Modern patients are more aware of their roles as healthcare consumers and know they have options in terms of providers and treatments. As such, today’s patients are empowered to take the reins of their healthcare journeys and have expectations about their care experience. Instead of traditional methods of finding providers like referrals and word of mouth, most healthcare journeys now start with a search engine.
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In fact, 77% of people use search engines when searching for healthcare providers before picking up the phone. And for patients who booked appointments, digital content and presence are keys to decision-making. Healthcare groups must focus on providing exemplary digital experiences to attract these tech-savvy patients.
As Adrienne Woods, Vice President of Digital Engagement at Hackensack Meridian Health, said during Scaling Up:
“We need to understand our patients—how they want to engage with us and what they expect from their healthcare experience.”
This means healthcare organizations must go beyond simply being available—they need to anticipate patient needs, create seamless digital experiences, and meet patients where they are. To meet and exceed the expectations of modern patients, healthcare organizations must understand the importance of the patient journey. Below, I discuss the definition, importance, the ways in which the patient journey can help you grow your practice.
What is the Patient Journey?
The patient journey is the term used to refer to an individual’s experience throughout a care delivery episode. From scheduling their first appointment to receiving treatment for an illness or injury, the journey describes a series of related events that consumers experience within a healthcare system or across providers.
The patient journey is a process that encompasses all parts of the healthcare system–from hospitals to doctors, specialty care, and outpatient treatment.
While it’s tempting to simplify the patient journey as the before, during, and after the care experience, various stages or touchpoints affect the overall journey. And with the renewed focus on the patient experience due to the rapid shift to value-based care and consumerization, understanding the patient became essential for providers.
Every healthcare system should encourage patient engagement, but not every marketer knows that the path to engagement can change depending on the patient’s healthcare needs, motivations, and challenges. Although patient engagement happens during a single encounter or touchpoint, it doesn’t mean you should only focus your engagement efforts on that encounter alone.
Instead, healthcare groups should develop engagement strategies that cover every step of the healthcare journey. This means having a sound digital marketing plan covering everything from early education and awareness stages to physician interaction and post-hospitalization care.
What Are The Stages of the Patient Journey?
Before you can map the patient journey, you must know about its many stages, including:
Before Symptoms: Building Awareness and Trust
Before a patient even recognizes a need for care, their relationship with your brand begins. This early stage isn’t about symptoms; it’s about establishing trust and becoming a resource people rely on when the time comes. In competitive markets, especially those involving high-acuity care, creating strong brand recognition and familiarity lays the foundation for future engagement.
Establishing Connection Without Immediate Needs
Consider major life events like pregnancy and childbirth. Long before a woman plans to have a baby, providers and healthcare systems that provide resources, support, and educational content can become the go-to choice. Whether it is through online prenatal classes, nutritional advice, or parenting guides, the goal is to build an early and lasting connection.
Similarly, high-stakes specialties like oncology and cardiology attract patients seeking the very best care. Patients often turn to health systems they already know and trust. Proactively positioning your organization as an authority in these areas through patient stories, expert-led seminars, or health advocacy initiatives can make all the difference when these patients start their search.
Educating the Unaware
Another critical aspect of this stage is reaching individuals who don’t yet realize they have a problem or that their symptoms can be treated. This is where awareness campaigns and consumer education play pivotal roles. By addressing overlooked issues like mental health conditions (ADHD, anxiety, depression) or chronic pain, your practice can encourage patients to seek care sooner.
For example, an individual struggling with persistent joint pain might not realize physical therapy could offer relief. Or someone scrolling through social media might come across mental health content that resonates with their experience, prompting them to take action. Sharing accessible, relevant, and engaging information positions your brand as both approachable and knowledgeable.
At this stage, the aim is to deliver value through education and visibility. Whether it is blog posts about overlooked health topics, interactive social media campaigns, or community outreach, your organization can establish itself as a trusted partner in people’s healthcare journeys long before they schedule their first appointment.
Stage 1: Awareness
Awareness is the first step in the patient’s process of seeking care. At this stage, individuals begin to recognize symptoms or conditions and start researching to understand their issue and possible options for care. They are focused on self-education rather than provider selection.
Patients in this phase typically explore the following resources:
- Online searches (e.g., Google, health blogs, forums)
- Social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok)
- Reddit and other digital communities
This stage is a critical opportunity to connect with potential patients by providing high-quality, educational, and SEO-friendly content that addresses their questions and concerns. Optimizing your digital presence ensures your practice becomes a trusted source of information early in their search.
Your practice must have a robust online presence to reach patients in the awareness stage. This is where high-quality, valuable, and SEO-friendly content will come in handy for engaging potential patients. In addition, ensure you have optimized your Google Business Profile or GBP listing, as it plays a crucial role in patients choosing your practice. In particular, ensure your online reputation is on point because 94% of patients use online reviews when deciding on healthcare providers.
Stage 2: Consideration
At this stage, the patient analyzes their options and decides if their healthcare fits their current needs. Some of the primary factors patients take into consideration when choosing healthcare providers include:
- Referrals and recommendations
- Location
- Accepted insurance, coverage, and perks
- Accessibility
- Patient reviews and testimonials
Patients will likely go to your website and/or social media channels for the consideration phase. One of the main challenges that patients face at this stage is the inability or difficulty to reach or interact with the provider. If that happens with your brand, there’s a good chance they’ll go to your competition instead.
At this point, crafting patient personas will help you determine the preferred method of communication for your ideal audience. Email marketing, targeted ad campaigns, and AI chatbots are excellent strategies for making it easy for patients to choose your brand.
Stage 3: Acquisition
At the acquisition stage, the patient has decided to set an appointment with your healthcare facility. This stage involves direct patient contact, where individuals will interact with your practice via phone calls, patient portals, social media accounts, emails, and SMS.
The acquisition stage typically involves the patient’s first appointment with your clinic or health center, aka a preliminary check-up. This interaction can be an in-person visit or a telehealth consultation which took off during and after the pandemic.
In the acquisition, some challenges that patients may face include:
- Unable to quickly find appointment links or booking portals
- Limited communication surrounding their appointment
- Lengthy wait times result in poor patient satisfaction
- Dealing with extensive paperwork before meeting a healthcare practitioner
At this stage, healthcare providers who want to facilitate patient acquisition should consider digital solutions like patient scheduling software such as NexHealth and Solutionreach. These programs can provide benefits like automated appointment bookings and minimizing the chance of no-shows.
Stage 4: Care Delivery
The care delivery stage is where your healthcare team shines–basically, where medical care is provided to patients. This journey stage is where the bulk of traditional patient satisfaction is evaluated. This step includes the standard care provisions, including medical consultations, regular check-ups, management and treatment, payment, and registration and discharge.
After choosing your practice, the patient will shift their focus from your online presence and reputation to quality of care. At this point, your main challenges are administering appropriate medicine and treatment and living up to the patient’s expectations. As such, the quality of your service will be evaluated. In general, patients will base their opinion and feedback on personal experience.
At this stage, there are various tools you can use to ensure the highest patient satisfaction, such as:
- A billing or patient management software like DrChrono and CureMD, for example.
- A customer relationship management (CRM) platform for managing patient relationships and unifying data.
- A review solicitation or feedback collection software like Birdeye and Podium
Stage 5: Ongoing Care and Patient Loyalty
In any healthcare setting, attracting new patients is more resource-intensive than retaining current ones. When it’s more crucial than ever to optimize marketing spend (especially in the post-pandemic era), healthcare organizations should also focus on fostering loyal patient relationships. Below are some of the most common strategies to increase patient retention:
- Improved communication: Ensure your care team correctly relays information and compassionately resolves concerns.
- Interactions during in-patient visits: According to a recent Medscape study, most doctors, on average, spend 13-16 minutes of face-to-face engagement. You can differentiate your practice by going above and beyond by interacting with patients between visits. Short phone calls and personalized healthcare tips can go a long way in retaining patients.
- Streamline the appointment process: Use digital solutions like patient portals and mobile apps to streamline the appointment process. Automated SMS and appointment reminders can also reduce no-shows.
- Manage your online reputation: Your digital reputation doesn’t just affect patient acquisition but retention as well. Be proactive with monitoring conversations about your practice. Thank all patients for their feedback, and reply to negative feedback or complaints with compassion.
- Excellent bedside manners: Treating patients compassionately and with respect will establish strong physician-patient relationships. With every appointment, you can make a positive impression among your current patients and help develop loyalty–soon, they’ll also become brand advocates.
Always keep an eye on your patients’ aftercare and track all your interactions with them. This enables you to provide personalized experiences, which lead to better patient outcomes and higher satisfaction.
What is Patient Journey Mapping, and How Can It Help Grow Your Practice?
Patient journey mapping is a method healthcare leaders use to understand how patients interact with their healthcare system or practice at every stage. It provides a comprehensive view of patient experiences, allowing providers to identify opportunities to enhance engagement and satisfaction through strategic outreach.
The stages and touchpoints listed above serve as examples, but every patient journey is unique. Different types of care and providers create varied paths that require tailored approaches. Conducting your own research and mapping your patients’ journeys is essential to identify how to effectively engage with your audience. This process helps uncover the specific needs and preferences of your patient base, empowering your organization to deliver better care and build lasting relationships.
Benefits of Patient Journey Mapping
Mapping the patient journey is challenging, but the benefits are more than worth the effort. Here are some key benefits of mapping the patient journey.
Personalized Patient Experiences
With physician-focused healthcare of the past, you can get away with providing one-size-fits-all care experiences for patients. After all, you’ll have a consistent patient pipeline as long as you provide care. That’s not the case anymore with today’s healthcare that shifted toward consumer-driven and value-based care.
Patients are empowered to control their healthcare journey by arming themselves with information and researching their options. In fact, a recent survey said 72% of patients want healthcare explicitly tailored to their medical needs. Therefore, at the core of the patient engagement playbook is personalized experiences. With customized patient experiences, you can:
- Provide flexible care
- Improve patient-physician communication
- Provide omnichannel options
- Engage patients in various touchpoints
- Assess and evolve your services
Patient journey mapping enables your organization to understand your patient’s needs, preferences, and circumstances–which is vital for a personalized care experience.
Improved Communication
Once again, your main goal in mapping the patient journey is to lift the veil around the authentic experiences of your patients–including every touchpoint, interaction, and pain point. This feat is achieved through intensive data collection and qualitative research, enabling individuals to express their thoughts and feelings. You can count on improved and more effective communication once you have a holistic picture of the true patient experience.
As you might know, effective communication relies on a positive provider-patient relationship. Since you clearly oversee the patient experience in each stage of the journey, your team can identify the gaps and opportunities to improve communication. For example, mapping the patient journey lets you specify the communication pros and cons. As such, providers may reduce the use of technical terms or medical jargon to help patients better understand the circumstances around their health.
Identify Ways to Identify Aftercare
Journey maps will also allow you to identify ways to support the patients after the treatment concludes, during recovery, and ongoing care/maintenance. For instance, patients with medical conditions or who have undergone major surgery often must comply with a broad routine of medications, behavioral changes, and adaptations to a new lifestyle.
With patient journey mapping, you can find out how patients manage and deal with their day-to-day after treatment which may spark innovations in products and services that may lead to better health outcomes. Improving the quality of your aftercare services can impact patient retention and build a more positive reputation within your communities.
Empowering Patients Through Enhanced Processes
One of the most significant advantages of patient journey mapping is the ability to turn healthcare into a more collaborative experience. By improving digital tools like patient portals, websites, and mobile apps, healthcare providers can give patients more control over their care. Simplifying workflows allows patients to book appointments, access test results, and receive updates without unnecessary delays or confusion. This not only streamlines operations but also boosts patient satisfaction and trust in their healthcare provider.
Increasing Efficiency for Healthcare Teams
Patient journey mapping isn’t just about patients; it’s also a critical tool for empowering healthcare staff. By optimizing internal workflows and introducing automation, teams can manage protocols and schedules more effectively. For instance, streamlining task assignments or automating appointment reminders can free up staff to focus on patient care. Additionally, aligning actual service delivery with what patients expect reduces frustration for both parties, creating a more harmonious healthcare environment.
Digital transformation is reshaping the healthcare landscape, profoundly impacting each stage of the patient journey. By integrating advanced technologies, healthcare providers can enhance patient experiences, improve outcomes, and streamline operations. This section explores the multifaceted role of digital transformation in the patient journey, highlighting key areas of impact.
How to Map the Patient Journey
Mapping the patient journey requires detailed research and thoughtful analysis. As Jean Zhang, Senior Creative Director at Cardinal Digital Marketing, explains:
“We need to critically assess user flows, identify the highest-value conversion points, and prioritize them. Conducting a path analysis audit helps us step into the patient’s shoes, experience the website as they do, and ensure the journey aligns with key conversion goals.”
By focusing on key steps in the journey, you can create a seamless and empathetic experience for your patients. Incorporating insights from industry leaders, here are essential steps to guide your process:
1. Establish Patient Personas
To effectively map the journey, start by identifying and understanding your patient base. Ask critical questions like:
- What challenges or pain points do they face when seeking care?
- What steps do they take to find care?
- Who do they trust, and where do they go for information?
- How do they prefer to engage with healthcare providers?
An in-depth understanding of your patients will allow you to craft the best possible patient experience. To achieve this, you need a robust data collection system that enables you to analyze and predict patient needs. This system forms the backbone of journey mapping, empowering your practice to identify trends, refine personas, and deliver personalized care.
“When we build out journey maps, this essentially allows us to follow the journey of that specific persona through these different stages. What I like to do there is not only to state the action, but to then think through what is their actual emotion during each of those stages.”
—Jean Zhang, Senior Creative Director, Cardinal Digital Marketing
2. Track and Monitor Patient Activity
Omnichannel listening provides a comprehensive view of how patients interact with your brand. This approach helps you understand the patient lifecycle and identify areas for improvement. Tracking their actions and perspectives allows you to step into their shoes and address potential gaps.
Understand the Moments of Truth
Every interaction with your brand is an opportunity to build trust and move patients closer to resolving their concerns. Known as “moments of truth,” these critical touchpoints can significantly shape their perception. Google’s concept of the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) emphasizes how patients research symptoms, conditions, and providers online before making decisions. Positive interactions during these moments set your brand apart.
3. Leverage Insights and Strategies
Incorporate these actionable tips to refine your mapping process:
- Understand Emotional Stages: Identify meaningful touchpoints by focusing on the emotional stages patients experience at each step. This ensures your messaging is timely and relevant.
- Demonstrate Value: Use testimonials, outcomes, and ratings to show the impact of your services rather than simply stating it.
- Highlight Unique Selling Propositions (USPs): Tailor your USPs to resonate with patients’ needs and emotions, especially during the research phase.
- Test and Iterate: Experiment with different value propositions in campaigns to determine what resonates best and refine your strategies accordingly.
- Engage Stakeholders: Collaborate with clinic owners and managers to uncover insights about patient pain points and retention challenges.
4. Create a Comprehensive Digital Strategy
When developing a website or campaign, consider the unique needs of all patient personas. Ensure the experience supports them at every stage, from initial diagnosis to aftercare. By leveraging user research and a robust data collection system, you can craft targeted, empathetic, and effective digital experiences that enhance patient satisfaction and loyalty.
By combining these steps with continual research and iteration, your practice can optimize patient experiences, leading to stronger connections and better outcomes.
Final Thoughts
As healthcare becomes more consumer-driven, fostering patient engagement isn’t just a best practice anymore but an absolutely essential initiative. Modern healthcare consumers want to be engaged, and mapping their journey will let you engage patients throughout the entire continuum of care. By mapping the patient journey, you’re transforming the patient’s healthcare into a more proactive experience.
