In the age of consumerism, chronic disease, and technological innovation, the future of patient-centered healthcare will be very different from todays experience. That is a good thing.

Healthcare is a service. Transformative methodologies deployed for decades in other service industries will be adopted, albeit evolved, into healthcare. And by far, the foremost service trend across all sectors is heightened personalization and greater choice expressions of brand empathy with the customer.

The future of healthcare lies in authentic empathy for the individual patient healthcares ultimate customer and cultivating long-term relationships with brands based on trust and value.

CustomerAt the recent HLTH conference in Las Vegas, there appeared to be some confusion around identifying healthcares ultimate customer. Speakers intermixed consumer and patient throughout their talks. It raises a question, How about person? A talented patient engagement leader exclaimed, Our patients are just like the real people in the community. News flash: They are the real people in the community.

This muddling reflects the perceptual difficulty healthcare faces as it tries to adapt to a modern continuous engagement model. The old idea that patients are event-driven phenomena requiring treatment at a hospital on the hill is fine for acute illness and injury. But it does not work for conditions that individuals live with continuously. Todays most pressing health issues overwhelmingly skew toward chronic disease prevention and management which requires a much more cooperative and participatory care and service paradigm. You probably will not need to see an endocrinologist at a big medical center tomorrow if you join your neighborhood diabetes prevention program (DPP) today: People require both kinds of healthcare delivery and they need to be treated as people just like any other industry selling services.

BrandThe future face of healthcare also requires contemplating brand and its role in service delivery. The incentive structures, technologies, and care requirements of our system traditionally encourage shining temples of exemplary care where glitzy dcor, classical statuary, and a hotel-like experience convince you where you should have your surgery.

Beyond the fanciest building approach to drawing customers, health systems have not contemplated the lifetime value of the people they engage preferring, more typically, a distinctly transactional outlook. Our engagement and evaluation tools reflect this, and few large systems have an engagement plan that matches the shine of their new hospital building.

On the other end of the spectrum, a company like BMW can tell you the long-term value of all its customers. This Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is a measure that drives the automakers decision-making around marketing, sales, product development, service, and more. The underlying logic is to get you started with a 3 Series, upgrade you to a 5 Series, and ultimately shepherd you into an MClass, SUV, or 7 Series. BMWs goal is to be your preferred car provider through all the stages of your driving life.

Conceptually, CLV traces back to the late 80s, when marketing had a revolution in data-driven analytical approaches to better business insight. The work helped justify spending early to forge a customer relationship and fostering profit growth over time. CLV heuristics are obviously rooted in general business sentiment the idea that its good to keep a customer is not new. Yet advancement in data-based spending and profitability models supporting long-range customer engagement strategy has transformed our entire retail experience and most service segments. And it should transform future healthcare delivery as well.

This model has further matured as companies like Amazon and Google articulate the value of investing to perpetuate customer loyalty acceptable losses today incurred as a pathway to steady profits tomorrow. At the core of this analytic mindset is a very simple concept: empathy.

EmpathyIn some respects, you cannot find a more empathetic profession than healthcare. But healthcare is also a business that needs to change with the times. If you build it, they will come, is not a strategy for a healthier population or a healthy healthcare system. The goal should be to cultivate deep empathy with the core customer, delight where possible, support consistently, and always to help in the most appropriate way. Thats how todays service-based businesses succeed.

Understanding the evolving marketplace for health and care means also understanding:

The traditional consolidation that has driven large system creation does not adequately address the current needs of the market. We still require hospitals and state-of-the-art acute care facilities, but a fast-changing world is cause for expanded patient/customer empathy. Take, for instance, stroke care: Funds deployed on having two, stroke centers in close proximity could be reallocated toward a single full-service center and increased localized engagement with potential stroke victims on blood pressure management, adherence to blood-thinning treatment, or caregiver and extended family education to ensure more timely response to a stroke. Thinking about less hospital-centric and more everyday-life-inclusive care models that orient around the individual to keep that person healthy and ensure they are getting the help they most need in each moment and that they feel they are being well-served is incumbent upon the future brands and businesses of healthcare.

Doctors, too, will have to evolve how they think about their interactions. But if they lead this charge in new collaborations, they can ensure practice follows a scientific and meaningfully appropriate methodology. Consider this: How many people are asked by their doctor what their top three health goals are? Or what they really hope to get out of consuming healthcare? Have you ever been asked how the system can best help you? For me, I hope to feel as well as I did last year, be able to pick up my kids, exercise with and explore the world with my family. I also want help in doing that. This has nothing to do with a diagnosis list, but it has everything to do with healthcare. It means managing expectations in the face of a very complex service. It means using technology to engage me in thoughtful and empathetic ways. It doesnt have me sitting in waiting rooms unless absolutely necessary. It instills a sense of trust that support is there, helping me live my best life and keeping me well. Thats the future of healthcare.

Photo: kieferpix, Getty Images

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Healthcare: In service of the people - MedCity News