By Clay Ritchey, CEO
In healthcare, trust and loyalty are built or lost in micro-moments. Every interaction, no matter how minor or life-changing, serves as a test of whether providers truly understand their patients and continue to earn their trust and loyalty. The rise of healthcare consumerism is forcing health systems to rethink human and digital interactions at every micro-moment across the patient journey.
From improved bedside manner, empathy and transparency between care providers and patients to frictionless digital experiences, such as online scheduling and managing appointments, viewing and understanding test results or timely messaging with a provider, each of these moments conveys whether the organization truly understands and values the individual. Together, they build or weaken trust and loyalty.
To deliver exceptional experiences, health organizations must strive to make every micro-moment personal and every connection meaningful and in context. That starts with a single, trusted view of identity: knowing “who is who.”
The Consumer Expectation Shift
Patients are consumers first and remain consumers in every interaction afterward. They expect healthcare to operate as smoothly as their best experiences with other consumer-oriented organizations, such as Nordstrom, Amazon or Delta Airlines. Just as those companies have built infrastructure to deliver frictionless experiences, know consumer preferences and anticipate future needs, consumers now expect their care to be personalized, coordinated and efficient at every touchpoint along their multichannel care journeys.
A recent survey revealed that 65% of patients would leave their doctors for a better experience, and 41% say that a poor digital encounter alone could make them switch.
Younger generations are leading this shift. Adults 18 to 24 are three times more likely than those over 65 to consider switching providers and four times as likely to have already left a provider due to a poor digital experience. Nearly half of adults under 30 don’t have a primary care provider to help navigate their care, and more than two-thirds read online reviews before deciding where to get care.
When care is just a click away, loyalty relies less on physical proximity and more on the provider or hospital’s ability to recognize and consistently serve each individual in context across interactions, which defines extraordinary experiences.
What ‘Micro-Moments’ Really Mean
Micro-moments are all the points of engagement in the patient’s journey, both big and small. They include care from a clinician, as well as scheduling, appointment reminders and check-ins, and extend through billing, care planning, treatment and follow-ups.
Individually, these moments often feel transactional and fragmented for patients when they must repeatedly provide their histories, concerns and questions. When each interaction lacks historical context or necessitates yet another round of information gathering, they add up to frustration and shape the entire experience into a negative one.
Positive experiences start with a patient-centered mindset where the patient is acknowledged, remembered and guided. That means organizations see the whole person within the context of each individual’s care plan, not as separate engagements.
For example, an excellent healthcare experience is when a consumer responds to outreach from her local health system regarding pre-diabetic risks, completes an online risk assessment, is prompted to schedule a consult with her primary care physician, and receives ongoing educational materials before her appointment. During the encounter, the doctor has already reviewed her updated medical records, which include the risk assessment, and suggests enrollment in a fresh farm-to-table food program. Or, when a rideshare is arranged for a mother without a car, ensuring she has transportation to her child’s next appointment.
In these micro-moments, showing individuals they matter (i.e., their providers know them) determines whether patients feel recognized and appreciated or ignored. The difference between these experiences will shape trust, confidence and, ultimately, consumer loyalty in the future.
Fragmented Identity As The Hidden Barrier
Why is it so difficult to create a series of great micro-moments?
To deliver connected, patient-centered care, providers must trust that they know “who is who” at every touchpoint of the care journey. But fragmented identity prevents health systems from developing a single, trusted 360-degree view of their patients.
The same person can have a plethora of records created across a siloed, complex ecosystem of technology applications, including EHRs, CRMs, marketing platforms, call centers and data warehouses. When these systems lack a single source of truth for identity, they cannot effectively communicate with each other, leading to missed context and critical information, and, ultimately, disappointing experiences for both providers and their patients.
Fragmented identity is a strategic mandate. Nine out of 10 healthcare leaders say siloed identity data hinders their ability to provide coordinated, personalized care. Every gap in identity causes friction for staff, delays treatment and weakens trust. When a patient must reenter information or re-explain their story, it signals that the organization doesn’t truly know them.
Bridging that gap is crucial to winning the consumer loyalty test that micro-moments create.
Identity Intelligence Is The Answer
Trusted identity connects interactions into cohesive experiences. When each person’s information is unified, enriched and managed across all systems, every touchpoint starts from a single source of truth. That foundation of identity intelligence enables organizations to deliver seamless micro-moments that build loyalty.
There are three hallmarks of identity intelligence.
1. Recognition ensures each person is accurately identified with ease.
2. Relevance makes communication feel personal and contextually appropriate.
3. Reliability guarantees that every interaction is based on a single trusted record.
When identity intelligence supports every interaction, those small but meaningful micro-moments turn into lasting relationships.
Frictionless Experiences Build Loyalty
Identity should be a board priority. Recognizing, remembering and uniquely serving each person defines leadership in today’s experience-focused healthcare environment. Exceptional experiences are created one micro-moment at a time. The organizations that succeed will be those that understand their patients because they have a unified identity at the core.
When every touchpoint begins with a trusted identity, each moment becomes a chance to build trust, foster loyalty and enhance health.