An Introduction of Omnichannel Interaction in Healthcare Services

Background: Omnichannel interaction services have the potential to bring new leverage to healthcare organizations and the care services they provide through multiple channels of interaction. This article aims to provide a brief introduction to what is expected in terms of omnichannel interaction in healthcare. The pandemic came to reinforce the need for an omnichannel strategy in healthcare services due to the benefits that it can bring both to patients and the organization.<br><br>Objectives: This paper seeks to present a study that pretends to address if healthcare institutions are well prepared to adopt the omnichannel interaction strategies that marketing and e-commerce organizations have been implementing in the services that they provide to their customers.<br><br>Methods:&nbsp;A deep study and analysis of the current state of omnichannel services that marketing and e-commerce organizations have been implementing are performed. Then from these studies and analyses, it was conducted a brief analysis of the omnichannel services in healthcare. To this, the articles were searched on online repositories well know such as SCOPUS. Besides other online repositories were used to search the articles and some white papers were also searched. Books, magazines, and opinion articles are other examples of secondary sources. Some internet searches were also done to help validate, explain and better understand various concepts for this type of study.<br><br>Interpretation: With this paper, a set of key challenges and issues of omnichannel interaction were addressed, as well as the benefits of this type of interaction in general and in healthcare services. As a result, a SWOT analysis of omnichannel services in healthcare was presented, and based on that, both the healthcare organization and their patients have a lot to win with the adoption of the omnichannel strategy. Also, with this study was possible to identify the five main criteria to address when adopting omnichannel interaction in healthcare services. such as strategy, process, systems, data, and people.<br><br>Funding Information: This research was funded by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, within the Projects Scope: DSAIPA/DS/0084/2018.<br><br>Declaration of Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.