Service industries like consulting, hospitality, restaurants or the local car mechanic, are judged on experience. Healthcare folks would like to think that it’s all about outcomes but no one would argue that experience is just as important. And most healthcare experiences suck from a patient’s point of view.
Docent Health caught my attention last year in July when they raised a healthy $15M Series A round from big names like NEA and BVP. Their ‘Docent Program’ is an intriguing service approach, to say the least. They offer docents -people who are familiar with the healthcare system, like ex-nurses- to act as a liaison between the patient and caregivers. These virtual and/or onsite docents integrate with the clinical staff to act as a representative of the patient’s anxieties and preferences.
Fair enough. Can’t argue with the benefits of having a personal concierge throughout hospital journey. Building a personal relationship with the patient allows the hospital to create a better brand impression. That kind of word-of-mouth marketing is priceless and spreads fast. Additionally, the learning from one patient’s preferences may be transferable to the next, creating a patient experience-related ‘best practices knowledge base’ that has never existed in traditional health organizations.
But it’s not a panacea. Revitalizing service experience shouldn’t necessarily be about adding more humans into the mix or creating one more layer of touch points. I understand that the current environment doesn’t allow clinicians to have the ideal 1-on-1 time with patients, but adding a new resource into the mix increases the human interfaces through which information has to travel. A new team member gets added to the physician/nursing rounds and the incumbent care team may not like dealing with someone else on their turf. The overall cost goes up too, since someone is ultimately paying for the added cost of docents. Needless to say this added cost will ultimately be handed-off the patient.
If healthcare service experience sucks, the solution should be to fix the fundamental issues (for example overworked caregivers and unhelpful EHRs). It’s the same argument I make against scribe services: fix the EHR user interfaces rather than adding another minion to the mix.
Criticize someone else’s solution is like shooting fish in a barrel. I realize that the current system is straining while waiting for salvation. Docents may be a good-but-temporary fix but tech-enabled services are here to stay. Omada, Livongo, Virta are good examples of how this trend can transform condition-specific care experience and outcomes.