It’s a well-known fact in the healthcare industry that patient expectations are higher than ever. Whether visiting a physical therapist, scheduling a telehealth appointment, or anything in between, today’s patients expect experiences that are personalized, convenient, and pleasant. While this places a lot of demand on healthcare providers, it also offers a lot of opportunity to build patient loyalty and stand out from the competition.
That said, improving patient experience starts with understanding the patient journey. With patient journey mapping, healthcare providers can control the patient experience from discovery to post-care follow-up and ensure that it is optimized at every touchpoint. In this article, we’ll go over how to map the patient journey and actionable patient engagement strategies you can use to make it one your patients won’t forget.
What Is the Patient Journey?
The patient journey is the start-to-finish experience that a patient has with a healthcare provider. It begins when they first start searching for a provider, and it doesn’t end until the patient’s relationship with the provider ends—which, if you’re good at creating excellent experiences for your patients, might be never.
Each journey is unique, but they tend to follow a series of stages:
- Awareness – The patient realizes they have a health concern.
- Consideration – They research options, compare providers, and seek referrals.
- Access – They schedule an appointment, fill out forms, or check insurance.
- Engagement – They receive care, speak with doctors, and undergo procedures.
- Follow-Up – They receive test results, post-care instructions, and ongoing communication.
- Loyalty or Drop-Off – Based on their experience, they either return or seek care elsewhere.
Understanding these stages is the first key to optimizing the patient experience at your practice.
Why Mapping the Patient Journey Matters
Patient journey mapping is more than just a marketing tactic; it’s a foundational strategy for improving health outcomes, boosting patient satisfaction, and staying competitive in a crowded healthcare market.
Mapping the patient journey helps healthcare providers boost patient satisfaction by eliminating friction and optimizing experiences at every touchpoint. In turn, patients who are satisfied with their experience are more likely to follow through with care plans, leading to improved outcomes and ultimately more positive reviews of your business online. Patient journey mapping also commonly helps practices improve operational efficiency by identifying bottlenecks like long wait times, excessive paperwork, or redundant communications. Last but not least, it creates the kind of loyalty that keeps patients coming back to your practice.
How to Map the Patient Journey
Creating a patient journey map requires a combination of empathy, data, and cross-functional collaboration. Here’s a step-by-step approach you can follow to get started:
Step 1: Define the Patient Persona
Mapping the patient journey starts with understanding who your patients are. For example, a young adult seeking mental health support is likely to have a very different journey than a senior managing a chronic condition.
It’s helpful to develop detailed personas for each patient segment you want to target. These personas should include details like:
- Demographics (age, gender, location)
- Health concerns
- Digital habits
- Insurance status
- Emotional triggers
- Expectations and preferences
By creating these personas before you begin mapping the patient journey, you can build journeys based on real needs and preferences rather than assumptions.
Step 2: Identify the Touchpoints
Touchpoints are simply the interactions that a patient has with your healthcare practice, and they can take several different forms. Touchpoints can be physical or human (such as in-person visits and conversations with your staff), or they can be digital (such as emails and social media interactions). In a patient journey, these touchpoints serve as stepping stones, and each one is an opportunity to improve patient experience.
When identifying touchpoints, be sure to consider every aspect of the patient journey and all the ways they might interact with your practice. From website searches to waiting room experiences, there are a lot of different touchpoints to consider.
Step 3: Map the Emotional Journey
The patient journey isn’t just defined by actions and interactions. On a much deeper level, it’s defined by how patients feel throughout the process. If you’re able to put yourself in the patient’s shoes and understand their emotions, you can create a journey that resonates with them on an emotional level.
Consider how the patient feels at each touchpoint. Are they anxious, hopeful, frustrated, or confused? These emotional insights help you design experiences that provide reassurance and clarity when it matters most.
Step 4: Gather and Analyze Data
Whenever possible, you should leverage real patient data to validate your assumptions. Taking a data-based approach to patient journey mapping will ensure that you are focusing on what actually matters to your patients and not just what you think matters.
Sources of patient data that are valuable for patient journey mapping include:
- Patient satisfaction surveys
- Online reviews
- Appointment and billing data
- Call center transcripts
- EHR analytics
- Net Promoter Scores (NPS)
These sources can provide a lot of key insights into what’s working well and what isn’t. For instance, frequent complaints about phone wait times might suggest an opportunity for online self-scheduling.
Step 5: Visualize the Journey
Use a journey map template or digital tool to create a visual representation. Each stage should include:
- Touchpoints
- Pain points
- Patient goals
- Emotions
- Opportunities for improvement
These visual aids will help you better understand what the patient journey looks like. They also make it easier to share findings across teams.
Patient Engagement Strategies for Optimizing the Patient Journey
Once you’ve mapped the journey, it’s time to act. Here are some key strategies for creating more impactful patient experiences based on your findings:
1. Simplify Access to Care
At every phase of the patient journey, it’s important to ensure that you make the experience as simple and convenient as possible. By simplifying access to care, you can both improve the patient’s experience and make it more likely that they follow through with scheduling and attending their appointments.
Opportunities to streamline the patient journey can come in a lot of forms. Strategies like online booking, mobile-friendly forms, and telehealth options are just a few ways healthcare practices can drastically reduce frustration and help you make a better first impression with new patients.
2. Improve Communication Across Channels
From phone calls to texts to in-person visits, patients use many different channels to communicate with providers. To create a positive patient journey, consistency and clarity across all these channels are key. You need to make sure that you are not only providing the same information across all communication channels but also communicating it clearly and consistently.
For example, appointment reminders should align with the time and date provided on your website or patient portal, and any changes to scheduling or procedures should be communicated promptly in plain language. It’s also important to offer multiple formats for follow-up care instructions, such as digital summaries, printed take-home packets, or videos embedded in the patient portal. These materials should reinforce key messages and make it easy for patients to remember the next steps. Clear, well-timed communication will ease anxiety and help patients stay on track with their care plan.
3. Personalize the Experience
Patients don’t want to feel like a number; they want to feel known and cared for. Personalization goes a long way in achieving this. Even small efforts, like greeting patients by name or referencing a previous visit, can build trust and make for a more welcoming environment.
When providers work to personalize the patient experience, patients feel seen and heard. Personalization is not just about marketing—it’s about building a human connection in a system that can often feel impersonal.
4. Empower Patients Through Technology
Today, the patient journey is increasingly taking place beyond the walls of a clinic or hospital. To support your patients when they aren’t in your office, it’s important to embrace digital tools. Patient portals that allow access to lab results, tools for secure messaging with providers, and appointment scheduling tools are an essential foundation. When paired with tools like mobile apps that offer medication reminders, health tracking, and educational content, they can significantly enhance patient engagement.
Enhance the Patient Journey With Surefire Local
Mapping the patient journey and striving to optimize their experience at every touchpoint is something that offers substantial benefits to healthcare providers. It helps build customer trust and loyalty, reduces friction and operational inefficiency, improves care outcomes, and more.
If you would like to create a patient journey that is streamlined, personalized, and consistent, tools such as Surefire Local’s all-in-one marketing platform can help. With Surefire Local, you can manage every online touchpoint—from email to SMS to social media—using a single user-friendly platform.
Ready to get started enhancing your practice’s patient journey with Surefire Local? Sign up for a free demo today!