Consumer Engagement Investment: Go By The Numbers

By Monica E. Oss, Chief Executive Officer, OPEN MINDS

Consumer engagement is top of mind for both health plan and provider organization executives—particularly engagement of consumers with complex needs. In a recent survey, behavioral health provider organization executives rated consumer engagement as their top challenge. The reasons are straightforward—more consumer engagement drives use of services and less consumer engagement often translates into lower use of regular services or inappropriate use of expensive services.

We had a lively discussion on the key technologies and tools reshaping consumer engagement during our recent webinar, Leveraging Technology For Engagement: 4 Key Features Consumers Look For In A Provider, led by my colleagues and OPEN MINDS Senior Associates, Joe Naughton-Travers and Katherine Egan Bennett. They outlined four tech-enabled functions that consumers are looking for in the provider organizations delivering their services.

The first functionality is virtual and hybrid service delivery capability—to deliver services in the clinic, home, or virtually, based on consumer preference and convenience, as well as treatment efficacy. Increasingly this capability includes more than a telehealth platform and looks at less rigid service definitions. The suite of hybrid services includes short electronic cognitive behavioral therapy sessions; remote patient monitoring tools; asynchronous digital care and supports; and tools for consumer education, communication, and symptom tracking. A second key functionality is mobile capabilities to serve consumers from any location outside of traditional clinic settings. This involves the ability to access electronic health records offline (when there is no Internet connectivity) and the ability to record services provided and complete real-time documentation that can be synced and uploaded to the central system when wifi is available. Increasingly, messaging tools—for automated appointment reminders, secure communication between consumers and clinical professionals, and automated health check-ins and reminders are becoming the norm, with digital health companies pointing the way. And finally, there is the need for a robust health portal through which consumers (and designated family members and caregivers) can easily access consumer electronic health records, monitor and take ownership of their health data, and better engage in treatment planning and care regimens.

The question for most executive teams is two-fold. First, if you have these tech tools, are they optimized to deliver a consumer interface that improves engagement? Second, if your organization’s current tech suite doesn’t support this functionality, should you move these tools to the top of your tech acquisition list? How to answer that question? It’s all in the numbers—the organizational performance numbers. Like all technology investments, investment in consumer engagement technologies should be driven by your strategic plan and your strategic plan should be driven by your performance metrics—in particular how you compare to competitors in meeting what customers want.

So what are the metrics that measure your organization’s consumer engagement IQ? I would recommend using these:

• Speed of setting appointments upon consumer request
• Proportion of appointments delivered in the setting requested by consumer—telehealth, in clinic, in home, etc.
• Wait times to appointments—days from appointment request to appointment date
• Response time to consumer questions and general inquiries
• Follow-up time after emergency room use or hospitalization
• No-show rates
• Medication adherence rates and requests for prescription refills
• Percentage of consumers with no contact for six months or more
• Consumers approving communication via text and email (providing their cell phone numbers and/or email addresses)
• Online presence—scores on rating sites, negative comments on social media
• Net promoter score

These metrics fall in three categories. The first group is how your administrative and clinical processes are set up to respond to consumers. How soon after the first call can you offer an appointment and are you able to offer easy scheduling—with a single call (and quick callbacks for messages) or 24/7 online scheduling? And in the post-pandemic next normal, are workflows set up to allow consumers to indicate where they want care and to deliver services in those preferred settings? Increasing consumer engagement is also a function of behavior monitoring, communication, and proactive outreach by the provider organization. The speed of responses from a clinical professional when consumers have questions is a key performance indicator for engagement. Gaps in follow-up visits after emergency room use or hospitalization are another indicator that could potentially be addressed by offering in-home or virtual visits.

The second group is consumer actions that are a gauge of their perceived level of engagement with your organization and your team. Do they show up for appointments and if not, was there follow-up to determine why? Medication adherence rates and the percentage of consumers calling for prescription refills are also important engagement indicators to monitor. The key tenet is whether consumer preferences for how they wish to receive communications (text, email, phone calls) are being recorded and whether your organization has the tools and workflows to meet those preferences.

The last two metrics—online presence and net promoter score—reflect consumers’ view of their engagement and experience with your organization. Surveys administered after each care interaction to determine how likely consumers are to recommend your organization to a friend or colleague can yield the all-important “net promoter score.” If consumers are rating your organization or posting reviews (especially with negative comments) on Google Reviews, Healthgrades, Vitals, RateMDs, and any number of online channels, you need to be monitoring those comments to see where consumer pain points are and how technology can help to provide a better experience. Your organization’s performance on these consumer-facing metrics will give you a measure of the relative priority of investing in, optimizing, or acquiring consumer engagement functionality. Of course, whether your organization should invest in tech supports in this area is more than just a question of need. Looking at the costs—and calculating the ROI—of each tech tool are the next steps in that process. But, what we do know is that in a market landscape that has increasing competition for consumers and for health plan contracts, consumer engagement will be a key part of the solution.