How healthcare innovation execs empower patients to feel more autonomous

The healthcare journey a patient experiences may not always be simple. The care patients receive at hospitals involves many complex facets that could leaving them feeling confused and helpless.

Innovation leaders from healthcare organizations across the country share the strategies with Becker's Hospital Review on how they empower patients to feel a greater sense of autonomy when receiving care.

Providence's Aaron Martin recalls the customer experience from his time at Amazon and draws parallels to healthcare. 

"Amazon, with any service we delivered, we would make sure we followed the tenet "self-service is the best service." We knew that customers always wanted the ability to manage their relationship with Amazon.com without talking to or emailing a human. Any time you send an email or call a call center to resolve a problem, you are disempowering the consumer.

Healthcare is not the same, but there are parallels. If you look at the work the Providence digital team has been doing (online scheduling, bot navigation, telehealth, online payments, digital Rx, etc.), it has been about empowering patients to engage Providence's healthcare services where, when and how they want. We want digital self-service to remove unnecessary friction so both the patient and clinician can focus on what we at Providence call the "Sacred Encounter" — the special clinical interaction between the patient and clinician. That "Sacred Encounter" is the deeply personal care experience between the patient and the clinician. Removing the friction/distraction empowers the patient and clinician and allows both parties to focus on what matters — the patient's care."