Renew

The Experience Matters to Us

by Heather Jose

Wouldn’t you love to have a good experience every time you went to a healthcare provider? I’m not saying that you would get good news, or that the cancer that you are dealing with will have vanished. I mean that you would not walk away feeling like you fought a war.

We live in an experience economy. What does that mean? It means that simply providing a service is not enough anymore. It also means that we care not only about what we are getting, but how we feel as we go through the process and what we remember after we leave. Think about a cup of coffee. The fact that a single cup of coffee can vary in price by $5.00 or more depending on where you go exemplifies this. There is a difference in your experience. Having it prepared by a barista in a coffee shop evokes a different experience than pouring your own coffee into a Styrofoam cup at a gas station. The coffee could be identical, but it would feel different. The experience matters to us.

It is way past time to take the experience economy into all of healthcare. As someone who has been navigating the hallways of cancer centers and the hospitals they are affiliated with for 13 years I am a professional patient. I know the ropes, believe me. I see and experience many things that would be different if we looked at the entire system from a patient perspective. I have enough experience with credentialing processes to know that being named a ‘Top 100’ in some poll does not mean that the patient will leave feeling as though their needs were met. But that is what is needed. Sending a patient home feeling empowered to take an active role in their care matters. This happens when ...more

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