Healthcare Value as an Experience: From individuals’ health service experiences to healthcare ecosystem and related methods

Healthcare customers’ experiences are increasingly becoming the focus of healthcare service provision and have lately assumed prominence in healthcare practice and research. The potential for providing superior experiences, notably health service experiences (HSEs), is extensive: improved clinical effectiveness, positive word of mouth, improved patient satisfaction, and patient engagement that can lead to improved cost effectiveness and positive health outcomes for individuals. Most importantly, HSEs are considered to be the core basis of value determinations of healthcare customers. These value determinations are described and conceptualized as value as an experience. The provision of experiential value is critical for healthcare companies—those healthcare providers who increase the value provided will be the most competitive, whereas those who do not increase value in healthcare provision will encounter growing pressure that is driven by many societal challenges. For this reason, understanding and developing value through experiences has become one of the fundamental aims in healthcare systems and a top priority for healthcare organizations.

Generating such understanding, however, is no small task and is framed by the complexity of the HSE phenomenon through which the value is determined. HSE is described as a sensitive, subjective, and multidimensional construct that emerges through a myriad of interactions over complex patient journeys within a sophisticated healthcare ecosystem. Despite its relevancy, the concept of healthcare value as an experience has remained elusive, lacking an empirical and comprehensive understanding. The objective of this dissertation, therefore, is to develop a better understanding of healthcare value as an experience to contribute theory building with empirically generated knowledge and offer guidance for healthcare providers that are seeking to provide better value for their customers.

The objective is approached using four research questions: 1) How is multidimensional HSE composed? 2) Who belongs to the healthcare ecosystem by co-creating value as an HSE? 3) What kinds of patient journey touchpoints shape an HSE in a healthcare ecosystem? 4) What do diverse methods provide for capturing an individual’s HSE, and how is the HSE understanding utilized within healthcare ecosystem? To answer these questions, the dissertation comprises six articles with a qualitative research approach and this introduction. The studies applied a range of research designs, including a systematic literature review of 129 customer experience articles; explorative interview studies with pediatric patients’ parents, healthcare professionals, and healthcare workers; an explorative case study of a healthcare gamification ecosystem; a collective, instrumental case study focusing on qualitative methods; and a participatory design study focusing on children’s experience inquiry. The empirical studies were conducted in a Finnish healthcare setting.

This dissertation creates a new knowledge of healthcare value as an experience, thereby making several contributions to the service research and marketing literature in healthcare context, healthcare management, healthcare operations management, participatory design, and qualitative healthcare research literature. The findings build on a nuanced empirical understanding of multidimensional HSEs through sensory, emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and social dimensions and identify the relevant healthcare ecosystem actors at the micro, meso, and macro levels of the ecosystem that participate in experiential value co-creation. In addition, the dissertation empirically highlights the broadness of the touchpoints shaping the HSE over patient journeys, specifically those that reside well beyond the healthcare providers’ facilities, including touchpoints in patients’ and their families’ everyday lives. Finally, the dissertation provides methodological insights into the empirical query of individuals’ HSEs, develops a novel data collection method for studying children’s HSEs, and provides a better understanding of the challenges in utilizing this understanding within the healthcare ecosystem. The findings are relevant for practitioners, including healthcare managers and professionals, municipal and governmental entities, and other actors in the healthcare ecosystem, such as patient associations and technology companies.