As providers make the shift from fee-for-service to value-based care delivery, systematic changes will require greater patient engagement including personalized treatments. More effective population health management starts with knowing the people and communities you serve. Standard care guidelines may not apply to everyone.

A recent article from Forbes highlights the heightened need for diversity in this new era of medicine. Consider how many cultures associate hospitals with disease and death.

“This is why many first-generation Hispanics would rather have a major surgical procedure performed back in their mother countries than in the United States.”

Such thinking should not surprise anyone who has been paying attention to other consumer sectors. User experience is driving competition and disruption across all industries – think Zappos, Uber and others. But with healthcare, it’s even more important and complex. Each patient is different and has different needs concerning treatment:

“The system is built in a way that makes it hard for institutions to see and treat people as individuals. No matter how much an individual doctor or nurse may care for patients as the unique people they are, those same doctors and nurses (and all care providers) still have to function within a system built around billing codes and line items and volume.”

Even when caregivers do their best, fee-for-service treatment can sometimes be blind to differences between patients. As the standard model of healthcare delivery shifts, providers must take into account changing demographics, as well. Beyond cultural factors, age differences, language barriers, religious beliefs can also play a role in accessing care or complying with treatment plans:

“how can we change the fact that a 24-year-old with breast cancer gets the same treatment as a 50-year-old, even though they have very little else in common? Or, what if those two patients have different cultural backgrounds that influence how they respond to a diagnosis? The volume approach doesn’t take that into consideration. The value approach should, or it’s really not creating value at all.”

The author believes that getting to individualized care is a “strategy for growth and “an investment … especially important for healthcare organizations moving toward value-based care.”

Many healthcare leaders and analysts believe that patient engagement and making patients partners in their own health is the way for healthcare organizations to succeed in the value-based care world. These capabilities start with a mindshift or the willingness to ask new questions, such as:

• How else can a healthcare organization really know its populations and why there are gaps in participation or compliance?
• How else can an organization know how people feel about its services?
• How else can an organization know how to manage costs in a way that doesn’t diminish the experience for patients, employees or communities?