Precision Access: Personalizing the Path to Care

By Elizabeth W. Woodcock, DrPH, MBA, FACMPE, CPC

Founder & Executive Director, Patient Access Collaborative

Precision medicine is revolutionizing modern care delivery —leveraging a patient’s unique characteristics to tailor clinical decisions and treatments. But what if we applied that same philosophy to access? High-performing health systems are beginning to embrace precision access: personalizing the journey to receive care so that every patient not only benefits from the right treatment, but also the right path to access it.

Our research underscores what patients have been telling us for years: timely, frictionless, and convenient access is non-negotiable (Access Framework). But timely is not one-size-fits-all. For a 78-year-old retiree, it might mean an appointment next week when her caregiver can drive her on a Tuesday morning. For a working mother of a toddler, it might mean a same-day telemedicine visit during her lunch break. Recognizing this is a start—but acting on it is where true transformation happens.

Historically, our technology and processes have been built around the clinical record, not the patient record. We might know when the retiree’s last visit occurred, but not that she prefers phone scheduling to online booking. We might see a child’s surgery date, but not that the parent depends on text messaging due to limited English proficiency, or that missing work for an in-person appointment could put her job at risk. Precision access demands that we go beyond preference checkboxes to integrate social determinants of health, communication needs, and logistical constraints into every interaction.

This shift requires more than new tools—it calls for a new mindset. We need technology that enables us to communicate in the patient’s preferred channel, workflows that accommodate their realities, and teams trained to adapt in real time. Our front door to care can no longer be a single entrance with rigid hours and processes—it must be a dynamic, multi-lane gateway that not only flexes to the needs of each person we serve, but anticipates them.

The promise of precision medicine is that the right care reaches the right patient at the right time. Precision access ensures they can get there in the first place. By designing access as intentionally as we design treatment, we not only improve the patient experience—we honor our patients by meeting them exactly where they are, and helping them take the next step forward.