We've all been hearing so much about the potential impact that consumerism will have on healthcare. What I want to know is how consumerism will impact hospitals in particular; and more so, how can hospitals capitalize on this trend? I predicted at the beginning of the year that 2006 would be the year of consumer-driven healthcare.

Are more and more hospitals striving to provide hotel-like service? Are more and more people calling into hospital find-a-physician lines asking for quotes before they come in? Are hospitals training their front-line staff on how to handle difficult/cranky/angry patients? Will people start to get healthy as a means of saving on healthcare costs? Do hospitals view other "service" businesses as indirect competition?

Well, maybe not quite yet. I think Trapier was right - it'll obviously take longer than a year for this to happen. But nonetheless, it is happening and it will happen. So hospitals that adapt to these changes earlier gain a competitive advantage. For example, right now in May of 2006, hospitals could:

(1) Train your patient-facing staff the art of customer service. As we've seen from one of my previous posts on "If Disney Ran Your Hospital," perception of care can be more important than quality of care. And perception of care is a collection of little things - when the front desk registration person is asking for your name & address, is he looking at you or at the computer screen? When you call in to correct a mistake on a bill, does the rep apologize for the inconvenience? Every person that interfaces with the patient has to understand the importance of even "small" interactions. A great place to start is the 27 questions in HCAHPS. Also check out how Boston hospitals are following hotels' lead (thanks Trap)

(2) Work on Quality and Patient Safety. Of course, all hospitals are already working on this. Nonetheless, there's going to be more pressure on the data that becomes available to the public. There has been a lot of debate of how meaningful quality data will be given the fact that healthcare is so individualized. Poorer outcomes might just mean sicker patients, so it's hard to truly get an apples-to-apples comparison. Additionally, there's been a lot of debate around whether patients will actually alter their purchasing behavior based on the information. I think a large segment of the population will be strongly influenced. For better or for worse, some people will use this to pick hospitals.

(3) Think more deeply about preventative programs. I believe that consumers will eventually hear too many stories & experience too many of their own close calls - they'll see first and second hand that not taking care of your body leads to a lot more healthcare (being paid out-of-pocket). Like I eluded to in a previous post about hospitals rethinking their mission, the hospitals of tomorrow will have a greatly enlarged scope than today - mostly in the area of preventative health.

(sidebar: You know that a healthcare issue has really hit when Modern Plastics Magazine covers it. Recently, the industry magazine highlighted consumer-driven healthcare as a promising trend to slow escalating costs for plastics processors.)

One more thing: check out Marketplace.MD's weekly digest: consumer-driven weekly - just started this week.