Why Treating Patients As Consumers Can Improve The Healthcare Experience

The healthcare industry is the fifth biggest in the United States, contributing more than $1.2 trillion to the Gross Domestic Product. But according to the Siegal+Gale Global Simplicity Index, healthcare ranks dead last out of 25 industries in the United States for simplicity of experience. Whether it's interminable wait times, never-ending stacks of paper forms to complete, confounding language, or overly complex insurance plans, the healthcare industry has become one that U.S. consumers love to hate.

As customer experience continues to evolve as the last true competitive differentiator in most industries, it stands to reason that the experience must improve in healthcare in order for the existing players to survive.

In the first of a three-part series, I interview Geeta Wilson, the founder and CEO of Consumer Society, an early-stage tech and experience design company building an enterprise experience management technology platform to connect all of the major industry players – insurance companies, healthcare professionals and consumers. The discussion centers around the idea to change the industry's nomenclature from "patients" to "consumers" and why that is critical to improving the overall healthcare experience. Part 2 will look at the digital health consumer, and part 3 will examine the aging population and the resulting changes in demand for a healthcare experience.

The full Forbes article can be viewed at this link.