Patient journey mapping, a consulting service for Capgemini Consulting

Abstract

CONTEXT & GOAL OF THE PROJECT This graduation project was done in collaboration with Capgemini, one of the biggest organizations in the field of management consultancy and information and communication technology. More specifically, the project was done for the Dutch consulting groups ‘Public & Health’, and ‘Digital Customer Experience’ (DCX). The market unit Public & Health sees a trend where patients get more actively involved in the content of care, with their understanding and needs for care as a guideline. However, these changes don’t happen automatically. Care institutions need to adjust to these developments by reviewing their healthcare service on patient experience. Capgemini can accompany care institutions in this transformation by means of a patient experience consulting service, using patient journey mapping. Nevertheless, the practice of patient experience is still fairly new to Capgemini Consulting. However, in other sectors like Consumer Products and Retail, the practice of customer experience and customer journey mapping has already been proven to be valuable. Therefore, the objective of the project is to design a patient journey mapping approach, as a patient experience consulting service for Capgemini Consulting. APPROACH Several exploratory research activities have provided input for a theoretical set of design criteria on the patient journey mapping approach. The research activities included a literature review, a multiple case study on customer journey mapping and a study on the perspectives of patient experience practitioners. Based on the findings and criteria that resulted from the exploratory research activities, a concept was designed for the patient journey mapping approach. The concept was validated and refined by means of a patient journey mapping workshop at Capgemini Consulting. Moreover, the concept was validated by means two accelerated patient journey mapping projects, in collaboration with two care institutions. From the evaluation of the validation projects, a final set of design criteria was defined for the patient journey mapping approach. With these criteria in mind, the final concept was designed for the patient journey mapping approach as a patient experience consulting service for Capgemini Consulting. RESULTS As a result of several research and design activities, a patient journey mapping approach is suggested for Capgemini Consulting. The approach includes an explanation on the similarities and differences between consumer- and patient journey mapping. Moreover, a detailed description is given on the process, activities and tools that are part of the patient journey mapping approach. Finally, the patient journey mapping approach presents an example patient journey, accompanied by suggestions on what building content to include in the patient journey. The example patient journey is available at www.patientjourney.mirthemonninkhof.com. CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS Added value of the patient journey consulting service. Results from the exploratory research and validation projects showed that patient journey mapping could offer much added value to healthcare organizations, especially for the quality of the relation between the organization and their patients. Recommendation in balancing costs and benefits. Whilst patient journey mapping offers great potential for the quality of healthcare organization-patient relations, results also revealed that the approach is quite new to healthcare organizations. This, in combination with the fact that patient journey mapping is not about delivering predetermined solutions, quantifiable results or implementable solutions poses a challenge for Capgemini in selling the service to their healthcare clients. Therefore, to ensure that Capgemini’s consulting service of patient journey mapping presents a good balance in costs and benefits, Capgemini could organize the service in a way that allows clients to choose between a ‘short’ and a ‘full’ customer journey track: The service could be organized as such that clients can start with a short customer journey track. Based on the results from this short track, they can decide to go for the full customer journey track or not. Patient journey mapping compared to consumer journey mapping. Core principles of customer experience practice don’t change much whether you practice it in a healthcare context or consumer industry context. Nevertheless, the purposes for which customer experience is adopted do present some clear differences. For example, goals that are characteristic for healthcare but not for consumer industries are: to reduce readmissions, to identify opportunities for patient-empowering health systems, or to support dialogue between patients and professional caregivers. In addition, a goal that is often set in consumer industries but hardly ever in healthcare is the goal of additional purchases. Finally, there are some customer experience goals that are of interest for both types of industries, these are: increased customer loyalty, customer referrals and identification of the root causes in customer experience bottlenecks. Capgemini’s customer journey mapping approach compared to the patient journey mapping approach. Whilst no major differences were found between the process of patient journey mapping or consumer journey mapping, there are important differences between the suggested patient journey mapping approach and the existing customer journey mapping approach of Capgemini Consulting. These differences are mainly caused by design principles that were inspired from the multiple case study and have been adopted in the patient journey mapping approach. Basically, the influence of the design principles is that they increase the customer/patient perspective, which is considered as one of the key benefits by healthcare organizations. Recommendation in the adoption of design principles. When Capgemini is planning to offer the patient journey mapping service to their healthcare clients, a recommendation is to familiarize a selection of consultants with the design principles that are part of the patient journey mapping approach. After all, they make up an important ingredient of the approach. Another possibility to help internalize knowledge on patient or customer experience design principles would be to hire designers that have experience in the field of customer experience or service design.