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Five steps to improving UX for patient caregivers

Summary: We spend a lot of time improving digital experiences for patients, but caregivers are often left out of the conversation. These five strategies help healthcare marketers enhance caregiver UX with minimal cost and measurable impact.

It’s a common issue: whether inpatient or outpatient, patient caregivers are often faced with confusing campuses, unclear directions, and loads of questions. Where do I park (and is there a fee)? What are the room features? What are the expectations for me to assist with aftercare?

The digital and lived experience of patient caregivers while their loved ones are receiving care is often an afterthought. This information can be buried, scattered across different locations and service line sites, or simply nonexistent. 

Take care of the caregivers

Understanding what caregivers need is an important step. It helps create a caring digital experience for the families and friends of your patients. This is especially true if those caregivers are coming from out of town and aren’t familiar with your system or area. Creating a simple hub for caregiver information can help your website. It can improve your web analytics by reducing clicks and frustrations. This can also lead to higher satisfaction scores. 

Here are five ways to improve the user experience for the oft-overlooked audience of caregivers.

1. Give caregivers a content hub.

First, identify all the pieces of information that might be relevant to caregivers and give them a home. This likely already exists but may be scattered across your site in blog or service line pages, for example. There may also be existing information about booking followup appointments or paying bills. Are there any gaps in need-to-know (or even nice-to-know) information? This information needs its own page, making it easier to use and thus supporting your overall content strategy. 

  • Effort: Medium

  • Cost: Minimal

2. Make caregiver information easy to find. 

There may be a number of ways you can achieve this depending on your existing website's information architecture. For instance, you can create an audience taxonomy in your CMS that allows you to tag content (articles, resources, etc.) with a Caregiver tag. With the appropriate taxonomy and the right components, you can personalize the experience for your caregiver audience.

Pro tip: Optimize this information for mobile, as many caregivers will be navigating things like your parking deck and campus using their phone.

  • Effort: Medium

  • Cost: Minimal to moderate — Depending on your CMS, components, internal team, etc., this could be easily achieved on a modest budget or could require a bit of development work.

3. Update location pages to include basic amenity information 

It’s the trifecta of FAQs: 

  • Parking hours and fees

  • Cafeteria / food court hours

  • Visiting hours 

But other information is great to have too, like: 

  • If the location has free WiFi

  • If check-in kiosks are available

  • If the location is wheelchair accessible (sadly, this is not always a given)

  • If the lobbies have televisions (key for certain audiences)

  • If translation services are available 

Simply getting the basics on your location pages is a big step in providing a better caregiver experience. Depending on your system and what your community cares about, you can also include things like: 

  • Parking — Best parking areas for different hospital functions (i.e. Park in Garage A if you’re visiting someone in our ICU, Park in Lot W to access the Cancer Center) 

    • Pro tip: If you have a dense, confusing campus, a “Where should I park?” subpage might be helpful. Include things like where there are covered drop-offs, if there is valet service (and its cost), and if (and where) EV charging stations might be found. 

    • Potential pitfall: If parking is under construction or in some way obstructed, this needs to be communicated in advance. 

  • Meal options - Is there a coffee shop? Do you offer vegan, kosher, or halal options? Is ordering food delivery allowed and what are the policies? 

  • Visiting hours and caregiver requirements - Different units might have different visiting hours and expectations. Some outpatient visits may require caregivers to remain on campus until their loved one is out of recovery. 

  • Effort: Medium

  • Cost: Minimal — Depending on your resources you may be able to do this all in-house.

4. Consider a caregiver concierge

Put the hospitality back in hospital. For out-of-town caregivers—especially those staying with a patient for multiple days—offering off-campus recommendations and creature comforts will go a long way. A Caregiver Concierge is a directory of resources and recommendations to support caregivers and their concerns and / or responsibilities. It could include: 

  • Recommended hotels and restaurants nearby

  • Caregiver support groups and resources (both on and off-campus)

  • Gift shop information and hours

Pro tip: Partner with nearby restaurants and hotels to offer discounts or upgrades or advertising deals.

Effort: Minimal

Cost: Minimal

5. Just ask

Gather feedback on your caregiver-specific pages to find out if the content, recommendations, and directions were helpful (or accurate). A simple button asking “Was this helpful?” with a “yes” and “no” button can tell you a lot, and then you can dig into other visitor feedback to continuously improve. 

Effort: Minimal

Cost: Minimal (developer time to integrate feedback widget)

A cost-effective differentiator

As we’ve shown, implementing one or all of these tactics doesn’t have to cost a lot or take a ton of effort. For the most part, these are content updates that your team is likely able to take on themselves with a little support from a developer. In one or two instances, you may need your agency partner to assist, but if you have in-house development that may not be necessary. You do, however, need a caregiver UX strategy to keep all of these enhancements fresh and working in concert with each other, otherwise you may find yourself back where you started.

Improve your caregiver experience today

If giving your patient caregivers a more streamlined and empathetic experience is on your roadmap, we can help. Reach out, and sign up for our newsletter for more tips on creating a better digital front door.

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