How Keona Health Is Helping Organizations Eliminate Friction From the Patient Experience
Chapel Hill, United States - April 23, 2026 / Keona Health /
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. April 20, 2026, Keona Health published an analysis examining how patient effort affects access to care across healthcare organizations. The resource introduces a framework for evaluating where friction enters the patient journey and how it impacts operational performance, including missed appointments and unresolved patient calls.
The analysis focuses on Customer Effort Score (CES) and First Contact Resolution (FCR) as indicators of how easily patients can access care and complete requests. The framework is intended for patient access directors, call center managers, and operations leaders evaluating access performance across voice, digital, and scheduling channels.
Healthcare organizations continue to invest in patient engagement tools, including appointment reminders, chat, and digital scheduling. However, many still report high no-show rates, repeat calls, and declining patient loyalty. This analysis suggests that these negative outcomes are often linked to the high level of effort required by patients to complete a request. This is especially true when a patient interaction spans multiple systems, where patients have to call multiple times, repeat their information at every handoff, or navigate disconnected scheduling systems.
According to a Gartner study, 96% of customers who experienced high-effort interactions showed increased disloyalty, compared to just 9% of customers who experienced low-effort interactions.
First-Call Resolution and Patient Retention
The analysis identifies First Call Resolution (FCR) as a key indicator of patient access performance. When patients' requests are not resolved on the first interaction, organizations may experience increased repeat calls, transfers, and higher operational workload.
Research from SQM Group shows that a 10% improvement in First Call Resolution can reduce inbound call volume by up to 30% and reduce average handle time. That is then associated with an increase in staff capacity to handle higher-complexity interactions.
The analysis notes that optimizing for speed alone does not produce those outcomes.
“Call centers that measure only handle time without solving for first call resolution train staff to end calls, not to solve problems", said Stephen Dean, COO of Keona Health. “The result is lower FCR, more repeat callers, and worse patient satisfaction scores despite faster average call times.”
Measuring Patient Effort Across Interactions
Customer Effort Score (CES) measures how easy it is for patients to complete a task, such as scheduling an appointment or resolving a business question. The analysis highlights common sources of effort, including confusing digital intake, repeated information requests, and poor handoffs between automated and human assistance.
According to PwC, 80% of consumers identify speed, convenience, helpful employees, and friendly service as the factors that matter most in their healthcare experience, above price.
Tracking CES and FCR together provides visibility into where patient interactions break down across the access journey, including points where patients disengaged before completing care.
Coordination Across Patient Access Channels
The analysis describes how fragmented scheduling, communication, and intake processes can contribute to higher patient effort. When interactions are distributed across separate systems, staff may need to reconstruct patient contacts, and patients may need to repeat information across multiple touchpoints.
The framework outlines how organizations can evaluate coordination across phone, web, messaging, and referrals, with the goal of reducing unnecessary handoffs and improving continuity of care access.
"Patient effort reflects how well a healthcare organization works from a patient’s perspective. It is a measurement problem before it is a technology problem," said Stephen Dean, COO of Keona Health. "When we track only volume and speed, we miss the patients who gave up before they got through. CES and FCR show us where the journey breaks down so we can fix it, not just measure it."
The analysis and framework are available at keonahealth.com/resources/reducing-patient-effort-healthcare.
About Keona Health
Keona Health provides AI-powered patient communication and scheduling solutions for healthcare organizations. The company's CareDesk platform integrates patient assistance capabilities designed to support healthcare call center operations and administrative workflows. Keona Health is based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Learn more at keonahealth.com.
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Contact Information:
Keona Health
510 Meadowmont Village Circle Suite 250
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
United States
Ryan Hunt
(919) 246-8520
https://www.keonahealth.com
