Cycle of Value for the Patient – First Stage: Identify the Value

First stage- “Identify the value”

In commerce, when you speak about identifying value what you mean is finding the need the customer wants satisfied, but the market has not provided a satisfactory solution if any solution at all. All products and services in the end try to solve an unmet need and by doing so create a better quality of life. If a product or service doesn´t solve a need it will hardly last because it doesn´t have a reason to exist. Identifying the value tries to find this need.

Not As Easy As It Might Seem
In medicine, this stage sounds easy to achieve but it apparently is a difficult problem. Even with modern medical advances, doctors are repeating the same mistakes that have occurred for years. They earn their medical degree, specialize, set up their practice and wait for patients to arrive. The typical scenario: the patient arrives to the office, signs in, fills out paperwork, then waits for you to see him or her. Finally the patient is escorted to the exam room and undergoes the common procedures (clinical history, physical exam, etc.). You give a diagnosis and finally recommend a treatment. The patient pays and leaves the office.

The idea is that at the moment you meet the patient you need to ask yourself this question: What does this patient need? If your answer is simply to solve their problem that brought them to you in the first place, you are partially right. Partially correct because these days patients need more than just a few moments of your time and your treatment recommendations. Patients are in search of a whole service and your time and treatment are just part of this service.

Let me use an example: There are a lot of people that participate in sports. In Mexico, a popular sport is horseback riding. Horseback riding often causes injuries requiring the expertise of an orthopedic surgeon. In the community of people that practice horse back riding the members often consult the same orthopedic surgeon. Why? It is an easy answer: this doctor found the right niche and bécame expert about the common injuries and pathologies that occur with horseback riding. But there is more to it than knowing about the most common presentations. The best doctor for these patients is one of them. He is an avid equestrian himself, and because of his own riding experience he makes everything possible for his patients to get back on the horse as soon as possible. EVen more, you can often find him at the equestrian events where patients can talk to him outside the office and more as a friend. He does more for horseback riding patients than any other orthopedic surgeon in the area.

Now that you have answered yourself this, you must make yourself this other question:

What else

does patients need?

When you ask yourself this question about what are my patients’ unmet needs, the answer you are looking for goes beyond the expected. Even when you believe you have an answer you must question it again and again. Always ask yourself “What else does my patient need?”

Get Specific and Personal
Up to now in this discussion, we have made the question generic. Now it is important to make it personal. Ask what does MY patient need? I must admit that I really hate it when doctors say “my patient” because it is egocetric and they have not understood yet that doctors don’t have patients, patients have doctors (do you know how many of “your” patients are loyal to you?).

Now that we made clear this topic, asking yourself the question: what does my patient need? You pretend to find an answer that is specific to you and your practice. You have to remember that little things make big differences so maybe patients are not just searching for the doctor that have more titles or articles published, maybe they want smaller things like punctuality, to be heard, empathy, respect etc.

In identifying the value big companies in the world spend a lot of money doing research, market studies, focus groups and whatever else to understand what people want so they can attempt to give it to them. For physicians it is a little bit harder to do such big research studies. But there are ways to find this value with small polls or surveys that you can give to the patient at the end of the consultion, or via email. Be creative. It is also very important to listen to your team, your receptionist, nurse, administrator, assistant etc. They spend a lot of time with your patients and hear feedback patients may not share with you. You need to listen to what they have to say.

So think about it, talk to everyone, and always ask yourself questions to try to find out WHAT DOES YOUR PATIENT NEED?

Rodrigo Rubio, MD
Mexico