Despite this extraordinary pace of innovation, something fundamental remains broken. Patients still struggle to navigate care. Physicians continue to wrestle with fragmented systems, administrative overload and technologies that often add work rather than reduce it. Health innovators repeatedly introduce sophisticated tools into environments overwhelmed by operational complexity, lack of governance, cybersecurity concerns, workflow disruption and communication gaps.

The issue is no longer whether innovation benefits care. The issue is friction.

Consumers compare health care experiences to every interaction in daily life. They compare health care to Apple, where design simplifies complexity, to Amazon, where communication is continuous and immediate, and to banking and travel platforms providing real-time updates and seamless transactions. Some may even compare it to Domino’s Pizza, which promises delivery within 15 minutes or the pie is free. Expectations surrounding responsiveness and convenience have fundamentally changed.

Then they enter health care environments where forms are repeated, portals fail to communicate, prior authorizations delay treatment and updates disappear into silence. Patients are left to navigate disconnected systems during moments of vulnerability. The expectation gap between consumer and health care experiences continues to widen and increasingly shapes reputation.

In Healing the Sick Care System: Why People Matter, the observation is made that “Health care isn’t failing because we lack innovation. It’s failing because the system around that innovation has calcified.” The statement remains painfully real because innovation alone does not create confidence. Experience does.

Patients Remember the Journey, Not the Molecule

The patient and physician experience is shaped less by what a product promises and more by what happens after that promise enters real life. A medicine may be clinically meaningful, yet the experience surrounding it can still become exhausting if coverage is difficult to secure, prior authorization is confounding, specialty pharmacy coordination is slow, follow-up instructions are unclear or support programs require patients to become navigators of their own care.

In those moments, people are not judging science on its own merits. They are judging the total experience of trying to make that medicine or care available and understandable.

Physicians face their own administrative version of friction. A therapy may be medically appropriate, yet before treatment can begin, office staff must determine coverage, complete documentation, respond to payer step-through requirements, manage rejection appeals and explain delays that were never created in the exam room. Every additional administrative step consumes time, stretches staff and places additional strain on the physician-patient relationship. Even non-medical formulary changes can force physicians to restart conversations, explain unexpected medication switches and reestablish patient confidence in treatment decisions already made.

Patients remember counting the hours as they waited for answers. Physicians remember losing uncompensated time navigating systems and approvals. Nurses remember caring for patients through computer screens while typing notes into laptops on rolling carts in crowded hallways. Office managers remember the relentless cycle of paperwork, rejected claims, disconnected portals and endless callbacks trying to move care forward.

The therapy may eventually do its job, yet the pathway becomes inseparable from the memory associated with the brand, the company and the broader health care system. Every new process, technology and treatment promises improvement. For patients and health professionals, however, if the path to care feels uphill, the friction surrounding the experience can overshadow the value of the benefit.

For many patients, repeated uncertainty, delays and administrative obstacles contribute to a form of medical PTSD, where anxiety surrounding the system becomes inseparable from the treatment experience. For health professionals, the constant burden of navigating fragmented systems, managing approvals and compensating for communication gaps has become a leading contributor to burnout.

Friction is rarely remembered as an operational issue inside organizations. Patients and physicians experience it personally. This is why communication must be elevated operationally within health care. Communication is not marketing layered onto innovation after development is complete.

Health care organizations often think they are going through the process of delivering a product, therapy or platform. Patients and physicians experience something more personal: time invested in every interaction surrounding the innovation is time lost forever.

Health Technology Cannot Create More Work

The same reality applies to health technology startups and digital health innovators. Technological advancement alone does not guarantee adoption within health care environments already burdened by operational complexity and workforce fatigue.

Health care organizations do not merely evaluate whether technology works. They evaluate whether it integrates with existing workflows, whether cybersecurity standards are state-of-the-art, whether onboarding is manageable, whether interoperability gaps create additional burdens, and whether the institution can trust the accuracy of data.

Every additional step is a friction point, while every unresolved operational issue becomes part of the patient and physician experience surrounding the journey.

A sophisticated AI platform that requires clinicians to validate outputs continuously adds cognitive burden. A monitoring platform generating clinically important alerts contributes to fatigue. A system that requires extensive retraining or manual workarounds may succeed in demonstration but stumble in real-world conditions.

Innovation may arrive elegantly designed; however, it enters health care environments already strained by workflow complexity, disconnected systems, cybersecurity demands and administrative fatigue. The operational realities surrounding implementation often become as important as the innovation itself.

That reality does not diminish the importance of continuous invention. It reinforces the importance of implementation, communication and operational design within real-world clinical environments.

This shift is increasingly visible across the global health innovation marketplace itself. At HLTH Europe 2026, conversations are moving well beyond excitement surrounding artificial intelligence, digital therapeutics and next-generation platforms. The agenda sessions focus on interoperability, workflow integration, governance, patient engagement and operational implementation. Conference themes repeatedly emphasize connected systems, coordinated experiences and technologies that reduce fragmentation rather than add to a growing list of patches.

One of the more revealing themes from HLTH Europe focuses directly on interoperability and the longstanding frustration surrounding disconnected systems. The conference site notes that clinicians continue spending enormous energy managing platforms that fail to communicate effectively with one another. At the same time, artificial intelligence is increasingly viewed not as a replacement for care, but as a bridge helping systems “finally speak the same language.”

Another major focus involves provider realities. HLTH Europe speakers highlight workforce fatigue, cyber risks, operational strain and workflow challenges facing clinicians and health systems across Europe and beyond. These agenda themes reinforce a growing recognition throughout the industry that innovation cannot succeed if it increases the burden for the people expected to use it every day.

Health professionals increasingly describe a workplace dominated by more screens, more alerts, more documentation and less time with patients. Technology interrupting workflow rather than integrating into it creates resistance, regardless of how advanced the platform may appear. The hidden work behind implementation often becomes the defining experience for the people expected to use the system every day.

Cybersecurity provides another important example. Health professionals and patients may never fully understand the technical architecture protecting health information, yet they absolutely understand the emotional consequence of uncertainty surrounding data privacy, reliability and trust. Confidence in health technology is not built solely through functionality. It is reinforced through consistency, service, transparency and confidence that information is accurate, protected and responsibly governed.

Communication plays an equally important role here. If clinicians are left uncertain about updates, system changes or data governance responsibilities, confidence weakens. If patients do not understand how information is protected, trust erodes, regardless of how advanced the technology.

Communication remains inseparable from the care experience.

The organizations most likely to lead the future of health care will not distinguish themselves solely through technological achievement. They will reduce friction around the user interface, workflows and data accuracy.

The Companies That Win Will Simplify Complexity

This reality explains why access organizations such as Hims & Hers Health and Cost Plus Drugs deserve careful study from across the health care sector, regardless of whether industry leaders agree with every aspect of their business models. These organizations are built around reducing friction in how people access and experience care.

Their importance extends beyond convenience or pricing. These companies recognize that many traditional health institutions have underestimated: people increasingly expect health care experiences to reduce anxiety, simplify decision-making and provide continuity throughout the care journey.  They are “Amazon-like,” offering a “Buy It Now” simple click medical oversight option.

The rise of concierge medicine, direct-to-consumer health platforms and walk-in clinics with reduced wait times reflects a broader market signal the health sector cannot ignore. Patients are increasingly gravitating toward experiences where communication is clearer and access is more immediate.

For those able to afford concierge care, the attraction often extends beyond physician access itself. Patients value responsiveness, shorter wait times, easier scheduling, follow-up communication and the sense that someone is helping coordinate their journey through the system. Walk-in clinics and urgent care centers appeal for similar reasons. People are searching for environments where care is readily accessible, understandable and administratively manageable. The downside of loss of care continuity is offset by immediacy, which is what the consumer values most.

This migration reflects frustration with friction embedded throughout the trending health care experience. Long hold times, delayed callbacks, countless portals, disconnected records, repeated paperwork on clipboards and uncertainty surrounding next steps all shape how people perceive quality of care.

Communication once again sits at the center of the experience. Patients rarely separate operational snafus from expert care. They experience the entire journey as one connected reality – positive or negative.

The lesson is not that health care should behave exactly like retail commerce. Medicine carries ethical, scientific and regulatory responsibilities far beyond consumer transactions. Nevertheless, the operational expectations consumers now bring into the setting have changed.

People increasingly expect health care to be as responsive as the communication they experience elsewhere in life. Is that expectation reasonable?

The pharmaceutical industry, payers, providers, and health technology innovators must recognize that they no longer own just the patents on therapies, platforms or services. They also own the surrounding user experience.

Patients experience health as a continuous journey, not a “build your own adventure” exercise in navigating fragmented systems. Most people enter the system anxious and seeking reassurance from their health professionals. A delayed approval, clinically sterile information delivered through a diagnostic portal or a physician struggling to navigate complexity alongside them deepens that burden. These experiences shape how health care is remembered more powerfully than advertising campaigns or corporate positioning statements.

Those experiences ultimately shape reputations.

The future winners in health care will not simply develop innovative products. They will reduce friction around the human experience surrounding those products. They will recognize that communication, workflow design and responsiveness are not secondary considerations attached to innovation. They are part of the experience.

Patients and physicians rarely remember the elegance of molecular or system architecture behind a therapy or platform. They remember whether the experience made care delivery easier and more humane during moments that mattered.

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—Gil Bashe, “Global Marketing Strategies” and “Emotion: The New Brand Integrator,” Pharmaceutical Executive, 2000

Twenty-five years ago, in a series of articles for Pharmaceutical Executive that may have seemed radical at the time, I argued that successful marketing wasn’t built on features but feelings. Back then, people were skeptical. “Emotion?” they responded. “We’re here to sell solutions.” Yet, as I revisit that article from the perspective of today’s fractured health landscape, I realize just how prescient that core message was.

In 2000, I wrote, “A brand must reflect the soul of the company. It must reflect its leadership and people’s beliefs, philosophies, and practices.” That truth remains, but in today’s health sector—beset by cost crises, consumer distrust, and system complexity—the soul of the brand must go even deeper. It must speak to human experience. It must unite the head (facts), heart (feelings), and gut (intuition) to unite the five pillars of the care community: patients, payers, product innovators, policymakers and providers.

The brands that do this don’t just survive, they lead.

The Head: Anchor in Truth, Lead with Clarity

We live in an era of data deluge. The health industry is drowning in numbers, from EMR systems to clinical trial dashboards. Yet many brands still mistake data for direction.

Yes, the head—facts—matter. Health is a science of logic, science, and proof. But it is also an art.

In my original article, I noted that the “hallmark of a strong brand is clarity—a clear promise, consistently delivered.” In health, clarity is more than a brand virtue; it’s a money and mission obligation. Patients need clarity in order to make life-altering choices. Providers need clarity in order to correctly apply new technologies and administer novel treatments. Payers need clarity so that they may judge value and outcomes.

A brand that leads with the head communicates what it does and why it matters. The science, the evidence, the safety profile: these aspects of health products are essential. But they are not enough.

I wrote in 2000, “Even the most successful product will not remain so without continuous reaffirmation of its value and identity.” It’s still true today, but that reaffirmation must be human, not simply clinical.

The Heart: Where Value Becomes Meaning

A quarter-century ago, I argued that “emotional connection” was key to global brand success. In 2024, I echoed that idea, stating that empathy is a strategic imperative, not a “soft skill.” Writing in Medika Life, I asserted that “Empathy—the ability to sense and connect to another’s experience—has clinical consequences.”

Health isn’t delivered in abstracts. It’s experienced in human moments: a nurse’s tone of voice, the wait time for an appointment, a doctor’s bedside manner. Patients remember how they felt, not what was said.

The same is true of brand impressions. A health brand’s heart is measured by its humanity: how it listens, responds, and affirms the lived experience. Consider the rise of narrative medicine, patient-centered care design, or trauma-informed policy. These are not trends. They are a return to what medicine truly is: a human endeavor.

In 2000, I wrote that “People buy brands because they trust them and because those brands represent a relationship.” It’s never been more true. That relationship must be emotional. If we don’t move hearts, we will never move health.

The Gut: The Compass for Courage and Change

If the head is what we know, and the heart is what we feel, then the gut is what we sense. It’s instinct informed by experience. It’s the courage to take a stand when the data is inconclusive. It’s also the discipline to say no when a decision doesn’t align with the brand’s soul.

In 2000, I observed that “Global brands are built not just on strategy, but on intuition—on understanding the culture and values of the people they serve.” That same intuition now guides how we engage health audiences. Do we sense distrust? Fear? Exhaustion? Our gut tells us when a message is too technical, dense or transactional to resonate. It urges us to simplify and re-center on the human.

Great leaders trust their gut because it helps them detect the intangibles: tone, timing and truth. In brand leadership, that same sense keeps us authentic.

Reuniting the Quintet: Patients, Payers, Product Innovators, Policymakers and Providers

Today’s health ecosystem is fractured along functional lines. Patients seek access, providers seek time, and payers seek value. Too often, they work in silos, leaving innovation and empathy at the margins.

But brands can be bridges. When built with head, heart, and gut, they become platforms for unity.

I wrote in 2000 that the “challenge is to ensure that everyone in the organization consistently communicates the brand through behavior, not just brochures.” That principle is now essential in aligning care delivery. Health brands must operate across disciplines, sectors, and even continents, but always with a singular message: we see, hear, and serve you.

Whether you’re a Medicaid insurer, a diagnostics company, or a telehealth platform, your brand is a promise. And that promise must connect the person in the exam room with the person writing the policy.

The ROI of Human Experience

In 2025, health leaders face dual pressures: cut costs and elevate care. This seems like a paradox, but it’s not. Investing in human experience is not a detour from efficiency; it’s the gateway to it.

Empathy reduces readmissions, clear communication improves medication adherence, and trusted brands drive engagement. When we center on people, we improve systems.

Put simply, mission and money must align. One cannot exist without the other in sustainable health ecosystems.

Final Thought: A New Brand Equation

As I wrote in Global Marketing Strategies 25 years ago, “A brand is the product of what people feel, not just what they see.” That message, once contrarian, is now the compass.

The future of health brands is in the hands of those willing to embrace complexity with clarity, wield emotion with discipline, and make instinct an asset, not a liability. In short, the best brands will speak to the head with intelligence, the heart with empathy, and the gut with courage.

In an age when trust is currency and gaining attention means cutting through the information jungle, this is not just good branding. It’s savvy mission-centered business leadership.

The post Beyond Data: Why Human Decisions Are Shaped by Facts, Feelings—and the Fire Within appeared first on Medika Life.

“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” – Henry David Thoreau

Have you ever changed your mind? Your patients do it all the time. Furthermore, they do it throughout their plan of care. You may have nailed the initial visit by asking all the right questions, developing well-reasoned goals, and fostering the beginning of a magical patient-therapist relationship, only to have it all come crashing down in a couple of weeks because the patient changed their mind on everything.

Sometimes this is the result of you being so awesome at your job and Exceeding Expectations that they develop new expectations they previously thought were unattainable. If you keep striving for the original goals and never discuss the updates with the patients, you will find their frustration mounting and frequently stating “it’s fine” when it is clearly not fine (in case you were wondering, it’s never fine when someone uses that phrase…ever).

Patient and therapist expectations often differ

Now, this does not mean we should strive for mediocrity to protect ourselves from setting up a patient with unreasonable expectations. Instead, this highlights the importance of continually seeking to understand your patient throughout the plan of care. This is different from constantly asking them their status with negative framing. Frequent use of “how does that feel?” or “how are you feeling today?” routinely fosters hyper-focus on any unpleasant sensations or difficulties. Instead, ask them about their perceived progress, highlight the areas they have improved upon, and revisit their goals.

You may find hidden frustrations around the perceived lack of progress despite your assessment that the patient is on track. The patient may expect the same rapidity of improvement while you expect more of a leveling off in the next couple weeks or perhaps even a temporary small step back with the increasing difficulty of exercises. You will find greater trust and engagement if there is alignment on the plan of care of expected outcomes. This is only scratching the surface of patient expectations and their drivers.

Would the patient classify your treatment as valuable?

Brain imaging shows that when someone perceives they were ripped off; they have activity in regions associated with disgust and pain. Conversely, when people perceive they received a good deal, it is a pleasurable event. How does this apply to physical therapy? Simple, we provide a service in exchange for money, time, and effort.

While we may want to avoid the financial piece of PT, it is a primary influencer of every treatment session, especially if the cost of care stretches the patient financially. The cost and value of a service are relative to each patient. A $25 copay may be expensive and challenging for one patient while a $300 payment (prior to meeting their deductible) may not faze another. I am not saying the quality of our care should be influenced by this perceived value, as we should provide the best quality possible each session, but we must understand patient expectations may shift with the relative cost. The patient may expect to be cured in one visit if they perceive the cost to be high. You want to know if you are fighting an uphill battle from the onset.

Negative emotions often outweigh positive ones

When assessing a patient’s expectations of care, we need to consider their current emotional state as well. Negative emotions and negative feedback often have more impact than positive ones, and negative information is processed more thoroughly than positive ones. The self is more motivated to avoid negative self-definitions than to pursue positive ones. Negative impressions and negative stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than positive ones. In a nutshell, negative emotions are typically stronger the positive emotions.

While this is not universal to all people and all situations, we have likely experienced this during patient care and witnessed patient perseveration on the negative information they received (e.g. their MRI report). The information a patient receives prior to starting PT (e.g. imaging report, the media, their referring physician) and the information a patient receives in PT (how weak they are, poor mobility, crappy squat mechanics) can weigh them down and reshape expectations. There are many ways a patient can decide to cope and respond to this information. One of these strategies is loss aversion.

“I knew I shouldn’t have done that”

Could of, should of, would of…I heard this phrase often as a kid. My father would say it after my incessant complaining about some boneheaded move. Instead of focusing on the past, we need to learn from it and focus on the current situation and future investments. This is easier said than done. As Richard Feynman said,

“A rational decision-maker is interested only in the future consequences of current investments. Justifying earlier mistakes is not among the Econ’s concerns.” We can all benefit by channeling our inner economist.

Frustration can mount rapidly when reviewing an undesirable outcome and knowing you were responsible. Often the frustration is greater for the outcomes we are able to control versus the ones we cannot. This phenomenon is referred to as loss aversion. When directly compared or weighted against each other, losses loom larger than gains. It is important to define a “loss” and a “gain” as those can be subjective.

We have to define success to measure it

Outcomes better than the reference point are gains, while outcomes worse than the reference point are losses. Reference points are key for most assessments. For example, our assessment of a test grade substantially changes once we know what the grading scale is (i.e. an “A” being 90-100% vs. 94-100%). In treatment, the reference point may be predicted improvement in FOTO outcome measures or the MCID of a pain scale.

Daniel Kahneman wrote that “Loss aversion implies only that choices are strongly biased in favor of the reference situation (generally biased to favor small rather than large changes).” So, how does this apply to patient care? It can lead to very reserved expectations as a means of psychological protection. Instead of using an outcome tool’s MCIDs or patient goals, we use the status quo, or current medical condition, as the reference point. If the patient improved at all, we deem the treatment a success rather than needing to meet a specific level of improvement.

The more challenging the goal, the easier it is for us to fail to achieve it. It is easier to justify not achieving a goal by failing to act than by trying and failing. Loss aversion is a powerful conservative force that favors minimal changes from the status quo in the lives of patients and clinicians. People expect to have stronger emotional reactions (including regret) to an outcome that is produced by action than to the same outcome when it is produced by inaction. Going back to patients, this can impact their willingness to fully invest in PT, especially if they have experienced failed treatment before. It is easier to justify failure when we don’t make the effort.

How to combat loss aversion and hesitancy

One method to address loss aversion is broad framing, which is approaching a situation with a ‘big picture’ lens as opposed to looking at each event in isolation. For example, loss aversion typically homes in on a single reference point, such as returning to the soccer field. Broad framing would highlight all of the progress made and frame setbacks as opportunities and lessons for future development. Conversely, loss aversion and narrow framing is a lethal combination. While loss aversion and negative emotions can significantly dampen expectations, there are instances where a lack of expectation ‘control’ can negatively impact the assessment of the true benefit or harm of intervention.

Patients often over-estimate treatment benefits and underestimate treatment harm. This can lead to rash decisions (such as pursuing a risky intervention or prematurely ending a plan of care).^[1] Many studies have demonstrated individuals work significantly harder to achieve a goal compared to exceeding one. One is success vs. failure (achieving the goal) while the other is a cherry on top (exceeding the goal). This can impact the desire of a patient to resume PT once they achieve a primary goal, despite your knowledge they can achieve even greater outcomes or vice versa. On the flip side, a clinician may lack interest in a case if they perceive the patient has achieved sufficient improvement.

When trying to determine a patient’s expectations of PT, it can be helpful to understand how they developed those expectations and what information may assist or hinder the development and refinement of new expectations. Let’s take a look at four categories of expectations.

Predicted Expectations

The first is Predicted expectations, which are what the individual believes will occur. Many studies have highlighted a link between expectation and clinical outcomes for individuals experiencing musculoskeletal pain.^[2] Predicted expectations, both positive and negative, have a direct relationship with musculoskeletal pain. These expectations will be heavily influenced by the information the patient receives – such as from their referring physician or social media – prior to starting physical therapy.

Ideal Expectations

The second is Ideal expectations, which refer to a patient’s desire and hope. Essentially, they are what an individual wants to occur, while predicted are what an individual thinks will occur. Many patients will not share these as they believe they are not attainable and will lead to disappointment. I recommended asking. If they are attainable, and you help the patient achieve them, you will have an advocate for life

Normative Expectations

Normative expectations are what the patient believes should occur. While little is known of impact normative expectations have on clinical outcomes, it does appear to play a role in patient satisfaction (or dissatisfaction if you fail to meet it). These are heavily influenced by the value proposition. If the commute time is long, the cost of care is high, or you come highly recommended, the patient will likely expect rapid, superior outcomes.

Unformed Expectations

Lastly, we have Unformed expectations. These are the expectations an individual is unaware of or is unwilling or unable to express. This could be to a lack of previous experience or education necessary to form an expectation, or it could be the result of an activity being habitual and the patient hasn’t taken the time to develop an expectation.

Addressing expectations in the clinic

It is important to remember that expectations can change, even if you do everything right. For example, you may exceed a patient’s expectations and achieve one-month goals in only two weeks.

Great!

Then the law of unintended consequences strikes. Know the patient will expect the same rapidity of improvement the rest of the plan of care. This is why constant communication and reviewing of goals is necessary. Not just on progress note days but instead every session.

Everyone will have unique tweaks to their methodology for developing rapport with patients and assessing their expectations. Additionally, it is important to recognize your own expectations. Patients can be quite perceptive, and our body language often betrays our words. Studies have shown that when our verbal information, visual cues, and body language do not match, it sows distrust in the patient-therapist relationship.^[3] Like motivational interviewing, understanding and assessing patient expectations is a skill to develop. It can have significant impacts on the compliance with a plan of care and the outcomes a patient achieves.

References
Hoffmann TC, Del Mar C. Patients’ expectations of the benefits and harms of treatments, screening, and tests: a systematic review. JAMA Intern Med 2015;175(2):274-86. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.6016 [published Online First: 2014/12/23]

Bialosky JE, Bishop MD, Cleland JA. Individual expectation: an overlooked, but pertinent, factor in the treatment of individuals experiencing musculoskeletal pain. Phys Ther 2010;90(9):1345-55. doi: 10.2522/ptj.20090306 [published Online First: 2010/07/02]

Daniali H, Flaten MA. A Qualitative Systematic Review of Effects of Provider Characteristics and Nonverbal Behavior on Pain, and Placebo and Nocebo Effects. Front Psychiatry 2019;10:242. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00242 [published Online First: 2019/05/01]

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