The patient journey encompasses the patient’s entire interaction with your business in pursuit of a solution to their issue. The first step is an investigation, during which the individual seeks out information regarding their health problem.
Online resources such as government and healthcare provider sites make it easier for patients to learn more about their conditions and treatment options. Social media and online health forums provide additional avenues for this type of engagement since users can pose questions and receive answers from peers and professionals in the field of medicine.
- Pre-visit refers to a patient’s steps before seeing their primary care physician or other preferred HCP.
- The consultation phase involves an initial meeting with the prospective caregiver.
- The third phase, post-visit, entails everything that comes after a patient receives a diagnosis and a visit.
Patient’s journey mapping aims to enhance the quality of the patient’s experience by highlighting and addressing the various factors that contribute to it at various points. Healthcare providers (HCPs) can better understand and respond to patients’ needs by gathering data at these points.
For this reason, it’s important to examine the entire process from beginning to end, detailing each step they take and their experience. To achieve this goal, cutting-edge consumer and market research technology must be used to collect and analyze massive volumes of data.
Understanding the Stages Involved
As a result of the expansion of online connectivity, the HCP now has a clearer picture of the journey at every stage. According to the research, up to 87% of social media users discuss their health on their profiles.
The internet is already playing a significant part in the healthcare system, and this is just the beginning. Innovations in healthcare technology are reducing the prevalence of misdiagnoses and increasing patient outcomes.
Additionally, state-of-the-art consumer and market research technology improves data collection and analysis to better inform HCPs about patients’ emotional states at each stage. And this is crucial to grasp the perspective of the sick.
1. Awareness
When a patient learns about your company and decides that you may be able to help them, they begin the process. Your mapping should help you pinpoint the moments (and places) when this realization occurs.
For instance, while discussing disease management, patients frequently adopt a holistic perspective and actively seek out information, resources, and recommendations from other patients. Insight into the full scope of these discussions can shed light on previously unnoticed opportunities to expand your service’s reach and establish a more prominent role in the narrative.
2. Access
Patients, at this point, are making physical contact and indicating their desire to do so. Keep in mind that this could still be an element of the investigation. They will go on to the next applicant if they cannot contact you.
Inquiring about a potential patient’s preferred method of contact allows you to tailor your service to meet their needs. This could be done through a platform like social media, email, or even the telephone. Chatbots, when done effectively, are also extremely popular.
3. Care
Once patients have decided to use your services, they will shift their focus from other factors, such as your credentials and reputation, to how well you perform the services they requested. Their internal evaluation criteria have shifted to prioritize service quality, and they are now more likely to trust their own experiences than your claims of capability or the opinions of those who have already worked with you.
4. Treatment
The typical visit to the doctor only provides temporary relief. It continues through the treatment phase after the diagnosis and associated procedures. Patients are often prescribed medicine and either discharged or placed in a more permanent care setting.
5. Long-term
Customer loyalty and word-of-mouth promotion are the fruits of a successful long-term partnership. It would help if you were close by when patients change their lifestyles, such as scheduling routine checkups and attending to other ancillary needs.
Why NetBaseQuid?
The patient experience is only one place where you may collect data with NetBase Quid®, a consumer and market intelligence platform built on cutting-edge research technology.
The information can be sent, and it can connect to other programs. Access to your data in a streamlined dashboard format makes it simple to examine and understand and present to others. Patients are waiting for you to find what they’re looking for on the internet, so don’t hesitate to ask for a demo to learn more.
