A pathology test can be a critical moment in a person’s healthcare journey. As Australia’s second-largest pathology provider, Healius processes millions of tests annually. However, behind the clinical precision of the laboratory lies a human experience that begins long before a needle meets a vein.
It’s the responsibility of Nathan Kellie, National CX Insights Manager at Healius, to understand the patient experience and to identify the pain points in the patient’s journey. For Kellie, the mission is clear – to bridge the gap between patient sentiment and operational action.
“I’m the National CX Insights Manager for Healius… My role focuses on capturing and analysing patient feedback to drive operational improvements. I bridge the gap between patient sentiment and action, ensuring we address immediate pain points while also leading broader strategic initiatives to elevate the end-to-end patient experience.”
Through a sophisticated ‘Voice of the Patient’ (VoP) program Healius is transforming raw feedback into a strategic asset, ensuring that the patient’s perspective is a primary driver of organisational change.
Healius partnered with Medallia to implement its Voice of the Customer (VoC) program. The new program integrated feedback from every patient touchpoint—online bookings, physical clinics, and phone interactions—into a single platform.
A unified view of the patient
In an era where consumers are vocal across multiple platforms, a single survey is no longer enough to capture the full picture. Healius has established a strategy that blends internal metrics with external advocacy.
Kellie comments, “Our CX strategy is anchored by a comprehensive ‘Voice of the Patient’ program, which serves as our primary mechanism for understanding on-site experience. We also leverage Google reviews as a key advocacy channel, integrating this data with our internal surveys to create a unified view of the patient journey. To manage this at scale, we rely heavily on text analytics – this allows us to efficiently process large volumes of open-ended feedback, moving beyond manual categorisation to identify both immediate operational issues and broader strategic trends.”
“Google Reviews are essential for seeing the feedback we might otherwise miss,” Kellie notes, “including from those who haven’t yet engaged with our services or are still in the research phase.”
Mapping the journey – pre, during, and post pathology test
To make sense of the vast amount of data, Kellie’s team needs to map the end-to-end patient journey. This isn’t a visual exercise, it is a structural one that dictates how data is categorised and reported.
“We are currently mapping the end-to-end customer journey to align our text analytics categories with the ‘pre, during, and post’ stages of the patient experience. This structure feeds into our monthly and half-year CX reporting, allowing us to surface emerging trends and ‘bubbling’ topics. For example, we recently used this framework to evaluate a new system rollout, specifically isolating patient feedback within our centres to understand its immediate impact on the onsite experience.”
“A significant part of my work involves supporting our frontline managers,” Kellie says. “By synthesising data on wait times or collection procedures, I provide our field leaders with the insights they need to validate trends within their jurisdictions and implement targeted operational fixes.”
NPS and driver analysis
At the centre of Healius’s performance measurement is the Net Promoter Score (NPS). While many companies track NPS as a vanity metric, Healius uses it as a diagnostic tool.
“NPS is our ‘North Star’ metric, now standardised across all Healius business units,” Kellie explains. However, the true value lies beneath the headline number. The VoP program breaks NPS down into drivers and sub-drivers based on specific touchpoints.
If a specific site is underperforming, the data doesn’t just say the score is low, it identifies the why. Whether the issue is wait times, staff interaction, or facility cleanliness, field leaders can benchmark their performance against the company norm and implement the necessary improvements.
Empowerment through Self-Service
With a workforce as large as Healius’s, a centralised command and control approach to CX is impossible. Instead, Healius has built a self-service model. The goal is to empower frontline teams with dashboards and training so they can manage their own day-to-day performance.
“I provide targeted insights for specific cohorts—such as our underperforming sectors—delivering deep-dive analysis and strategic guidance to help them close performance gaps”, says Kellie.
Closing the loop – privacy and accountability
In healthcare, feedback is often sensitive. Healius handles this through a closed-loop feedback initiative, which operates on a strictly opt-in basis to maintain rigorous data privacy.
When a patient grants permission, Healius acts on the feedback. This direct engagement is vital for maintaining trust. Whether a patient had a technical issue with an appointment booking or a behavioural concern during a blood draw, the priority is to reach out, apologise, and investigate the root cause.
As Kellie puts it: “Our priority is to reach out… and fully understand the incident to prevent future occurrences.”
The future of patient centric care
Through the leadership of Nathan Kellie and the robust Voice of the Patient program, Healius is proving that even the largest clinical providers can remain agile and empathetic. By leveraging advanced text analytics, mapping the complete journey, and empowering frontline staff, Healius isn’t just collecting data—they are listening to the heartbeat of their service. In the end, the Voice of the Patient is more than a metric; it is the roadmap to a more efficient, compassionate, and effective healthcare system.
Nathan Kellie was a speaker at the Customer 360 Symposium