How a major health provider is putting care into patients’ hands

The new, high-impact offerings would be targeted to patients with chronic, manageable conditions. Company leaders identified several chronic conditions that were unduly straining the system and impacting approximately 20% of the organization’s annual operating expenses. The ask to the EY teams was to build a platform that could provide targeted guidance to help patients take positive action for their health every day.

The project called for an accelerated digital transformation with measurable outcomes and results. The primary objectives were stabilizing existing technology; reducing legacy website and mobile application crash rates; creating new, condition-specific mobile applications built on a single scalable platform; and enhancing patients’ online journeys in the service of more effective care.

“Patient-centered digital care is the future of holistic health delivery. Health care needs to be flexible, accessible and seamlessly integrated,” said Yele Aluko, EY Americas Chief Medical Officer. “A digitally enabled approach, enhanced by AI capabilities, empowers patients to participate more effectively with providers on their health care journey. Integrated digital platforms offer more efficient chronic-care management and will ultimately lower health care costs and provide a better consumer experience.”

Most large health systems offer a web-based patient service portal. But for this leading provider, its digital access overhaul was an enterprise-wide game changer. The objective was to reinvent its online gateway to health care access: a web-based digital application suite with automated customization for individual patients, connecting them across the health ecosystem to integrate virtual and physical appointments, chronic condition management and personalized health reminders and suggestions. 

The EY team’s vision was to help drive the health care organization’s digital strategy from a project-based operating model to a product-based operating model, creating a broader virtual care experience that exceeds typical user expectations of telehealth. The result is a unified, reliable, go-to source for virtually all aspects of patient care, as well as new features that facilitate direct outreach to promote personal health management. The new technology architecture allows for long-term scalability and flexibility, which were top priorities for this national health care provider.

Working in close collaboration with the organization’s chief digital officer, EY practitioners developed applications implementing artificial intelligence (AI) features for the monitoring and suggested management of specific conditions. The new apps send reminders to individual patients in real time based on privately uploaded data. 

Multiple novel condition-management applications were launched in just three months, and some 400 patients with chronic conditions have successfully accessed and utilized the apps, according to analytics and anecdotal feedback. Thanks to the application foundation’s built-in scalability and flexibility, the integrated health care provider is expected to launch additional condition-management features in the coming months.​

To help drive these emerging products for patients, a new process for end-to-end IT systems testing has stabilized the back-end technology architecture of the client’s legacy application, improving overall functionality and slashing the crash rate by 50%. Overall user feedback ratings have increased 26%, boosting the health organization’s public image and usability of the app.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health care provider’s virtual physician appointments have increased from 16% pre-COVID-19 to 45% in December 2022. And, the smoother digital user experience created by the EY teams is expected to raise that number to 65% in the next six to nine months. Patients’ total (non-consecutive) time spent on actions required between scheduling an appointment and completing the visit has been reduced from 12 hours for an in-person appointment to just two hours for a virtual appointment, reducing time and cost for both patients and providers.

The digital upgrade investment also has opened new accessibility to the health system’s facilities in multiple states for both providers and patients, creating a seamless experience across the national network. 

“Any entity that plays in and around the health care ecosystem now has a huge opportunity to develop and deliver patient-centered digitally enhanced care models.  While achieving that reality will require new ways of collaborating and innovating, with tools such as enhanced AI capabilities, the outcomes will ultimately yield a healthier and more equitable future for all,” said Susan Garfield, EY Chief Public Health Officer.

By bringing better digital accessibility, functionality, reliability and condition-based customization, this provider has established a new baseline for integrated health care.