Despite ongoing efforts by healthcare executives and patient experience leaders, improving the patient experience remains a significant challenge.
Staff shortages remain one of the most pressing issues, with a global shortfall of at least 10 million healthcare workers expected by 2030. McKinsey has warned that closing this gap will require rethinking how care is delivered, not just expanding the workforce.
At the same time, providers are operating under tight budgets and increasing pressure to improve both efficiency and patient experience. Research from Deloitte’s 2025 Global Health Care Outlook shows that healthcare leaders are prioritizing productivity, efficiency and patient engagement as they navigate this increasingly complex environment.
It’s a difficult balance, and one that extends beyond clinical care…
Challenges facing patients and healthcare workers
Anyone who has spent time in a hospital understands how difficult the experience can be.
For patients, the healthcare experience is often shaped by more than treatment alone. Uncertainty around diagnoses, anxiety about procedures and time spent in unfamiliar environments can create a persistent sense of stress, frustration and isolation throughout the journey.
And patients aren’t alone.
Healthcare workers are navigating their own set of challenges. High patient loads, long shifts and emotionally demanding environments contribute to burnout and fatigue. With limited time and resources, it becomes harder to support the full breadth of the patient experience beyond clinical care.
A shift toward more holistic models of care
In response, many healthcare organizations are rethinking how care is delivered.
There’s been a noticeable shift toward more holistic models. We’re increasingly seeing approaches that consider not just physical health, but emotional and mental wellbeing as well.
This is showing up in a range of ways:
- More patient-centered communication and shared decision-making.
- Environments designed to be calmer, quieter and more comfortable.
- Greater emphasis on cultural sensitivity and inclusive care.
- Enhanced focus on nutrition as part of the wellness journey.
These efforts reflect a broader understanding: experience is not separate from care. It’s part of it.
But even as these changes take hold, one part of the patient experience often remains underdeveloped…
The overlooked gap: the waiting experience
For all the investment in improving care, the time patients spend waiting still represents an often overlooked opportunity.
And there’s a lot of waiting involved in the healthcare journey. The time waiting for an appointment, time between treatments or updates and time spent alone during recovery.
These moments aren’t designed with intention in the same way as clinical interactions, yet they have a significant impact on how care is perceived.
Waiting is often when anxiety peaks. It’s when patients feel the most uncertain, the most frustrated and the most isolated.
For staff, these are also the moments that are hardest to influence directly, given workload constraints.
Which makes this an important opportunity.
Making waiting part of the care experience
Hospitals are beginning to explore ways to better support patients and staff during these in-between moments.
Some approaches include:
- Providing access to digital reading, audio and games through personal devices.
- Offering programs like music therapy, art activities and guided relaxation.
- Designing waiting areas and recovery spaces to better support rest and focus.
- Ensuring content and experiences reflect the languages and backgrounds of diverse patient populations.
Among these, access to reading stands out as a simple but powerful way to support patients during these moments. Reading has been shown to reduce anxiety, promote emotional resilience, and keep minds actively engaged, particularly in high-stress or unfamiliar environments. (In fact, there are so many benefits, we wrote a post about it!)
When delivered through personal devices, reading and other light cognitive content can help transform waiting from something passive into something more supportive and comforting.
That shift is something both patients and providers are already calling for. Recent findings from Global Healthcare Accreditation show that 71% of patients say access to digital reading materials in their preferred language would improve their hospital experience, while 74% of healthcare leaders say multilingual digital publications would benefit the traveling patient experience.
Multilingual is a key word here, too. Language accessibility plays a critical role in patient experience. Having materials from a patient’s home country and/or available in their preferred language provides a sense of comfort and familiarity in an otherwise strange environment.
A natural extension of holistic care
As healthcare organizations continue to invest in more holistic models of care, the waiting experience is emerging as a natural next step.
It’s an area where relatively low-effort changes can have a meaningful impact, without adding to clinical workloads.
Some organizations are already exploring this direction with resources like PressReader Wellness, which provide patients with simple access to multilingual newspapers, magazines and books from around the world. To see what that looks like, click here.
