About five years ago, Adobe cited personalization as a marketing trend poised to transform businesses.

Three years later, McKinsey & Company consultants hailed personalization as the “prime driver of marketing success” for the coming era.

Today, the power of personalization shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, with 98% of enterprise marketers pointing to data-driven personalization as a key to achieving primary objectives, and a full 80% of consumers identifying as “more likely” to purchase when experiences are personalized, it seems individualized communication is here to stay.

And that’s just for products.

Now, take a second to think about what personalization can mean when the “person” in question is a patient rather than a consumer.

Suddenly, the stakes get higher.

This is because human connection—to state the painfully obvious—is a crucial component of effective, meaningful healthcare. All the critical tenets of customer personalization (building trust, establishing relationships, ensuring peace of mind) are doubly applicable for each and every part of the patient experience, in or out of the exam room.

No one wants an impersonal or unreliable practitioner, after all. So why would they tolerate a faulty records system or a badly timed email from the front desk?

They wouldn’t. And science proves it.