COVID-19
Consumer Survey Finds Attitude, Accessibility are Just as Critical as Safety During Pandemic
Safety is a chief concern for hospital strategists as they have navigated the pandemic’s recovery phase, but a recent survey shows consumers are just as worried about other priorities as they consider resuming regular care.
“Attitude” and access also ranked high, according to a recent nationwide survey of more than 500 health care consumers, conducted by Klein & Partners. Asked for the top factors that would influence them to switch doctors today, “another provider can get me in faster” and difficulty rescheduling a canceled appointment landed in the top two spots. “My current provider lacks empathy” ranked third.
“We’re all focused on safety but what we’re finding is it’s also about attitude and access. That has to be your mantra — Empathic Access,” said Rob Klein, founder and CEO of the Illinois-based consulting firm that conducted the survey. “Safety, I’m noticing, is starting to come back to a table stake, where they’ve always expected it before coronavirus; they’re concerned about it now, yes, and they want to know what we’re doing to keep them safe. But it’s also about attitude and access and how we’re treating them as they return for care.”
Yes, patients want social distancing in the waiting room, providers wearing masks and gloves, and coronavirus patients treated in a separate area — the top three safety concerns, the survey found. They also crave financial remedies such as lower copays or waived deductibles, along with expanded access through virtual visits and extended hours, Klein noted.
Patients have seen how quickly providers can innovate when faced with a crisis, and they’ll expect such creativity to continue as the U.S. navigates through subsequent phases of the pandemic. “You are heroes now. Build off of that,” Klein advises providers.
“What we do now will be remembered. How we treat patients in this time of crisis is going to either help our brands come out of this, or put us behind,” noted Klein. “Consumers are looking to hospitals, health systems and physician practices for solutions because we have proven to the country that we can innovate quickly and put bureaucracy and siloes behind us. We’ve created our own new normal.”
Mental Health Critical
Beyond delayed routine health screenings and putting off necessary care and procedures, mental health is another growing concern, Klein noted. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released in August, found that 40 percent of U.S. adults were struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues, with almost 11 percent seriously contemplating suicide.
He believes the two major concerns for providers are figuring out their virtual care strategy for the balance of 2020 and addressing the mental health crisis. Klein is seeing the number of patients seeking such care go “through the roof” and implored planners to devise a “strong mental health strategy, because it’s so important to care for the whole person.”
Rush University System for Health, like most, has embraced online care to begin treating these concerns. As the pandemic took hold, the Chicago-based hospital system moved all of its psychiatry and behavioral health services into the virtual space. By May, its mental health care volume had climbed to 90 percent of the pre-pandemic baseline, said Deval Daily, chief administrative officer for neuro and heart service lines.
They see themselves as national leaders in this realm, through offerings such as the Road Home Program, which provides mental health care and wellness services to veterans of all walks of life. That includes a video visit component originally created to reach homebound or rural veterans with counseling over the web. Given the high level of success up to this point, Daily said they’re now exploring ways to expand the program nationwide. “We know those patients tend to do well with virtual options,” she said.
Rush has worked its way through a slow and phased reopening, only relaunching a portion of its 85 clinics at a time. All the while, they’ve continued to remain “highly virtual” during the entire pandemic. Phone and video visits accounted for upward of 80 percent of the academic system’s total volume during some points of the crisis, and they have remained at least 70 percent above baseline for months.
As they gradually build toward a “safe” reopen, Daily said they are adding tools for virtual visits to lessen the number of patients who need to make in-person visits. For instance, she said they’re working with several vendors on different solutions for continuous, in-home monitoring of heart failure and general cardiology patients in the coming months.
Like many others in the field, Rush experienced a steep drop in stroke and heart attack visits during the peak of the pandemic. The hospital system is now deploying a multi-pronged approach to reach its customer base through direct and electronic mail, websites, social media and video campaigns to convey that it’s safe to return to the hospital for care. They’ve featured providers in the messaging, hoping to reeducate the public on signs and symptoms of life-threatening health problems that require immediate treatment.
“What we found in that eight-week period when everything was on lockdown was people were coming in very sick with much more progressed illnesses than we were used to seeing because they were scared and were putting off going to the hospital,” Daily said. “So, we’re really trying to get that message out there and say that hospitals are one of the safest and cleanest places right now because we’re tremendous precautions to keep them that way. Our marketing and communications team has been huge in helping us take our strategy and communicate it to the masses.”
This article features interviews with:
Rob Klein
Founder and CEO
Klein & Partners
Chicago
Deval Daily
Chief Administrative Officer, Neuro and Heart Service Lines
Rush University System for Health
Chicago
Image credits: istockphoto.com/PeopleImages | istockphoto.com/YakobchukOlena
