Portfolio

When Upland Hills Health (UHH) was looking to increase awareness for digestive health, they turned to AMPERAGE to create a patient journey map documenting the gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, patient experience. The goal was to better understand the GERD patient journey in order to increase general surgery volumes by marketing an outpatient surgical procedure, transoral incisionless fundoplication, or TIF.

Connect

Evaluation

AMPERAGE worked with the UHH project team to identify the ideal patient to study before diving into the research. We reviewed national trends and GERD patient data provided by UHH to form a basis of understanding before conducting an on-site Journey Workshop with a diverse group of UHH staff. One-on-one interviews were also conducted with internal staff and UHH GERD patients. These conversations uncovered the physical and emotional experiences patients experience, as well as the touchpoints they have with UHH throughout the journey.

Motivate

Patient Journey

The key insights collected were synthesized and turned into a visual description of the patient journey, showing patients’ behaviors, thoughts and feelings as they traveled through each stage of the journey. UHH touchpoints, communication channels and opportunities were also defined on the map. “Mary”, a more accurate marketing persona, was also formed during the research process.

Measure

Perspective

The research revealed that a very low percentage of scopes lead to surgery, so while surgical volumes were not a good measure of ROI, there were opportunities to show ROI in other areas, including primary care visits, nutrition consultations, scope procedures and healthy living/weight loss program utilization. Through this process, AMPERAGE was able to help UHH clarify new goals and form a new campaign message with an appropriate call to action, and develop a plan for better patient education and experience.