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Winning the Loyalty of the eHealth Consumer

© A health care study by Deloitte Consulting and Deloitte & Touche

A seismic shift is under way in health care. As in other industries, the Internet is delivering vast knowledge and new choices to consumers — raising their expectations and, in many cases, handing them the controls. With their increasing power and influence, consumers are driving radical, fundamental change — and health care consumers are no exception.

eHealth consumers — those who use the Internet to retrieve health information, conduct health commerce, or connect with health care professionals to assist in health care decision-making — currently represent one-third of all health consumers, and are growing by the millions every year. Engaged, empowered, and ready to take action, eHealth consumers know what they want and are demanding more of health care organizations. The explosion of online health information and increasing out-of-pocket costs are leading these consumers to take a much more proactive role in managing their own health care. Today, eHealth consumers are in the driver’s seat, and health care organizations are scrambling to respond.

Hardly at the forefront of Internet technologies and applications, many health care organizations have slapped up a Web site and now call themselves e-enabled. But a Web site alone is not an eHealth strategy. What’s needed are comprehensive strategies that leverage the latest technology and provide the services that eHealth consumers are demanding, including convenience and customized services such as online physician interaction or online management of health benefits and customized disease management programs. After all, supplying information is just a welcome mat in this game — the minimum expected by the eHealth consumer. It’s time to move to the next level and offer real, value-added services. The reason: The benefits will be substantial.

Generally, eHealth consumers are willing to pay — and even switch health plans — for the services they want most. These findings raise some basic questions for health care organizations to consider as they develop eHealth strategies: If consumers are willing to pay for one type of service, what else might they be willing to pay for? What other bundled service offerings will attract consumers and win their loyalty? The message is that health care organizations, particularly hospitals and health plans, have new opportunities to capitalize on their relationships with consumers in ways never thought of before.

In this rich and vastly untapped market, who is giving eHealth consumers what they want? No one, yet. The market is highly fragmented, and neither new entrants, who are often highly capitalized and intensely marketed, nor incumbents — hospitals or health plans — who possess such built-in advantages as name recognition and long-standing community relationships, have found a winning approach. Pharmaceutical companies and dot-coms are giving it a shot, but mostly they are making more noise than progress. Even with significant investments in direct-to-consumer advertising, they have generated few results in terms of eHealth consumer loyalty, or in building consumer relevance.