Planning for a Patient Experience in a COVID-19 Endemic World in 2022

Image by Here and Now from Pixabay,

Sooner or later, the COVID-10 pandemic will eventually move to the endemic phase. While COVID surges and new variants require continued vigilance and preventive measures, the impacts to the current patient experience are profound and lasting.

It is not too early to begin thinking and planning for an endemic patient experience in 2022. As hospitals develop their business and marketing plans for an endemic world, special attention needs to be paid to the patient experience.

Image by Alexandra Koch from Pixabay.

A changed “normal” healthcare experience is in place with patients choosing and accessing healthcare services in new ways. Change is never easy and sometimes unrecognizable. Providers now live in a world where the patient exercises far more control in the selection process of the healthcare services they choose, the method of access, and delivery.

Hospitals have had to engage more closely and meaningfully with patients, families, and the community. In many ways, a new engagement standard has been established that needs to carry over into the business and marketing efforts in an endemic world.

While we are still some ways away from an endemic, we are closer than further away. What I have seen in some marketing efforts in print and broadcast is portraying a world where the pandemic never occurred. It is almost pollyannaish to with images and brand messages of what the experience was when that is no longer possible today by just adding people wearing masks.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Since 2020, weeks have been spent communicating meaningfully and engaging on so many different levels; why would a hospital or health system squander those efforts?

There are over 147 touchpoints in the patient experience. All have been significantly impacted and changed. Failure to account for the new hospital experience in the hospital’s marketing as we advance will squander the goodwill of doctors and nurses that deliver care in the hospital seen as heroes.

Don’t go back to the marketing of 2019. Include the new “normal” patient experience for an endemic world in your marketing. To attract patients’, the provider must manage patient expectations by providing the reasons why patients should return to the provider after experiencing digital healthcare and community-based alternatives for convenient treatment options other than the big-box provider.

As successfully as you handled the experience and expectations of patients, families, and communities during the pandemic, planning starts now for the same level of engagement and experience management in an endemic world.

Michael is a healthcare business, marketing, communications strategist, and thought leader. As an internationally followed healthcare strategy blogger, his blog, Healthcare Business & Marketing Matters, is read in 52 countries and ranked No. 3 on 100 Top Healthcare Marketing Blogs & Websites to follow by Feedspot.com. Michael is a Life Fellow American College of Healthcare Executives.  For inquiries regarding strategic consulting engagements, you can email me at michael@themichaeljgroup.com. 

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Opinions expressed are my own.