Linda Martinez had called three times that week. Each time, she explained her mother's medication concerns to a different person. Each time, she was asked the same questions. Each time, the frustration deepened. Healthcare organizations face a critical challenge: patients are tired of repeating themselves. The issue isn't automating interactions; it's coordinating their completion. According to Forrester's comprehensive analysis in The Customer Experience Platforms for Healthcare Landscape, Q2 2024, this fragmentation isn't just a patient frustration—it's a systemic operational crisis threatening healthcare organizations' ability to compete.
Forrester's Q2 2024 landscape report and September 2024 Wave evaluation provide the most comprehensive analysis available on healthcare customer experience platforms. This summary is designed for healthcare executives, digital strategy leaders, and operations directors evaluating platforms to address patient experience fragmentation. You'll find research-backed insights on what differentiates effective CX platforms, how leading organizations are using them to compete against nontraditional providers, and specific criteria Forrester used to evaluate eight major vendors.
Healthcare organizations operate in what Forrester describes as an "increasingly complex and diverse healthcare ecosystem." The implications are stark:
Your systems don't talk to each other. Research shows that healthcare information systems create fragmented data silos that can exchange information with only limited providers, directly slowing treatment decisions and forcing manual data transfers that introduce errors. Nearly 1 in 5 patients report mistakes within their ambulatory visit notes due to these disconnected systems
Your patients are moving to competitors who make it easier. Bain & Company projects that by 2030, non traditional providers (including retailers, payers, and advanced primary care disruptors) will capture 30% of the U.S. primary care market. These competitors understand something fundamental: patient loyalty flows to organizations that eliminate friction, not add to it
Your staff spends time on data entry instead of patient care. When healthcare administrative costs account for approximately 8% of total healthcare spending, and much of that stems from manually transferring information between platforms, the operational inefficiency becomes a financial burden no practice can sustain long-term.
Forrester defines customer experience platforms for healthcare as technologies that "orchestrate seamless, personalized healthcare experiences at every touchpoint." The research, which evaluated platforms using 33 specific criteria, emphasizes three critical capabilities:
Healthcare organizations drowning in data lack access to critical consumer information that exists outside electronic health records or claims history. Effective CX platforms acquire and transform key data into actionable insights with applications across multiple consumer and employee touchpoints.
Scheduling an appointment or paying a bill doesn't create value; outcomes achieved over time do. At the heart of value creation lies deep understanding of each customer's unique needs and motivations, allowing organizations to deliver personalized, anticipatory experiences that evolve with changing priorities.
Healthcare leaders have long struggled to piece together the full customer journey and measure intervention effectiveness due to fragmentation and disparate data. According to Forrester analyst Arielle Trzcinski, "Healthcare consumers expect a solution at first contact. Consumers' patience has worn thin, and the time for HCOs to act is now."
Forrester's September 2024 evaluation, The Forrester Wave™: Customer Experience Platforms For Healthcare, emphasizes that narrow focus on the "digital front door" has yielded some success on customer acquisition but left much to be desired on the trust frontier.
The research makes clear: to earn trust, healthcare organizations must create value with customers. This requires:
Data ownership that empowers consumers: Platforms should leverage emotional peaks to nudge customers toward active involvement and better health management
Flexible search capabilities: Natural language understanding that reduces consumer frustration in critical care-finding journeys
Contextualized, personalized experiences: CX platforms must provide orchestration and dynamic guidance tailored to each individual
According to Forrester's November 2024 research, most consumers prefer to complete health-related activities (refilling prescriptions, finding doctors, checking symptoms) using web browsers or apps. Yet healthcare organizations must support customers with clear language, empathy, transparency, and ease. As the report notes, "healthcare delivery and services are full of roadblocks," and successful organizations will lead with digital-first experiences that give consumers control.
Forrester's 2024 U.S. Health Insurers Customer Experience Index Rankings revealed a sobering trend: the average CX Index score for health insurers dropped by 2.7 points, marking the third consecutive year of decline. Half of the brands experienced significant decreases in their scores.
Yet the research also confirms what forward-thinking organizations already know: firms that are customer-obsessed grow revenue, profit, and customer loyalty faster than their competitors. As Forrester VP Rick Parrish explains, "Brands want to create better experiences, and they realize that putting the customer at the center of their business is the way to do it."
Keona Health recognizes that healthcare organizations need more than point solutions. CareDesk addresses the operational realities Forrester highlights: the need for comprehensive patient profiles, seamless data integration, and experiences that reduce the burden on both patients and staff. Our platform uses advanced technology to coordinate completion across every patient touchpoint, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
Linda finally reached someone at her mother's practice who had context. The conversation was different: no repeated questions, no transferring between departments, no starting over. The representative already knew about the medication concerns because the system connected her previous calls, her mother's health record, and the care team's notes into one coherent story.
This is what Forrester envisions for healthcare's future: platforms that transform scattered data points into unified patient experiences. Organizations that invest in customer experience platforms position themselves to thrive as healthcare continues its inevitable shift toward value-based care, consumerization, and digital-first engagement.
The question isn't whether healthcare will adopt comprehensive CX platforms. The question is whether your organization will lead this transformation, or be left explaining to patients why they need to repeat themselves one more time.