How to Create a Seamless Patient Experience with Tech

The average churn rate exceeds the average growth rate in U.S. hospitals by 3%. Patients may leave for a variety of reasons – some beyond control of the health system, such as changing residency or insurance coverage. What IS in the health system’s control is the patient experience. But that's difficult to improve when the delivery of care is fragmented and inefficient. Here are some primary examples of missed opportunities: • Diagnosis: 1 in 18 ED patients receive an incorrect diagnosis [1] • Referral: 22% of patients were referred out-of-network by physicians [2] • Follow-up: Less than 40% of recommendations for additional imaging are completed [3] Despite health systems throwing more people at many of its core challenges, the struggles persist. The answer to really becoming more efficient is AI technology, which can assist with helping reduce churn at three different points of the patient’s journey: Patient capture: Flagging and triaging cases for clinicians to review to ensure patients don’t fall through the cracks and suffer preventable medical harm. Care coordination: Driving digital collaboration between clinical stakeholders on each patient identified as being in need of care, simplifying communication and access to clinically relevant data. Follow-up: Identifying follow-up recommendations in records and alerting clinicians to them to ensure patients are reached out for critical follow-up imaging in an orderly fashion. However, there is the potential for AI to miss the mark in these areas if it’s deployed in a fragmented, disconnected and disparate fashion. If anything, improper deployment can exacerbate the fragmentation problem and uphold the clinical service line silos that already exist. What’s needed is a holistic approach, across the patient journey, where the patient is managed from entry through to the operating table and post. This is where a platform has become the only real viable technical option for AI to drive better patient care with maximum efficiency. By deploying AI holistically, in an inter-woven fashion, clinical care teams can improve the patient experience with the following examples: Improved disease awareness: A PE response team at Yale New Haven Health found that AI could help clinicians identify 72% more patients in need of vascular care consultations that were initially overlooked. [4] Reduced time to treatment: A radiology team at UT Southwestern found using AI could help reduce prescription retrieval time for patients with incidentally-found pulmonary emboli from 38.6 hours to 2.2 hours. [5] Reduced patient hospital length of stay: Clinicians at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center found AI in radiology workflows could reduce length of stay for patients with intracranial hemorrhages (ICH) and pulmonary emboli (PE) by 31 hours and 50 hours, respectively. [6] Reduced readmissions: An average 33% reduction in readmissions observed across 13 hospitals who were using AI for ICH and PE patients. [7]

Medication adherence continues to be a significant challenge – nearly 50% of patients don’t take their medications as prescribed [1]. Why is this happening? One contributing factor is digital friction points. We know this because when digital engagement is done right, patients are 2x more likely to seek prompt care and 3x less likely to face unmet medical needs [2]. Pharma’s response? More websites and apps to “help” patients” start and stay on treatment. For a single medication, we counted 𝟭𝟮 (!) 𝗱𝗶𝗴𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗼𝘂𝗰𝗵𝗽𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘁𝘀. Overwhelming? Absolutely. Especially when studies show: • The 30-day retention rate for health apps is only 4% [3]. • Online patient support programs fare no better, with only 3% of patients enrolling in these programs [4]. • Most patients either do not know about the programs or find them mediocre at best when it comes to patient experience [5]. Patients don’t need more apps. They need simpler, centralized solutions that naturally integrate into systems they already use. Here’s what that can look like in practice: → Integrate with systems and devices that patients already use: Voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, native iOS and Android calendar and task list integrations, text messaging, and wearables like smartwatches to offer discreet reminders. → Utilize AI-powered personalization and symptom trackers to recognize patterns, predict trends, and provide proactive, individualized care → Consolidate all patient programs into one: access and affordability, companion/guide support, administration training, treatment center locators, advocacy group connectors, transportation, recycling, etc. Have one place to go to get all these services. → Don’t collect repetitive information, require extra app downloads, or repetitive logins. Provide value and service without requiring registration when possible. When asking for a registration, clarify how the information will be used and the value the patient will receive in return. → Ensure great UX that makes interactions seamless, intuitive, embedded into patients’ lives, and doesn’t require extra time or effort. The future of medication adherence lies in a combination of AI and great UX: • AI unlocks the incredible potential for personalized, proactive care. • Great UX promotes access and adherence to such care. Pharma companies that invest in AI and UX will shape the future of medication adherence. They’ll also make an even more important investment: Improving health outcomes.

Patients navigate multiple portals with separate credentials for each provider, payer, and service. Administrative staff spend countless hours reconciling patient records across disconnected systems. Fraud persists because verification remains inconsistent and vulnerable. These inefficiencies compound exponentially across millions of patient interactions annually. CLEAR's existing platform demonstrates how federated identity eliminates these systemic frictions. When patients establish identity once through IAL2-compliant verification and access services seamlessly across the healthcare ecosystem, we address multiple failure points simultaneously. This approach reduces administrative overhead, strengthens security protocols, and transforms the patient experience from an obstacle course to intuitive healthcare navigation. The technology exists to make this operational today; what we witness now is the policy alignment necessary to implement it systematically across Medicare and beyond. #HealthcarePolicy #DigitalTransformation #PatientExperience #HealthIT #MedicareInnovation