Healthcare organizations face mounting pressure to modernize their services as consumer expectations rapidly shift. Many traditional providers struggle to adapt, creating a widening gap between what patients want and what they experience. Sarah T. Khan is a seasoned healthcare strategist and commercialization expert with over 15 years in enterprise scaling and care delivery transformation. Here she offers practical solutions to providers’ growing challenge of building consumer centricity. Her experience spanning enterprise health systems (Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health), Fortune 200 companies (DaVita and Optum), and health technology SaaS and AI startups (Cogitativo, DoorDash Health & Pharmacy) provides a unique perspective on bridging the divide with digital solutions.
From Community Health to Silicon Valley
Sarah’s career path gives her an uncommon view of healthcare’s challenges. “I’ve spent the last 15 years transforming care delivery for the modern consumer,” she explains. Her journey includes VP+ executive roles across various provider organizations, from community-based health systems like Sutter Health to Fortune 200 giants including CVS and Optum, and most recently, as the sole female C-Suite leader in a health technology companies in Silicon Valley. This mix of experience – traditional providers, large corporations, and tech innovators – has shown her where traditional healthcare falls short and how digital strategies can bridge these gaps. Her focus now? Helping established healthcare organizations adopt practical digital innovations without completely overhauling their operations.
Here are three key strategies for driving digital innovation in healthcare:
Use the Data
Sarah’s first strategy tackles a problem hiding in plain sight at most healthcare organizations. “Healthcare providers are sitting on a gold mine of data,” she points out. The challenge is to make it useful. Most valuable patient information remains latent in electronic health records (EHR), unavailable for everyday use. This data problem has real consequences for patient experience. “Consumers expect that their providers will use their data [for some benefit],” Sarah explains. “Let’s be frank – they’ve provided the same data time and again every time they come to clinic appointments or doctor’s visits.” Patients are increasingly frustrated by repeating their preferences, histories and needs at every visit, and they expect healthcare to utilize data they’ve provided like other modern services. Most importantly, patients trust their providers to do so in a regulatory compliant and ethical manner.
When used properly, this data can transform care in three critical ways: personalizing care delivery, identifying patient preferences, and improving operations. The result? Services that “meet the customer’s needs, exceed their expectations, and help the provider perform better and serve even more consumers out there in the community,” says Sarah.
Build Digital Proficiency and a Strong Digital Presence
The second strategy focuses on meeting patients where they already are – online. “Providers must build digital proficiency and a strong digital footprint,” Sarah emphasizes. Just as professionals need LinkedIn profiles and online presence, healthcare organizations need digital visibility that matches modern consumer behavior. Today’s patients shop for healthcare differently than previous generations. “50% of consumers shop online before they [decide to] set foot into a doctor’s office.” And stakes are high, Sarah shares that research shows “70% of patients will change providers if [the provider’s online persona and presence doesn’t] match their expectations.”
“The modern consumer today expects that they should be able to understand, before stepping foot into the doctor’s office, what that experience will be like.” This shift means providers need to think about their online reputation as seriously as their in-person care.
The good news? There are numerous incremental low-to-no-cost steps providers can take to almost immediately improve their accessibility and consumer-friendliness, and it starting doesn’t require complex technology. “It can be as simple as acquiring Google reviews or Yelp reviews from past patients who’ve had positive experiences,” Sarah suggests. Readers are invited to contact Sarah for more low-investment ideas.
Improve Operating Efficiency to Stand Out
Sarah’s third strategy addresses the financial reality facing both providers and patients. “Improve operational efficiency in order to stand out,” she advises. While healthcare organizations have worked on improving efficiency for decades to keep up with annual reimbursement cuts, this is no longer enough. Today’s consumer demands mandate accelerated improvement. The connection between operational efficiency and patient choice is direct. “Improved operating efficiency translates directly to cost effectiveness for patients,” Sarah explains. “In this economy, [the modern consumer is] a lot more price sensitive than they have been in the past, and that’s whether they have insurance or not.”
Price transparency rules have changed the game, with patients actively comparing costs. “Consumers do shop online to determine where they can get the best pricing, not only for their out-of-pocket costs but also their total cost of care,” says Sarah. This includes what insurance will pay, as patients recognize every dollar affects their premiums and total healthcare expenses.
To learn more about Sarah T. Khan, her experience, and to gain insights for provider organizations that want to modernize on a budget, check out her LinkedIn profile. Readers are invited to contact Sarah directly through her website for discussion of how to capitalize on low-investment opportunities.
