Image Courtesy of CADRE
Clinic 20XX: The United Kingdom Patient Survey
RESEARCH TEAM
Upali Nanda (PI), Melissa Hoelting, Jane Ho, and Giyoung Park
RESEARCH ADVISORY
Karen Bullivant, HKS Inc., London, UK
Erin Peavey, HKS Inc., Dallas, TX
Phyllis Goetz, HKS Inc., Dallas, TX
FUNDS
CADRE and HKS Inc.
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WHAT WAS THE AIM
To understand if perceptions and expectations around outpatient primary are universal. To do this, we investigated if boomers and millennials in the United Kingdom, a distinctly different health system, felt similarly about the choices they make compared to those in the US by repeating the patient poll from the original Clinic 20XX study, in the UK.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT
It is evident that there is a shift to outpatient care and preventive health. In the UK, strategies to deal with the increasing demand on public health and social services are being deployed to combat the lack of funding. There is a mismatch between the physical facilities' infrastructure and the types and volumes of services to be carried out. There is an urgent need to investigate patient expectations for clinics as they move to provide more patient choice, convenience and access, and state-of-the-art facilities and how facilities can be change-ready and healthcare rapidly changes.
WHAT DID WE DO | HOW DID WE DO IT
To answer these questions, we deployed the patient survey from the original Clinic 20XX study in the UK. There were a total of 230 respondents - 109 millennials and 121 baby boomers - who had visited a clinic for the first time in the last 6 months.
Survey findings from the US and UK studies were then compared to identify key differences in patient perception and expectations.
WHAT DID WE FIND
To summarize this poll, attracting patients is more a factor of convenience, quality of care and the environment, and the reputation and referral of the clinic and its providers. Retaining patients, however, is about quality of service in the clinic and outside of the patient visit.
Findings from this poll of patients in the UK support the facility implications from the original Clinic 20XX study.
We found that contrary to expectation, respondents thought of themselves as patients needing health services more than consumers buying health services. This trend stayed surprisingly true for millennials as well as boomers, though with the youngest millennials (born after 1995), we started seeing an upward trend.
Patients are ready for telehealth, but do not want to lose face-to face interactions with their care team. This desire for human interaction reinforces the need for clinic facilities. It also highlights its key role as a physical access point connecting the cloud and the community. In preparation for telehealth, facilities need to incorporate data-integrated and tech-ready spaces with the flexibility to incorporate changing technology.
While boomers in the UK are less concerned about experience as long as their health issues are addressed, millennials are moving towards experience being equally as important. Enhancing the experience in the clinic and beyond the physical visit by streamlining the entire process is crucial.
Activities in the clinic are now happening in the physical (footprint) and virtual (cloudprint). Consideration of a clinic’s cloudprint and footprint creates implications for facilities centering around data integration and tech ready spaces. We believe that going forward, facilities will have to plan for both their footprint and their cloudprint to have the ability to flex to accommodate a shift between the two, becoming a change-ready facility.
WHAT IS NEXT
This document is our first step towards making 20XX a living report. Information will be regularly updated to capture a snapshot of where the industry is today. We will also continue to add to this body of knowledge by continuing studies in other countries or benchmarking hospitals against the nationwide polls.