Rethinking the Patient Journey: Where Trust Meets Innovation

Where the Journey Begins

At midnight, a man was searching for a doctor he could entrust with his health. On his phone, he moved between doctors’ profiles and verified patient reviews, trying to understand other people’s experiences and reduce the uncertainty surrounding his choice.

After selecting a doctor and booking an appointment, he thought the hardest part was over. Yet after the consultation, the questions returned: Had he understood his treatment options? What would happen next? Did he need more information before making a decision?

Information was abundant, but what he truly needed was a clear path connecting what he had discovered, what he had understood, and what he could do next.

What if the greatest opportunity lies not simply in improving one point in the patient journey, but in rethinking the journey as a whole, and how it is designed from the outset?

Digital Trust: The Beginning, Not the End

A patient’s search for a doctor may begin with a search engine, a recommendation from someone they know, or a review shared by someone who has previously received care. Digital reputation has become an important part of how people discover healthcare providers and form their first impressions of them.

Verified patient reviews give others an opportunity to learn from previous experiences and take their first steps with better information. They also help doctors and healthcare organisations understand what patients value, respond to recurring feedback, and improve communication and service.

My perspective on this subject draws on professional experience and a personal experience of reaching a wider audience. My career has spanned dentistry, healthcare, and technology, and I have seen how digital reviews can help people discover and evaluate their options. My own reviews have received more than 11 million views, giving me a direct appreciation of how one person’s experience can reach a broad audience and influence the way people search for and assess the options available to them.

Yet the value of digital reviews lies in more than a star rating. It lies in their ability to offer a deeper understanding of the patient experience, from ease of access and quality of communication to waiting times. Reviews remain one part of the picture, however, and should not be treated as a definitive judgement of clinical quality. Genuine trust begins when we approach reviews thoughtfully and transparently, recognising both what they reveal about the patient experience and what they cannot measure on their own.[1]

This is why credibility, transparency, and professional responsiveness matter so much. It is important to establish that a review is linked to a genuine experience, while recognising that verifying the experience itself does not necessarily mean independently verifying every claim made within the review.

In my current role at Doctify, I work to develop the presence of digital healthcare in Saudi Arabia and strengthen trust between patients and healthcare providers. I see this trust not simply as one point in the process of choosing a provider, but as a foundation on which a more connected experience, one that responds more effectively to patients’ needs, can be built. Reliable information helps patients begin their journey with greater clarity, while also helping providers better understand the patient experience from the patient’s perspective.

Beyond the Appointment: The Gap Worth Addressing

A patient may find a suitable doctor, attend an appointment, hear a diagnosis, receive a treatment plan, and then leave. Operationally, the appointment may be over. But has the patient understood the available options, their benefits, and their risks? Do they know what to do next? Were there questions they did not have enough time to ask?

Even when a doctor has done everything possible, a patient may need time to absorb the information, a clear explanation they can revisit at home, or help preparing questions before a follow-up appointment.

Not every decision to decline or delay treatment represents a failure. Patients have the right to evaluate their options and make informed decisions. But there is a difference between a patient who chooses not to proceed and one who cannot make a decision because they have not understood enough.

This is the gap worth addressing: the distance between receiving a medical recommendation and being able to understand it and act on it.

As tools for measuring patient experience evolve, there is an opportunity to broaden the impact we measure to include patient understanding and continuity of care, alongside operational indicators. Where do the same questions arise repeatedly? Which stages need clearer explanations? Are patients receiving the right information at the moment they need it?

A successful appointment does not necessarily mean the patient journey is complete. Sometimes, the appointment marks the beginning of the stage in which a patient needs the greatest support.

Artificial Intelligence: From Providing Answers to Building Understanding

Artificial intelligence can help simplify complex information, organise questions, tailor explanations to different levels of understanding, and prepare patients for conversations with their doctors. Responsibly designed systems can also help healthcare organisations identify recurring questions and the points at which patients struggle to move forward.

One of the most important opportunities for AI in healthcare is therefore not merely to provide information, but to help patients understand their options and prepare to make decisions in partnership with their doctors. Achieving this requires more than advanced technology. It depends on reliable information, reducing bias, ensuring recommendations are appropriate to the clinical context, and preserving healthcare decisions as a shared responsibility grounded in knowledge and clinical expertise.[2]

Providing an answer, however, does not necessarily create genuine understanding. Patients may need help identifying the questions they should ask, comparing available options, or distinguishing what is known from what remains uncertain.

AI must not replace doctors or steer patients towards a particular treatment simply because a system is capable of recommending it. Important decisions require an understanding of the clinical context and sound professional judgement, alongside reliable information, data protection, transparency about the technology’s limitations, and appropriate human oversight.

The question, then, is not simply how to add AI to the patient journey, but how to make that journey clearer, more reassuring, and more effective, and then use AI to help achieve that.

From Building a Market to Imagining an Exceptional Product

My professional journey has spanned dentistry, healthcare, and technology. I have worked with global companies in the dental sector, including Dentsply Sirona and Nobel Biocare, and I have also worked in telemedicine. Today, my role at Doctify gives me an additional perspective on the role of digital trust in the patient journey. I have also gained experience with a range of digital technologies, including sensor-based systems for counting visitors and analysing movement patterns.

These experiences have helped me understand technology from different angles, from clinical solutions and digital tools to using data to improve operations and user experience. They have also strengthened my belief that innovation does not begin with technology itself, but with understanding the problem people are trying to solve.

Building digital health solutions in Saudi Arabia requires more than offering a good product. It demands an understanding of the market, trust-based relationships with healthcare providers, attentive listening, strong partnerships, and solutions adapted to everyday practice. It also requires leadership that combines commercial ambition with a long-term vision: listening to the market, setting priorities, building partnerships, and turning recurring needs into innovation opportunities that can be tested and measured.

Over time, I have come to see that the challenge is not always a lack of information or tools. Sometimes, what is missing is the link that brings these elements together in a journey patients can understand.

I have long held the ambition to build an exceptional product. I believe there is still enormous potential to rethink the patient journey through a new generation of healthcare products that go beyond established approaches and create a more connected, meaningful, and empowering experience for patients around the world.

I am not talking about another app or another AI feature, but about a product that begins with a different question: What if we designed the experience from the patient’s perspective, rather than relying solely on the perspective of the healthcare organisation?

What if, after a consultation, patients could access clear and reliable information, understand their options and next steps, and receive support when they need it? And what if clinics could identify points of confusion and improve communication and follow-up without turning care into a sequence of automated messages?

The goal is not to persuade every patient to proceed with treatment. It is to make informed decisions easier, respect each patient’s right to choose, and make follow-up more responsive to their needs.

I see an opportunity to build on digital trust and connect it with the right information during decision-making, support after consultations, and follow-up across the different stages of care.

But this vision must be tested with patients and doctors, grounded in evidence, and continuously improved. Great products often begin with a simple observation: a problem keeps recurring, and we have become so accustomed to it that we treat it as an unavoidable part of the experience.

Why Saudi Arabia, and Why Now?

Saudi Arabia offers a promising starting point for the next chapter of digital healthcare innovation. The Kingdom has made digital transformation a priority in the development of its healthcare sector, as reflected in initiatives such as the Saudi Virtual Hospital and the Seha platform, which expand access to remote services and medical expertise.[3]

These initiatives reflect an ambition that goes beyond using technology to simplify processes. They create room to rethink how patients connect with healthcare providers and how they receive appropriate information and support throughout their care journey.

With its growing digital infrastructure and expanding expertise, the Kingdom offers an important environment in which to develop new solutions that use technology, data, and AI responsibly.

For me, the opportunity is not simply to import ready-made models. It is to build from within Saudi Arabia, in collaboration with patients and healthcare providers, and to design products that can be tested and developed in real-world settings, with their value demonstrated through their actual impact on the patient experience.

I believe Saudi Arabia can become a starting point for healthcare innovations with global impact. Solutions built here, rooted in patients’ needs and informed by an understanding of the local context, can evolve to serve other markets and help shape the future of healthcare around the world.

From Measuring Activity to Measuring Impact

Alongside asking how many patients booked appointments, how many messages were sent, and how many people engaged with content, we can ask different questions:

Do patients better understand the options available to them and the risks involved? Have they been able to access reliable information? Could they ask their questions and make informed decisions? Did appropriate care and necessary follow-up continue? And did data help us identify points of friction and improve the experience while respecting privacy?

These questions do not diminish the importance of operational efficiency or commercial sustainability; they give both a deeper purpose. Healthcare organisations need sustainable models, doctors need practical tools, and patients need good care and an experience worthy of their trust.

The challenge is to design solutions that meet these needs together. Then AI becomes more than an end in itself, digital reputation becomes more than a numerical rating, and the patient journey becomes an integrated experience rather than a series of commercial conversion points.

Conclusion: What If We Started with the Human Being?

The man searching on his phone at midnight was not suffering from a lack of information. He had found more information than he could easily absorb. His problem was that having more answers did not necessarily give him greater clarity.

Here lies one of the most important opportunities for healthcare innovators: to move beyond tools that simply add more information and create experiences that help people understand what that information means for them.

The future of healthcare may be shaped by AI, data, and trusted digital reputation. But the real value of these elements will come from bringing them together in a connected journey that respects patients’ needs, decisions, and privacy.

I want to see products that do more than make healthcare digital; I want to see products that make it more human. Products born in Saudi Arabia, grounded in an understanding of people’s needs here, validated through evidence and real-world experience, and capable of reaching the world.

The great product may not be the most complex, the newest, or the one with the longest list of features.

It may instead be the product that, at the moment a patient needs understanding and trust, helps them feel they have not been left alone.

References

[1] Hong YA, Liang C, Radcliff TA, Wigfall LT, Street RL. “What Do Patients Say About Doctors Online? A Systematic Review of Studies on Patient Online Reviews.” Journal of Medical Internet Research. 2019;21(4):e12521. https://doi.org/10.2196/12521

[2] Hassan N, Slight R, Bimpong K, et al. “Systematic review to understand users perspectives on AI-enabled decision aids to inform shared decision making.” npj Digital Medicine. 2024;7:332. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-024-01326-y

[3] Ministry of Health, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. “National E-Health Strategy: The Complete Vision.” https://www.moh.gov.sa/en/Ministry/nehs/Pages/The-Complete-Vision.aspx