Unlocking the Potential of Patient Journey Mapping: Empowering Care Teams

Also: Avoid These Mistakes and Drive Patient-Centric Change Successfully

Undertaking a Patient Journey Mapping exercise is a great way to orient your health or wellness business around the patient experience. It takes time and resources to execute properly, but considering the measurable benefits to patient outcomes and your commercial/ organisational objectives like patient retention, it’s no wonder more organisations are using Patient Journey Maps. From my leadership experience driving customer centricity, I’ve seen firsthand how it also empowers teams, as well as typical mistakes that limit the effectiveness of the journey mapping exercise.

Patient Journey Mapping can be transformational for healthcare teams, not just patients

In fact, you can address employee morale using Patient Journey Mapping as part of a change management exercise with your team, as it:

Reinforces the impact each team member has on the patient’s sentiment and health outcomes, increasing ownership and empathy
Aligns the team around the mission of patient outcomes and your organisation’s stated values
Challenges old ways of thinking about the patient by introducing a new perspective—patient sentiment
Ties small actions to measurable results to demonstrate each team members’ contribution to the organisational objectives
Increases employee engagement by democratising input to the patient care journey

Before embarking on a Patient Journey Mapping exercise, however, here are the common mistakes to avoid if you want to produce results both for your patients and your organisation.

Top 7 mistakes even well-intentioned organisations may make

Starting with no defined problem or objective. Patient journey mapping as a box-ticking exercise wastes precious resources. Identify what problem you need to solve—is it commercial, organisational, patient outcomes related? How will a patient centric journey resolve those problems—is it the model you need? Investing time at the outset to define what metrics define success and setting goals you can quantify will keep you on track. Set a North Star in terms of what you’re measuring and want to improve.
Putting anything other than patient sentiment at the center of the Patient Journey Map. Sentiment is key to influencing a patient’s engagement, not necessarily how long the clinic wait time is. Building a process map around KPIs is not patient journey mapping. What matters is how each touchpoint or experience impacts the patients sentiment. Managing the patient’s sentiment increases patient engagement: loyalty and referrals, contributing to decisions about their care, and actively participating in their own care. Focusing on organisational KPIs will result in a Patient Journey Map that is organisation-centric.
Not involving everyone who plays a role in the patient journey. From the patient’s perspective (which is the one we’re interested in) everyone they engage with during their healthcare journey is a touchpoint—no matter the department or job title. The receptionist at a clinic and a nutritionist may have a role in the patient journey, just as a doctor does. Patient experience is not limited to a job title. Soliciting input from all staff who are in direct contact with patients (and indirect in some cases) increases ownership and buy-in to the implementation.
Assuming all your patients have similar desired outcomes. Defining your problem includes understanding your patient personas (and sometimes, caregivers). Patient sentiment is determined by what they value—an elderly patient with no work commitments may not be bothered by frequent clinic visits (in fact they sometimes prefer it) but their caregivers may be time constrained, for example. What are your personas, what do they value and how do you orient your delivery around solving their problems.
Assuming you already know what matters to your patients. While we can assume that everyone wants to be healthy, engaging patients to take action to improve their health requires an understanding of what matters to them. As patients’ expectations and availability of healthcare choices increase, organisations that solve patients’ problems will have a competitive advantage.
Not validating your touch points with patients. Those who deliver a service are naturally biased when estimating how effective touch points are along the patient’s journey. A patient-centric organisation will validate the journey with patients, conducting spot surveys around specific touch points, interviewing patients, using “secret shopper” techniques, all to collect direct feedback to gain understanding of their experiences and emotional responses.
The Patient Journey Map is part of your change management program, not the end in itself. There is nothing more frustrating than investing time in a patient journey map that sits on a shelf, as its value lies in its application and implementation. It should serve as a guiding tool for organisational transformation, pointing to the improvements that will have the biggest impact on patient sentiment and engagement. This is easier if you’ve created a sense of ownership of the journey map by co-creating it with the healthcare staff.

Done well, Patient Journey Mapping is not only a tool to drive patient-centric change but the experience can be positive for the team

Change in any organisation is difficult but necessary if lack of patient engagement is impacting your business. For healthcare organisations whose employees are suffering from burnout, any change has to have worthwhile outcomes for the employees themselves. Patient centricity is a holistic effort to solve patient problems and engage patients to participate in their own care—and empowered care teams empower patients.

If you’re curious about Patient Journey Mapping, please book an exploratory call. After nearly 2 decades in strategy consulting and leading customer centric teams that add measurable value, I created Patient Success Strategies to help health and wellness organisations make profitable patient-centred care a reality.

Erika Behl

Founder | Principal

erika.behl@patientsuccessstrategies.com