Envisioning a Patient-First Health System: Health Communication Insights from the Alliance for Health Policy 2023 Signature Series Summit

Last month, I attended the Alliance for Health Policy 2023 Signature Series Summit, where experts and professionals converged to explore the transformative concept of a patient-first health system.

Health communication and marketing are at the heart of healthcare transformation.

The summit centered on reimagining our healthcare system, emphasizing a person-first approach. What stood out were the implications and insights for health communication and marketing professionals, which I have included below.

1. Patient Journey Mapping Can Inform Communication

The "Navigating a Complex Health System" panel highlighted the power of understanding patient experiences with the healthcare system and being intentional about engaging with historically excluded communities. For health communication professionals, this underscores the importance of crafting messages and materials that highlight and resonate with patients' lived experiences. Communication must be empathetic and address the needs and concerns of patients as expressed by patients. Key action items for health communication professionals include:

• Building an understanding of the challenges that historically excluded communities have and continue to face when interacting with the healthcare system and their impact on health outcomes
• Building skills and knowledge in cultural sensitivity and accessible language
• Recognizing and enforcing the value of lived experiences
• Using patient journey mapping to discover emerging commonalities and to create realistic personas for communication and marketing efforts

2. Co-Design in Healthcare Needs Effective Engagement

The "Co-Designing with Communities" panel emphasized the involvement of patients, caregivers, partners, providers, payers, and policymakers in shaping healthcare solutions. Effective communication is the glue that holds healthcare transformation initiatives together, ensuring that all stakeholders work cohesively toward patient-centric goals. Health communication professionals can play a pivotal role in facilitating these multi-stakeholder conversations. Key action items for health communication professionals include:

• Exploring creative ways to foster two-way exchanges across the healthcare continuum (e.g., graphic illustrations) 
• Capturing data beyond the traditional metrics of healthcare utilization, quality, outcomes, and satisfaction (e.g., career and life goals)
• Creating communication messages and materials that “stretch across the bell curve” and go beyond the median user (a common benchmark in healthcare transformation)

3. Healthcare Transformation Requires Successful Knowledge Transfer

The “Executive Insights” panel mentioned the importance of patient input and data analytics for tailoring healthcare to individual patient needs, preferences, and challenges. The panel also discussed the need for flexibility and adaptability to promote innovation in healthcare delivery and create solutions to improve care quality. Health communication professionals can assist with knowledge transfer and dissemination, helping healthcare organizations share their innovative ideas and promising practices. Key action items for health communication professionals include:

• Building skills and knowledge in best practices for facilitating knowledge transfer and dissemination in healthcare
  
• Creating communication channels and materials that promote or facilitate collaborative care or care coordination and data collection for quality improvement through surveys, focus groups, and online platforms

4. Communication Can Build Healthcare Provider Trust and Resilience

The "Providers are People Too" panel discussed the strains on the current healthcare system and the need for innovative and useful solutions to address complex care needs (versus band-aids and temporary measures focused on easing symptoms of burnout, like wellness officers and yoga studios in clinical settings). Fostering open lines of communication and enabling a two-way exchange is instrumental in cultivating trust. In this case, communication messages and materials should acknowledge the concerns raised by healthcare providers (e.g., those pertaining to safety in both office-based and home-based clinical care), identify the steps being taken to address these concerns, and provide regular updates on progress and outcomes. Health communication professionals have a significant role to play in this endeavor, as they can actively gather and disseminate this data and information. Key action items for health communication professionals include:

• Building an understanding of healthcare provider burnout
  
• Building skills and knowledge in best practices for communicating with healthcare providers about burnout

5. Storytelling Can Drive Innovation in Healthcare

The "Future of Innovation" panel stressed the importance of recognizing the stories behind healthcare data. Health communication professionals can bring these stories to life, humanizing data points and making them relatable to a wider audience. This storytelling approach can drive empathy, engagement, and support for healthcare transformation initiatives.  Key action items for health communication professionals include:

• ​Building skills and knowledge in best practices for storytelling for health communication

The Alliance for Health Policy Signature Series Summit offered valuable insights for understanding the role of health communication and marketing professionals in healthcare transformation. As we move forward in the pursuit of a patient-first health system in the US, effective communication and marketing will be the key to connecting stakeholders, engaging communities, and ultimately transforming healthcare for the better.

By: Monique Thornton, MPH