AVIA Releases Novel Benchmarking Data Revealing Health Systems’ Progress on Digital Consumerism Strategies

August 09, 2022 at 09:03 AM EDT

New Survey Highlights Consumer Driven Health Trends and Enables Measurement of Transformation Efforts

AVIA, the nation's leading healthcare digital transformation partner, released findings from an industry-first Digital Benchmarking Initiative, delivering critical primary research data sourced from the country's most digitally progressive health systems. The benchmarking survey compares performance across 35 health systems and 23 million patients on a range of digital patient experience and virtual health metrics. The survey meets the growing need for healthcare-specific digital benchmarks, helping organizations calibrate strategies, measure success, and satisfy ever-increasing consumer expectations for convenient, digitally enabled care experiences.

The digital benchmarking survey data reveals trends in patient access, engagement, and virtual care delivery, and identifies opportunities for healthcare organizations to optimize in critical areas such as telehealth, online scheduling, and patient portal utilization.

Key highlights include:

60% of patients were enrolled in patient portals, with 43% of enrollees actively engaged and utilizing their portals
36% of appointments were available to patients via online scheduling; however, only 6% of appointments were booked online
8% of all visits were conducted virtually, with 60% of providers reporting they offer video and/or phone virtual visits for synchronous care

Demand for primary baseline data to benchmark digital consumerism has accelerated as provider organizations seek to set goals for and respond to consumer expectations for digital-first experiences. As the leader in healthcare transformation through digital, AVIA is committed to developing sophisticated metrics to measure progress, identify gaps, and prove impact of digital to support health systems’ strategic roadmaps. As a result, AVIA and innovation leaders from its health system Network collaborated to develop the industry's first directly sourced benchmarking initiative.

AVIA partnered with digital leaders from progressive health systems to define standards for foundational metrics to enable modern, consumer-centric experiences and measure digital front door performance. Leading health systems, such as NorthShore - Edward-Elmhurst Health (previously Edward-Elmhurst Health), Sentara Healthcare, and St. Luke’s University Health Network, participated in the digital benchmarking to track patient engagement with online scheduling platforms, patient portals, and virtual care offerings. The submitted data represents over 23 million unique patients, 50,000 providers, and 33 million ambulatory visits.

"Digital transformation is integral to our overall business strategy, and like many other healthcare organizations, we have looked predominantly to other industries to identify success metrics," said Jennifer Bollinger, Senior Vice President of Consumer Strategy at Ochsner Health. "AVIA's digital benchmarking initiative enables our organization to understand the progress across the network and collaborate with others to affirm strategy and investment decisions."

To maintain pace with consumer expectations and disruptors entering the market, benchmarking is an essential best practice for health systems seeking to track performance relative to peers and competitors, and identify areas where they are winning or need to focus. This data helps health systems capture the full value of a digital-first approach – enabling health systems to prioritize, implement, and scale transformation efforts that maximize ROI and impact. This aligns with AVIA’s broader work to ensure health systems have the support they need to build sound business cases for digital.

"Forward-thinking health systems recognize that digital is the fastest, most enduring route to transformation. But the aptitude – and appetite – for measurement has lagged,” said Linda Finkel, CEO of AVIA. "Measurement and comparison to industry benchmarks on key performance metrics is mission critical for health systems to optimize decision-making across their transformation journey. Further, digital benchmarks allow health systems to develop tailored strategies and rapidly execute against them. We are proud to set the industry standard for digital benchmarks, underscoring our commitment to bringing unique insights to health systems' challenges and driving innovation efforts for AVIA Members."

To learn more about the findings and connect with AVIA, download the AVIA Digital Benchmarking Initiative here.

About AVIA

AVIA is the nation’s leading digital transformation partner for healthcare organizations. AVIA provides unique market intelligence, proven collaborative tools, and results-based consulting to help solve healthcare’s biggest strategic challenges. Learn more about AVIA and AVIA Connect, the industry’s premier marketplace for healthcare leaders to research, evaluate, and select digital health solutions, at aviahealthinnovation.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.