Healthcare Patient Experience & Growth Strategy — Independent Consulting Case Study
Healthcare Patient Experience & Growth Strategy
Connecting patient questions, care navigation, scheduling, capacity and follow-through
A focused operating model for turning a fragmented patient journey into a clear, measurable path to the right care.
Case-study classification: Krista Stalcup independently developed and presented this strategic exercise during an interview process. Florida E.N.T. & Allergy did not hire her as a consultant. The organization did not implement these recommendations, and this case study claims no FENTA results.
“Give me the problem nobody owns.”
Krista Stalcup’s operating perspective
A patient begins with a concern, not an org chart.
Patients describe symptoms in ordinary language. The organization must translate that concern across search, education, customer service, scheduling, physician selection, location and follow-up without forcing the patient to restart at every handoff.
Question
“My ear feels clogged. Which doctor should I see?”
Search and symptom support
The patient looks for a trustworthy explanation and a clear next step.
Human handoffs
Customer service and scheduling need the same context the patient already provided.
Care match
The right physician, visit type and location must align with real availability.
Capacity constraint
No opening at the first office can become a lost appointment.
Visit
The patient receives care, but the experience continues beyond the appointment.
Follow-up
Patients need confirmation of the next clinical or scheduling step.
Learning loop
Leadership needs evidence showing where the journey worked and where it leaked.
Connect the assets already in place.
FENTA’s public presence already showed meaningful strengths: more than 50 years serving Tampa Bay, 12 locations, same-day options, broad clinical services, online scheduling and symptom assessments.
The strategic opportunity was not a wholesale rebuild. It was a clearer operating connection between the patient’s first question and the next available point of care.
The public market had useful tools, but no visible closed loop.
A directional review found symptom quizzes, appointment requests, education, telemedicine and physician-finder tools across Tampa-area providers. The case-study opportunity centered on visibly connecting the entire journey. This comparison assessed public websites, not competitors’ internal operations.
One question. One connected route to care.
The proposed model carries the patient’s concern forward, preserves human ownership and uses approved information to reduce uncertainty at each step.
Start in plain language
Capture what the patient feels and what they need help understanding.
Structure the concern
Use existing assessments and physician-approved symptom language.
Confirm and escalate
Route uncertainty, sensitive information and red flags to a person.
Apply clear rules
Check visit type, availability and required scheduling conditions.
Match care and access
Align the concern with the correct physician and practical location.
Rescue the appointment
Offer the closest appropriate office with available inventory.
Deliver the care
Keep navigation connected to the actual patient experience.
Close the loop
Confirm satisfaction, next steps and any needed follow-up appointment.
AI and AIO support navigation and information, not diagnosis.
Physicians approve the clinical language. Privacy safeguards prevent unapproved collection or exposure of protected health information. Red flags and uncertainty escalate to a person. Clinical and operational leaders retain authority, and every digital path includes clear human ownership.
Start with two physicians and learn before scaling.
A controlled pilot makes the handoffs visible, limits operational risk and gives leadership real evidence before expanding across physicians or locations.
Approved symptom language
Select two physicians using demand, availability, location coverage and willingness to participate. Document the concerns each physician treats and the language approved for patient navigation.
Locations, inventory and rules
Map primary and nearby alternate locations, new-patient capacity, appointment types, availability and scheduling rules.
Escalation and human ownership
Define when customer service takes over, who owns a callback and the response time patients should expect.
Patient and staff handoffs
Walk through the journey from the first question to scheduling, alternate-location rescue, the visit and follow-up. Fix any point where context is lost or ownership becomes unclear.
Early demand and capacity signals
Watch quiz activity, appointment requests, wait time, callback pressure and alternate-office saves during the first two to four weeks.
Scale, adjust or stop
At day 60, compare the pilot with the baseline and make an evidence-based decision before extending the model.
Measure the journey, not activity alone.
The baseline and pilot scorecard show whether patients reached the right care more reliably and where demand began to create operational pressure.
Quiz completion
Booking conversion
Days to appointment
Kept visits
Correct physician and location match
Alternate-office saves
Customer-service response time
Follow-up appointments confirmed
Marketing identifies and forecasts demand.
Marketing connects patient questions, conversion data and emerging capacity signals so leadership can see what is changing and recommend the pace of growth.
Clinical and operations leadership control capacity.
Physicians and operational leaders retain authority over staffing, schedules, appointment inventory, visit types, coverage changes and clinical approval.
Strategy becomes useful when people can operate it.
Find broken handoffs and unowned problems
Translate customer needs into operating systems
Align departments, leaders and outside partners
Build focused pilots instead of overengineering
Establish baselines before promising results
Create measurable execution and practical action
Transferable operating evidence from Krista’s career
These results come from Krista’s prior education and workforce leadership. They demonstrate her ability to coordinate complex systems and improve execution. They are separate from the unimplemented FENTA case study and are not healthcare outcomes.
Campuses aligned
Leadership across a multi-campus operating environment with shared systems and accountability.
Students and graduates supported
Service coordination across a complex population and multiple internal and external stakeholders.
Program placement improvement
A verified career outcome from prior education leadership, included only as evidence of transferable operating discipline.