Not Customer Experience, but Human Experience in Healthcare

Experience in healthcare is not limited to a friendly smile, a fast appointment or a modern building. Patients often walk into a healthcare institution carrying anxiety and uncertainty. That is why, at the heart of a truly good experience, comfort must be matched by trust, medical quality by communication, and technology by human contact.

Editor’s note • In this interview, we discuss where the patient experience begins in healthcare, how trust is built, within what limits digitalization creates value, and what will set the healthcare institutions of the future apart.

How do you define “customer experience” in the healthcare sector? In your view, what is the difference between patient experience and classic customer experience?

I think we need to be careful when using the term “customer experience” in healthcare. A person receiving healthcare is not simply a consumer in the classic sense. Most of the time, we are facing someone who is anxious, living with uncertainty, sometimes in pain, and standing on the threshold of an important decision for themselves or a loved one. That is why I see the matter in healthcare more as “human experience.”

If you have a bad experience at a restaurant, you go somewhere else; if you’re unhappy with a brand, you choose another one. In healthcare, the matter runs much deeper. People entrust their health, and sometimes their lives, to an institution. That is why the basic currency of experience in healthcare is trust. Patients look for reassuring answers to questions such as “Is my diagnosis correct?”, “Am I receiving the right treatment?”, “Is my result accurate?” and “Did they really listen to me?” A good healthcare experience means answering all of these questions within the same system.

At what point does the patient experience begin in a healthcare institution?

The patient experience does not begin in the doctor’s office; most of the time it begins much earlier. The experience has already started the moment someone visits the institution’s website, calls the call center, tries to book an appointment or walks through the hospital’s door.

How quickly the phone is answered, how clear the directions are, how easy the registration is, the waiting time, the staff’s approach and the quality of information all shape the first impression. Patients don’t know the organizational chart; they see the registration clerk, the nurse, the lab technician, the security staff and the physician as the same face of the institution. That is why a failure at a single touchpoint can affect the perception of the entire institution.

Why is trust more critical in healthcare than in other sectors?

Because patients entrust an institution not only with their money but with their health. Trust is not built by the physician’s knowledge alone; the entire system of the institution must support it. An accurate diagnosis, reliable lab results, high-quality imaging, medication safety, privacy, an ethical approach and transparent communication are links in the same chain of trust.

Trust can take years to earn and minutes to lose. I believe one of the most valuable management principles in healthcare institutions is “doing what you promised.” If a result is said to be ready in 24 hours, it must really be ready. If there will be a delay, the patient must be informed in advance. Trust is less about big slogans and more about the sum of small, consistent behaviors.

Are patient satisfaction and quality healthcare always the same thing?

No. This distinction is very important in healthcare management. A patient can be very satisfied while the service they received is not medically correct. Conversely, a patient may sometimes be dissatisfied even though the approach taken was entirely right.

For example, when a physician says “no” to a patient who asks for unnecessary antibiotics or tests, short-term satisfaction may drop, yet that is the right medical behavior. That is why the goal of healthcare institutions should not be only a high satisfaction score. The real goal is to bring high medical quality and a good patient experience together. One cannot replace the other.

How do you assess the role of doctor–patient communication in the patient experience?

Today, being a good physician cannot be described by medical knowledge and technical skill alone; communication is an inseparable part of it. Patients don’t just want to be treated; they also want to understand what is happening and why a particular decision was made.

A physician who spends a few more minutes, makes eye contact, truly listens and explains complex medical information in plain language makes a big difference. People may not remember every medical detail, but they remember for a long time how they were treated. Especially in serious illnesses, communication becomes as important an element of the experience as the treatment itself.

How decisive are non-physician touchpoints such as the laboratory, radiology, call center and registration?

Very decisive. An important part of healthcare takes place outside the doctor’s office. Patients register, give blood, go in for imaging, wait for results, make payments and get back in touch.

Correct patient identification in the lab, proper specimen handling, timely results and the correct reporting of critical values are not just operational quality; they are directly patient safety. Likewise, a delayed radiology report or a call center giving wrong information can weaken, in the patient’s eyes, even a system that works well clinically. The patient experience is the shared product of all of an institution’s processes.

How is digitalization changing the patient experience in healthcare?

Digitalization offers very important opportunities. Online appointments, digital patient files, access to lab and imaging results from a phone, remote consultation and AI-supported decision systems can make the patient’s life considerably easier.

But the purpose of digitalization is not to showcase technology but to reduce friction. If patients wait less, repeat less, reach information more easily and have more control over the process, the technology is being used correctly. In my view, good technology is technology that makes itself felt as little as possible.

How do you see the role of artificial intelligence in healthcare?

Artificial intelligence has a very strong future in healthcare. We are seeing serious transformation in areas such as radiology, pathology, laboratory medicine, clinical decision support systems and patient management.

But it is more accurate to see AI not as a technology that will replace the physician but as a tool that improves the quality of the physician’s decisions. AI can be very strong at analyzing large datasets, catching patterns and prioritizing. By contrast, the final clinical decision, ethical responsibility and the relationship with the patient must remain human-centered. As technology advances, the human factor will not lose value; on the contrary, it will have to become more qualified.

Is there a risk that human contact will decline as technology grows?

Yes, this is a real risk. It is very valuable that patients can do everything from their phones, reach their results instantly and wait less. But if we turn healthcare into an entirely mechanical process, we lose something important: the feeling of being understood by another human being.

This is how I summarize the ideal balance: technology should make processes easier, and humans should build the relationship. Technology is valuable if it frees healthcare workers from routine tasks so they can spend more quality time with patients. If, on the contrary, it makes physicians more dependent on screens, we need to rethink the system.

When a bad patient experience occurs in a healthcare institution, how should the complaint be managed?

A complaint should be seen not as a threat but as a free consulting service. The patient is telling you which point in your system isn’t working. Moreover, not every dissatisfied patient complains; most leave quietly and never come back.

Good complaint management has three basic elements: speed, empathy and resolution. Transparency must be added to these. The problem shouldn’t just be closed; the root cause must be found and the process changed so the same incident doesn’t recur. Healthcare institutions don’t have to be flawless, but when mistakes happen, they must manage them properly.

In the next 5–10 years, what will set successful healthcare institutions apart from the rest?

I think five themes will stand out: personalization, speed, accessibility, digital integration and trust. Patients will expect services shaped around their needs rather than the same standard flow. Unnecessary waiting for appointments, tests, results and physician communication will be tolerated less and less.

Integrated digital health journeys will come to the fore instead of moving between different systems. But above all of this, there will again be trust. No matter how far artificial intelligence, robotics and digital health advance, trust will remain the basic currency of the healthcare sector. The successful healthcare institutions of the future will not simply be those with the best equipment, but those that can combine technology, medical quality and a human approach within the same system.

A good experience in healthcare is not just a patient leaving “satisfied”; it is feeling safe, understood and in the right hands. The future will belong not to those who pit technology against the human touch, but to institutions that bring the two together in the right way.