By Sara Heath
- When it comes to pediatric healthcare, patient loyalty and care access choice are more about quality than any other factor, according to a new report from NCR Health. And because of that, healthcare consumers tend to stay with their pediatric providers, as opposed to shopping around for the best price or the most convenience.
The report, which is the first NRC Health used to focus on pediatric populations, found that children and their family caregivers are more loyal to their healthcare providers than adult populations. In other words, they are less likely to move around from clinician to clinician.
Specific brand preference, or the patient preference for a certain healthcare provider or organization, went down by 5 percent among adults between 2019 and 2020. Adults seemed to care less about who their provider was and more about what a provider could offer them.
That preference only went down by 2.2 percent among pediatric populations, demonstrating that parents and guardians feel drawn to a certain healthcare provider.
Factors like convenience matter less to parents and guardians, the report found, than things like clinical quality. For just over half (52 percent) of parents and guardians, quality is the most important factor in selecting a medical provider.
READ MORE: Understanding the Path to Strong Provider, Patient Loyalty
Again, this runs counter to priorities among adult populations. Adult populations tend to value convenient care options, like how close the office is to them and appointment availability.
This findings potentially underscore the priority that adults place on their children’s health. While adult patients may seek out medical providers who are close to home or who can offer an appointment at a desired time, parents or guardians are willing to compromise in order to get their child to quality healthcare.
To that end, telehealth has seen a boom among pediatric populations, especially throughout the pandemic. While just 22 percent of adults reported using telehealth for care access during 2020, 51 percent of parents said they used it for their child’s health.
And they plan to continue that use.
Half of parents said they planned to use eHealth for their children’s care management and care access moving forward, while only 27 percent of adults said the same for themselves.
READ MORE: Driving Patient Loyalty in a Consumerized, Value-Based Industry
Healthcare providers should respond to that push for mHealth and technology-driven patient care access, the survey stressed. Eighty percent of parents and guardians reported that they want their child’s medical provider to ask about wearable technology and data, suggesting that parents are interested in using patient engagement technology for pediatric care management. However, only 58 percent of parents responded that their providers have discussed mHealth with them and their child.
Parents are also turning toward social media and online resources to learn more about their children’s health. Fifty percent of parents responded that they use social media and the internet as healthcare information sources, and 60 percent of that share said they have a high level of trust in that information. However, that patient trust hinges on the information coming from their medical provider or another healthcare institution.
That should guide organizations in their social media activity, prompting them to provide reliable information for parents and children to stay informed about overall health and wellness.
These findings offer key insights into how healthcare organizations can carry on healthcare for children as the nation works its way through a vaccine rollout plan and out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the virus did not impact children as much as it did adults, it did have a serious effect on pediatric care, the survey authors noted.
“Pediatric providers across the country are grateful that their patients have largely been spared from the health implications of the COVID-19 virus itself. But that should not suggest that they avoided the pandemic’s impact altogether,” Helen Hrdy, chief growth officer at NRC Health, said in a statement. “As we have learned more about COVID, we have to pause and take stock of how our pediatric populations have fared in order to better care for them in a post-COVID world.”
READ MORE: Charting the Future of Patient Experience and Technology
Although the virus did not prove to be as dangerous for children as it was for adults, especially adults over 60, it did disrupt pediatric healthcare. In October 2020, researchers from the University of Oregon found that 28 percent of families missed a well-child visit during the pandemic, and 12 percent missed a scheduled vaccination.
These missed appointments can carry serious consequences, as early childhood vaccinations and well-child checks are important for ensuring the best course of development. These visits are also important for early detection of medical conditions.
Healthcare organizations retooling their pediatric care access strategies as the nation works its way out of the pandemic should be mindful of the biggest barriers to care, as well as parental and child preferences in medical care.
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April 02, 2021
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What Drives Patient Loyalty, Care Access Choice in Pediatrics? - PatientEngagementHIT.com
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