Photo credit: American Cancer Institute
ROI Often Hinges on People-side Change:
Our businesses reach inflection points where we must change. ROI for even the best solutions often hinges on individuals making the personal decision to change with us. Change can be incremental, or industry disrupting. An example of the latter is how Telehealth shifted a paradigm in modern healthcare. Teladoc Primary360, one such provider, “is on a mission to address the full spectrum of health and well-being—not only when people are sick but also throughout their lifelong journeys to achieve better health,” (Teladoc Health, 2023). While this is a customer / user experience (UX) use case, its dependence on individual change makes it an excellent use case for best practices in Organizational Change Management (OCM).
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The Case for Change - A Paradigm Shift:
The pandemic increased the demand for Telehealth urgent care in 2020. Post-pandemic, we see the availability of primary care doctors dwindle. New patient waitlists are lengthy and appointment times can be inconvenient. Thus, we have a large population with unmet needs. Telemedicine primary care is an alternative for proactive care. Teladoc, dubbed the best telemedicine provider for non-urgent care by Healthline, is one of the oldest telemedicine providers (Amin, 2023). Due to Covid, M&A activity, social determinants of health and rapid infrastructure scaling, the trajectory of success for the field is in flux (See NCIB source).
A Customer-centric Product and Experience Inspires Change:
Teladoc Primary360 operates something like this: Effective product placement in an app that scores 4.8 on the Apple store, provides awareness. Prospective patients view doctor bios and desirable appointment availability, simultaneously. Product knowledge is easy and flows can be saved and resumed. A nurse calls to coach the patient through the ability to use the blood pressure cuff mailed days prior. After a collaborative 45-minute video appointment with the doctor, the patient views referrals to nearby, in-network labs and pharmacies (Teladoc Health, 2023). As results roll in, the patient receives alerts with written observations and instructions. These timely, transparent alerts reinforce engagement. According to The Customer Strategist, Primary360 has an “NPS of 70, regarded as world class” (Power, 2023).
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Applying a Structured Approach to Change Minds:
OCM practitioners likely noticed the parallels in the Teladoc experience to Prosci’s ADKAR concept. The ADKAR methodology entails Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement (Prosci, Inc., 2023). Customer experience (CX) professionals use similar tools to act as architects and guides through change. Because these fields blend art and science to deliver measurable outcomes, we can borrow tools to achieve similar outcomes. Teladoc’s CXO tells The Customer Strategist, “We have a really disciplined operational process when it comes to our client experience journey. It is not fluff. There are metrics. There are benchmarks. There are goals that we are shooting for on a regular basis” (Power, 2023). This should sound familiar to those in OCM.
Parallels in Communication and Awareness:
The Telehealth awareness tactics aren’t in-your-face marketing or sales tactics. Similarly, changing minds and encouraging change within an organization isn’t about “telling and selling.” Rather, OCM practitioners provide a compelling case for how the future state benefits the customer or employee. Transparent communication at the right place, time and channel also builds credibility and supports the decision point to change.
Collaboration, Partnerships, and Co-creation:
In OCM, we leverage the power of our subject matter experts and power-users to co-create and champion approaches. The people-side of the change should be designed around our staff's needs and experiences. Teladoc’s products bring consumers along, changing minds through collaborative plans.
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Readiness:
In this VUCA world, everyone is competing for our mindshare. Teladoc understands that consumers may have more mindshare for appointments on Saturdays or after-hours. Engaging on consumers’ terms is one way to help then internalize a plan. Internal changes benefit from clearing a path and timing tactics in a way that they’re easier to consume and learn.
Applying Learned Skills:
Teladoc invests the time and expense of having the nurse call ahead of the visit. We know there’s a gap between knowing something and being able to do something. The nurse ensures access to the app, coaches the patient through checking their vitals and sets expectations for the visit. Anticipating ramp-up time to reach proficiency is a known variable. Performance often dips as people practice new skills, tools and processes. Setting this expectation for internal change sponsors, functional leaders and end users allows us to gain support for tactical resources, budget, learning, practice needs and capacity.
Reinforcement and Retention:
Teladoc makes access to the app, documents, and follow-up appointments simple, keeping people engaged. In OCM, we know that installing a change isn't a one-and-done. We do refreshers, align goals, offer support structures, feedback loops and metrics. As with Telehealth, we take accountability through satisfaction surveys. We monitor performance, making enhancements and conducting outreach, as needed, to realize benefits.
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Wrap-Up
Because we don’t change in a vacuum, and every individual makes a personal decision to change, businesses support the change process with structured methods. While Teladoc’s Primary360’s story is one of excellent CX, we see that supporting people through change is paramount to inspiring action, whether internal or external, in this case. Teladoc’s CX is an example of change excellence. Transparent awareness tactics, practitioner and employee collaboration, a runway for readiness, support structures and reinforcement converge to not only change consumers’ minds, but to shift a long-standing paradigm.
Which practices in Teladoc Primary360’s approach do you see as most relevant and applicable to your own change efforts?
References
Amin, S. (2023, October 24). 9 Best Telemedicine Companies of 2023. Healthline.
Power, D. (2023, 23 May). The Customer Experience Strategist. Teladoc Health Q&A: How one side of the CX coin shines the other.
The Promise of Digital Health: Then, Now, and the Future. (2022, June 27). NCBI.
Prosci, Inc. (2023). The Prosci ADKAR® Model. Prosci.
Teladoc Health. (2023). Primary360: Primary care to become your healthiest self. Teladoc Health.
