Day 47: Succinct Health Care – Is there an app for that?

Succinct (sək-sĭngkt’) adj.

1. Characterized by clear, precise expression in few words; concise and terse.
2. Marked by or consisting of few words that are carefully chosen

The other day I was having a conversation with our Director of Membership Experience Stephen Gaines regarding how ineffective and inadequate the current health care experience is for patients.  As our conversation wound around we ended up discussing some principles from Stephen R. Covey’s book, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People“. I suggested that Stephen should purchase the book as it is a great read on alot of levels. Before I could even finish the conversation, Stephen had pulled out his iPhone, typed a few things into his Amazon app, and before I had finished my conversational paragraph he announced, “Cool, I just ordered it.”

It gave me pause.

I had thought he was just texting someone or taking notes but rather he was acting in real time on my suggestions right then. Since we were talking about the type of experience we want our members to have, I was struck by how seamless, how effortless, and how painless it was for Stephen to complete a transaction. I thought about the app itself how it had already obtained all of Stephen’s demographic information, his credit card, authentication; I thought about Amazon how they are organized to store, ship, and deliver the book; and I thought about the consumer experience being able to get what they want when they wanted it literally a touch of a button.

The next day Stephen sent a slight smug text that “the book just arrived” – less than 24 hours, to the right place, with the right merchandise, at the right agreed upon price, and all done in an effortless way.

Wow.

Contrast that with your typical health care experience – every turn, every step, every interaction another major roadblock or transactional barrier to get through. Think about how you make an appointment, how you pay for care, how you stand in line for medications, how you wait on hold for answers, how you can’t get what you need, when you need, for a price you can understand, and a manner that is satisfying.

Where is the health care App that could make my interactions with the health system this smooth? What organization or entity is removing these barriers, smoothing out the rough transactional edges, and helping people achieve a seamless, effortless, satisfying conclusion to their health care need? For a long time I have thought about how this could actually work, how you could create a “health care app” that would allow this type of experience to be possible.

Obviously health care is complex; it is confusing, it is a conundrum of the highest magnitude. While reducing this complexity to a “health care app” might not be possible, I think you can approximate this with a health care advisory service designed specifically to abstract all the complexities of health care into a single, succinct experience for individuals.

Crossover Health is attempting to replicate the transactional effortlessness of the above example through our membership programs which include a health care advisory service. Essentially, using our the HelloHealth software platform as the enabling technology, we build membership programs include member concierge services to begin to approach the smoothness and effortless of a health care app. If you want the opportunity to experience this type of care, we look forward to having you join us for impending launch of our Crossover Health flagship store in Aliso Viejo.

Simple. Succinct. Coming soon!