger is recognized by LinkedIn as a "Top Voice" in Health Care in 2015 & 2106, & 2107. She is a Healthcare ‘Strategic Realist’ who is passionate about improving health care and improving lives. She specializes in future-oriented healthcare redesign, translating bio/med-tech into legacy industries, implementing new care models and strategic change management. She is an adviser, clinician, health system board member, speaker and author. 

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