Healthcare's customer experience landscape faces a major transformation. Most of us know the frustration of disconnected healthcare experiences. But this situation can change. Customer journey orchestration offers a strategic way to optimize every patient touchpoint. Better patient experiences lead to more involvement, improved treatment plan adherence, and more provider recommendations. This becomes crucial since 72% of consumers interact with brands only when the experience feels customized.

This piece shows what customer journey means in healthcare, how platforms like Salesforce Health Cloud can improve patient care, and the steps to set up up-to-the-minute customer journey orchestration for your organization. 

What is Patient Journey Orchestration?

Patient journey orchestration marks the next development in healthcare delivery that goes beyond simple coordination to create tailored experiences. This intelligent system aligns every aspect of patient care through multiple touchpoints and providers.

Understanding the customer journey meaning in healthcare

The customer journey in healthcare refers to "a collection of interactions (or touchpoints) between a customer and a firm". Healthcare journeys have higher emotional intensity and complexity than retail or service industries because of their personal nature.

Patient journey mapping captures each step and interaction between patients and healthcare providers visually. This mapping "assists service providers in understanding the customer experience at the different points of interactions in their journey with the provider". Traditional mapping methods use observations, questionnaires, and interviews - these techniques can be subjective and take time.

Healthcare organizations can now make use of information already available in their systems. Process mining techniques help create evidence-based journey maps that show the actual patient experience rather than what providers see it to be. This informed approach creates a foundation that works for orchestration.

How journey orchestration is different from traditional care models

Traditional care models often create fragmented experiences across departments, specialties, and facilities. Care journey orchestration works among existing systems like Electronic Health Records (EHR) to organize day-to-day complexity.

The orchestration approach is different from traditional models in several key ways:

1. Integration beyond facility walls - Orchestration "enables continuity in the hybrid virtual care experience, so care can be efficiently coordinated beyond the four walls of the physical care setting"
2. Automation of repetitive tasks - The orchestration engine "automates digital communications and care coordination to create a seamless digital experience"
3. Continuous loop closure - The orchestration engine "constantly checks to see if each step is complete and 'chases' it down if it isn't"
4. Personalization at scale - Orchestration helps healthcare providers "personalize care delivery for every patient, increasing productivity and ensuring appropriate, reimbursable activity"

Orchestration helps healthcare organizations combine virtual and physical care into a single, coordinated trip. On top of that, it helps care teams "work at the top of their license by automating repetitive tasks, reducing care delivery costs, increasing productivity, and delighting patients with care delivered on their own terms"

Why Orchestration Matters in Modern Healthcare

Modern healthcare faces new challenges as patient needs become more complex and service delivery remains scattered. Patients now expect healthcare experiences to match what they get from top consumer brands - customized, connected, and smooth. The healthcare industry has worked as separate entities that create gaps in patient care and affect both outcomes and satisfaction.

Improving patient satisfaction and outcomes

Patient satisfaction and health outcomes have an undeniable connection. Healthcare providers can turn scattered touchpoints into smooth experiences that guide patients through their healthcare trips with orchestration.

A patient faces scattered touchpoints with mixed messages that add stress without customized orchestration. Their insurer reaches out with customized plan recommendations that ensure coverage and continued care with journey orchestration. This crafted approach creates meaningful and reassuring interactions.

Patient-centered approaches show clear benefits beyond satisfaction. Patients report much better experiences when they understand their health conditions or diagnoses. Nurse-led education backed by orchestration platforms boosts patient and caregiver well-being, activation, and knowledge retention.

Reducing care fragmentation

Care remains scattered despite tech advances when patients see many different providers without a single provider coordinating much of their visits. Poor communication among providers leads to more hospital and emergency visits, extra testing, and higher medical costs.

Orchestration solves this challenge by giving patients what they need: coordinated care where providers share clinical information and have clear, shared role expectations. Healthcare quality research shows high-quality care coordination needs timely, safe, effective, patient-centered, efficient, and fair transitions and referrals.

Patient priorities match these coordination goals. Medicare patients like primary care providers who handle more of their conditions and address new concerns instead of sending them to specialists.

Enabling proactive and preventive care

Orchestration's biggest effect shows in the change from reactive to proactive care models. Reactive care waits until patients get seriously ill before acting. Proactive care strengthens providers and patients to take active roles in managing health.

Healthcare organizations can use orchestration platforms to:

• Stream patient behavior and health data in real-time to create unified patient profiles
• Trigger appropriate actions based on monitoring thresholds
• Deliver customized interventions before conditions worsen
• Track adherence and optimize outcomes through data analysis

This approach increases the "surface area" of care between doctor visits. Providers can spot issues earlier and create full care plans that delay, prevent, or reduce possible diseases. 

Healthcare organizations achieve lower call center volumes, better satisfaction scores, reduced care costs, and more patient retention by matching business goals with patient needs through orchestration. These benefits give significant competitive edges in today's healthcare market.

Key Stages in the Patient Journey Map

The patient's healthcare experience shows clear stages from their first symptom to ongoing wellness care. Healthcare providers can create better experiences by understanding these key moments in a patient's path to care.

Awareness and research

A patient journey starts when someone notices symptoms or needs medical care. People first look for information about their possible conditions and available care options. They search online, talk to friends and family, and check quality ratings and reviews of healthcare providers.

Patients build their first impressions of healthcare organizations through different channels. These include marketing messages, community events, and networking opportunities. For specialized treatments, patients often start their research before a treatment gets FDA approval and becomes available.

Initial contact and appointment scheduling

After learning about their options, patients reach out to healthcare providers. This crucial step includes booking appointments, using patient portals, talking to call centers, and checking prices. Studies show that 30% of patients have left a doctor's office due to long waits, and 20% thought about switching providers for the same reason.

Booking systems make a big difference by automating appointments and cutting down on administrative work. These systems stop mistakes like double bookings and let patients manage their appointments online. Good scheduling makes patients happier and helps use resources better.

Treatment and care coordination

The service delivery stage covers all medical interactions from check-in to billing. Care coordination becomes crucial as patients move between different doctors and facilities.

Good care coordination means organizing patient care across multiple providers and sharing information effectively. The best care coordination programs look at patient needs, create custom care plans, and maintain regular face-to-face contact.

Patient-focused approaches that help with self-management and monitoring have shown real benefits beyond just making patients happy. Research shows that patients who report better care coordination also receive better clinical care across multiple quality measures.

Post-treatment follow-up and feedback

The last stage involves managing care after initial treatment. Follow-up visits help monitor progress and adjust treatments when needed. Regular check-ins help doctors and patients communicate better and work together.

Tracking recovery and making adjustments helps optimize medical care and leads to better patient outcomes. This ongoing connection helps patients stick to their treatment plans and gives doctors a full picture of their health.

Patient feedback at this stage helps healthcare organizations find service gaps and make future care better. This feedback shows which parts of the patient's experience matter most and where improvements can help.

How Salesforce Health Cloud Supports Journey Orchestration

Salesforce Health Cloud helps healthcare organizations transform scattered care experiences into smooth patient trips. The platform provides the technology needed to make this transformation possible.

Unified patient data and 360° view

Health Cloud combines clinical and non-clinical data into one reliable source. The platform creates a complete 360-degree view of each patient by combining data from electronic health records (EHRs), wearables, claims, and social determinants of health. Healthcare providers can see important details about their patients without searching multiple systems. These details include clinic priorities, languages spoken, conditions, and medication prescriptions. This integration creates continuity throughout patient care, which solves a major challenge for patients and providers.

Real-time customer journey orchestration with AI

Health Cloud uses AI to turn patient information into useful insights. The platform analyzes patient activities as they happen, such as booking appointments or looking up conditions on a provider's website. This analysis helps determine the best next steps, which could be customized content suggestions, care reminders, or targeted messages. Healthcare organizations can now move away from generic outreach and deliver truly customized healthcare experiences.

Automation of care tasks and reminders

Healthcare staff deal with many repetitive tasks that take time away from patient care. Health Cloud solves this by automating administrative work like appointment scheduling, billing, and documentation. The platform creates reminders for specific tasks assigned to each care team member. This ensures they never miss follow-ups, tests, and referrals. Healthcare providers can now spend more time doing what matters most - delivering quality patient care.

Collaboration across care teams

Health Cloud comes with tools that show the entire care team, including both internal and external networks. Team members can communicate securely within the platform and receive instant alerts about critical updates like abnormal tests or readmission warnings. Only authorized staff can access sensitive data, while audit trails maintain compliance and security.

Personalized communication channels

The platform supports multi-channel engagement through text, email, mobile apps, and other methods to keep patients informed during their care. Organizations can boost patient engagement and satisfaction by sending relevant information at the right time. This customized approach recognizes that patients have different communication preferences. Healthcare providers can reach out through each patient's preferred channel while maintaining consistent care quality.

Steps to Implement Journey Orchestration with Health Cloud

Patient orchestration in Health Cloud needs a systematic approach that combines technology with a deeper understanding of patients. Here's a practical framework to help you begin.

Define patient personas and trip paths

Start by identifying distinct patient groups based on demographics, healthcare needs, and priorities. Each persona needs detailed care paths that map touchpoints and challenges throughout their healthcare experience. These personas become the foundations for orchestrating patient care effectively.

Collect and unify data from multiple sources

Patient feedback, clinical records, and portal usage data need careful collection. Health Cloud excels at centralizing information from EHRs, websites, apps, and other touchpoints. This creates a complete 360-degree view of each patient.

Use analytics to identify pain points

Health Cloud's analytics tools reveal trends and patterns in patient behavior effectively. Journey analytics spotlights issues like extended wait times. This matters because 30% of patients have switched providers due to long waits.

Develop action plans and assign ownership

Patient satisfaction and outcomes help determine which pain points need immediate attention. Each improvement initiative needs clear ownership to maintain accountability.

Monitor, iterate, and improve continuously

Remember that journey mapping evolves constantly. Teams should create a system to review, update and expand patient trips as new data emerges. This creates an effective feedback loop that drives continuous improvement.

Conclusion

Patient care coordination leads healthcare transformation today. This piece shows how a strategic approach creates individual-specific patient experiences that go beyond traditional care models. Modern patients expect continuous, coordinated care, and healthcare organizations know fragmented interactions no longer work.

Effective coordination brings clear benefits. Patients feel more satisfied, follow treatment plans better and see improved outcomes. Healthcare providers optimize their work, reduce paperwork and build stronger relationships with patients.

La Confianza specializes in helping businesses make these crucial decisions as a dedicated Salesforce consultancy. Our team brings extensive Salesforce implementation experience, including health cloud solutions. Reach out today to start your journey toward a more flexible, powerful patient experience.

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