Can you imagine shopping on Amazon without being logged in? How would you engage? How would you find value in the platform? Without a logged-in experience, there’s no history, no personalization, no relationship — just friction.
Healthcare is no different.
Over the past decade, health systems have invested heavily in websites, mobile apps, patient portals, and CRM platforms — each built with the hope of creating better digital touch points for patients. But here's the truth: digital engagement in healthcare still falls short. And not because the tools are inherently flawed, but because they’ve been built around the wrong center of gravity.
It’s time for a mindset shift. It’s time to place the logged-in experience at the center of healthcare digital engagement.
For years, healthcare digital teams have treated their mobile apps as replicas of their websites — portals to pay a bill, schedule an appointment, or search for a provider — all as a guest. The result? A patchwork of tools, fractured user journeys, and low engagement.
Let’s be clear: most health systems didn’t do the “wrong” thing over the past five to seven years. They built apps. They launched portals. They experimented. But the fragmented, copy-of-the-website model has reached its limit — and so have patients.
The logged-in experience isn’t just another widget to plug into an ecosystem. It is the ecosystem. It’s the place where health systems can truly own a platform, personalize every interaction, and provide an integrated, seamless experience. It’s not about building more tech — it’s about bringing more power to the tools, partners, and investments you have already made.
Healthcare leaders often talk about personalization, but most digital experiences still treat every patient the same (e.g., EMR patient portal). The logged-in experience is where your target patients can thrive — the percentage of your population that drives the majority of your health system’s engagement and revenue.
These patients are already digitally active. They’ve downloaded your app, putting your brand directly onto their phone. They’re authenticated. They’re ready for an experience that reflects their individualized needs — not the generic homepage content meant for everyone.
Now ask yourself: are you investing in that experience? Are you giving your best customers the best digital journey?
Imagine an experience where patients don’t have to jump between emails, SMS messages, websites, and portals. Instead, they’re nudged, guided, and supported in one place — the platform they’ve logged into, where everything is connected:
This is the frictionless ecosystem you can create with a logged-in experience — the one where personalization will finally become real. Instead of asking patients to remember passwords across platforms or dig through cluttered channels, you can make it easy for them to do business with your health system and get the care they need. A logged-in experience gives you the best possible outcome from patient engagement — because it’s designed to meet real needs and reflect real intent.
Providence, one of the largest health systems in the U.S., has embraced this approach by leveraging Praia Health to power its logged-in experience. And the results speak volumes:
These aren’t vanity metrics — they’re tangible proof of what’s possible when a digital front door opens into a seamless, personalized, logged-in journey.
It’s time to relearn what’s possible with a logged-in experience:
Everyone has a role to play — digital leaders, strategists, marketers, and transformation teams alike. And together, you have the power to redefine the logged-in patient experience not as a support tool, but as the primary vehicle for engagement, personalization, and retention.
The health systems leading this shift aren’t just building more; they’re building smarter. They’re focusing on what matters most: creating a high-value, low-friction logged-in experience that meets patients where they are — and keeps them coming back.
