In 2018, Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based AdventHealth set out to redefine what healthcare could look like by asking consumers a simple question: What does an ideal healthcare setting feel like?
System leaders identified a similar trend in the answers. Patients wanted to get all of their care in one place, and they wanted the experience to feel curated.
“Why does a patient have to go to three different buildings and go to three different locations and then also have to wait three weeks for one diagnosis? How do we solve that?” Joel George, MSN, RN, executive director of retail services strategy and operations at AdventHealth, said during a session at Becker’s 16th Annual Meeting.
That feedback became the foundation for the system’s Health Parks, 36,000-square-foot facilities that bring services such as lab, imaging, sports medicine, rehab, cardiology and primary care together under one roof.
Patients check in once, and all of their appointments happen in that single location. One to two out of every three patients who walk through the door receive multiple services the same day.
To date, AdventHealth has opened six Health Parks across Central Florida, and the model now anchors the system’s ambulatory growth strategy.
The Health Parks are, in part, designed to prevent patients from ending up in emergency departments due to mismanaged primary care visits or care plans that were not fully executed. By co-locating ambulatory services, especially near EDs, AdventHealth can intercept those breakdowns before they escalate.
The model also helps preserve network integrity. AdventHealth has analyzed referral patterns flowing out of primary care and identified gastroenterology, endocrinology and cardiology as the three specialties where co-location delivers the most strategic value. With those specialties embedded in the Health Parks, referrals stay inside the system, patients don’t drift to competitors and AdventHealth retains confidence in the quality of care its patients are receiving.
But what truly sets the Health Parks apart is AdventHealth’s focus on hospitality.
“At the end of the day, healthcare is customer service just like any other hospitality brand that’s out there,” Mr. George said.
He noted that the next generation of healthcare consumers expect the same curated, five-star experience they’d get from a top hotel or restaurant brand. To meet that expectation, AdventHealth brought in the Ritz-Carlton to train team members on how to embed hospitality into every patient interaction.
Mr. George anchors this approach in the “peak-end rule,” a psychological heuristic that people remember an experience by its peak moment and its ending. For a patient, the peak is almost always that first impression at the front desk, which is why AdventHealth hires its concierge and check-in staff specifically for that Ritz-Carlton level of service.
Front desk team members remember patients’ recent vacations, jot down personal stories to reference on the next visit and deliver small, unexpected touches that transform a clinical check-in into something personal. When patients have appointments on or near their birthday, the concierge staff circulates a card for everyone in the building to sign.
Early results back the strategy: Health Parks carry a 4.9 Google star rating across more than 6,000 reviews and sit in the 75th percentile for Press Ganey likelihood-to-recommend scores.
These practices were inspired in part by the book “Unreasonable Hospitality,” and they reflect Mr. George’s broader belief that patient experience is the next great investment in healthcare.
“I don’t think the next generation of investment in healthcare is a building or a service line,” he said. “I think it’s really experience. At the end of the day, how do you bring hospitality into healthcare?”
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