As society slowly climbs its way out of the COVID-19 abyss, one of the questions on the minds of many is how the pandemic has changed consumer behavior. In the healthcare industry, the pandemic has accelerated some behavioral changes that were under way already, and one of them is the demand for digital health.
Consumers now view digital access to healthcare as a necessity -- and there is no going back. Whether they’re booking a telehealth appointment or researching insurance and pricing on a website, consumers expect a more immediate and personal experience shaped by what they’ve been receiving from other industries during the massive shift to the stay-at-home economy. This heightened expectation is compelling healthcare systems to find better ways to deliver faster, more personalized, and more consistent across all interactions -- which, in turn, has generated renewed interest in modular site design and integration of the MarTech stack.
Modular Design Systems
The digital communication agility required through the pandemic has placed a far greater emphasis on modular design systems; specifically what is referred to as “atomic design.”
Atomic Design is not new. But in today’s environment, when rapid changes require extreme speed and agility, businesses are taking a fresh look at how atomic design helps businesses move faster to the needs of people. Internal content creation teams cannot wait days for the creation of a new page or component template; they often need to deploy critically-important new content or functionality in record time with limited resources.
A comprehensive modular design system can enable these teams to act with greater independence (without reliance on a third-party agency) and precision. Atomic Design also helps ensure that the experience is highly-responsive across devices and applies a consistent visual brand language throughout the entire website.
A team deploying atomic design alongside a Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform like Sitecore Content Hub can increase productivity and collaboration. Finding appropriate assets adapting them to a specific purpose happens at a much faster rate, allowing the team to focus on the substance of the communication instead of more rote production activities.
Ultimately, this approach results in greater consumer loyalty through more timely and effective communication to the population the health system serves.
MarTech Stack Integration
COVID-19 has also amplified the importance of designing the Digital Experience Platform (DXP) architecture to seamlessly integrate with other consumer- and patient-oriented technology platforms.
Often, a health system uses consumer intelligence that lives within platforms like Salesforce. That intelligence is begging to be unlocked and activated through the DXP.
Leveraging Salesforce as the data engine behind Sitecore personalization can exponentially improve the consumer experience by reducing duplicative or unnecessary data entry. Doing so saves unique preferences and provides smart recommendations on actions or content based on behavior and profile insights.
Similarly, orchestrating marketing activation between Sitecore and the Salesforce Marketing Cloud can ensure that patients can be targeted with the most-relevant communication across channels (e.g., paid media, social, and email).
Targeted vaccine campaigns at scale are an extremely timely example of how this capability can be utilized to maximum effect. Instead of broadcasting the same information to the entire patient population and hoping they sift through it to find the content we want them to focus on, we can prioritize the material most relevant to them, while de-prioritizing more generalized information.
This approach addresses a key point of frustration consumers have when interacting with a health system, particularly during the pandemic: information overload. A well-orchestrated MarTech stack will yield better-informed patients, lowering overall communications cost and improving provider efficiency.
Our talent, experience, and partners are singularly focused on helping healthcare providers create smarter digital front doors with better experiences. Contact us.