New Research Shows Patients Have an Uphill Battle

An article on PatientEngagementHIT the other day grabbed my attention. The title was Patients Overburdened with Care Coordination Hurts Patient Experience, and given that patient experience is really our bread and butter, I immediately clicked to read. I was not surprised to find that a new poll had shown that care coordination is becoming like a second job for some patients.

Before I jump into some of the data, I’ll share why I wasn’t surprised. I’m in my fifties and fully a member of the sandwich generation. My father passed away a few years ago after a long illness, and my mother is now approaching 80. I also have a 12 year old daughter with fairly severe ADHD so I spend a lot of time finding lost things and patching up bumps and scrapes. In addition, I have a chronic auto-immune disease. Needless to say, I spend a lot of time navigating healthcare and coordinating complex care. When I saw the title and first few lines, my first thought was “well duh.”

At the same time, however, I thought, “it’s good to put some hard numbers to a challenge many people face today.” As boomers get older and Gen X navigates raising kids and caring for aging parents, there is a lot of care coordination going on. It’s well worth investigating the impact and trying to do something about it.

The research was conducted online in the U.S. by The Harris Poll on behalf of The American Academy of Physician Associates among 2,519 US adults aged 18 years or older. The survey was conducted from February 23 – March 9, 2023. Here’s what it found:

• U.S. Adults Spend Eight Hours Monthly Coordinating Healthcare
• 65% of U.S. adults feel managing healthcare is “overwhelming” and “time-consuming.” 
• This number jumps to 76% among younger adults aged 18 to 34
• 73% of U.S. adults say the healthcare system fails to meet their needs in some way.
• 71% worry that the demands on healthcare providers are too great.
• 68% are concerned that healthcare workforce shortages will impact them as a patient; an equal proportion are concerned that the shortage will impact their family/loved ones.
• 64% wish healthcare providers took more time to understand them; 49% say they don’t always feel listened to by healthcare providers.
• 67% say their health would improve if they regularly worked with a healthcare provider they trusted.
• 61% say they only seek healthcare when they are sick.
• 44% of adults have skipped or delayed care in the past two years.

Obviously, there were more insights, but I think these data points tell a good story about how the burden of coordinating care causes people to put off care and feel like the system is failing them.

One thing that really caught my attention was how high the number of younger adults was who felt like managing healthcare is overwhelming. This feels like a great place to start with addressing the problem. Younger adults are largely digital natives. They increasingly prefer an experience in healthcare that reflects the experience they have everywhere else. Making it easy to navigate their experience on their smartphone is a no-brainer. From finding care to scheduling to navigating to the appointment, and then paying bills and seeing lab results, a robust mobile platform can deliver that experience. The added benefit is that most Gen Xers and Boomers would like this option as well. In fact, 81 percent of patients prefer digital tools and over 60 percent say digital services play an important role when choosing a provider.