After supporting millions of healthcare consultations each year, we’ve observed a consistent pattern.
Organizations that see meaningful improvements in employee health outcomes are not simply expanding access to care. They are thinking more deliberately about what a good care experience should actually look like for their employees.
When that definition is missing, care programs often evolve into a collection of services and digital tools that exist side by side but do not function as a coherent experience.
Employees may technically have access to more care than ever before, but navigating that care becomes increasingly complicated.
That’s because good care is not just something organizations purchase. It’s something they design.
This article explores one design principle of many we’ll be diving into in the coming months which determines whether a care experience succeeds or fails: simplicity.
While simplicity is only one dimension of good care, it is often the first one organizations must solve before other principles or improvements can take hold.
Our goal here is to offer a new and helpful perspective so plan sponsors can think more clearly about how care systems should work for their employees. Let’s dive in.
The Access Trap
Consider a hypothetical national employer with 15,000 employees across multiple provinces.
Like many organizations, they gradually invested in multiple digital health services over time. Each addition was made with good intentions: to expand access and remove barriers to support.
One platform offered virtual physician visits. Another provided mental health support. Additional services addressed specialty care needs.
From the employer’s perspective, access had improved significantly. But from the employee’s perspective, the experience had become fragmented.
Employees often did not know where to begin. Different platforms required separate logins, different navigation paths, and different decisions about which service might be appropriate.
In practice, this meant employees were being asked to navigate the care system on their own. What the organization had built was not truly a care system. It was a set of disconnected entry points.
Sure, access had increased, but good care had not necessarily improved.
The Real Barrier: Complexity
When organizations talk about improving care access, they often focus on speed: faster appointments, quicker consultations, shorter wait times.
These improvements matter.
When an employee experiencing a concerning symptom can speak with a clinician the same day rather than waiting weeks, early support becomes possible and health concerns can be addressed before they escalate.
But speed alone does not define good care. In many virtual care experiences today, consultations end with a recommendation to seek help elsewhere. There may be no coordinated referral, no shared information between providers, and no clear follow-up. Employees are often left to navigate the next step on their own.
Over time, we’ve observed an important pattern across millions of consultations: the more decisions patients must make to access care, the less likely they are to complete their care journey.
In other words, complexity itself becomes one of the biggest barriers to care. When navigating care becomes confusing or effortful, many people simply stop trying.
Designing Simplicity Into Care
For many employers we work with, the turning point comes when they begin answering a different question: what should a good care experience actually feel like for our employees?
Instead of focusing only on technologies or services, it’s important to focus on the human experience of navigating and receiving care.
Employees should be able to start their care journey easily when they need help. They should feel heard by clinicians who understand their concerns and receive clear guidance on what happens next.
Most importantly, employees should feel supported rather than redirected between services. To achieve this, organizations should redesign their care systems around one trusted entry point for care that greets and guides patients clearly and quickly.
Primary care, and even mental health care, often becomes the front door, and instead of asking employees to decide which service to use, providers can then help guide employees to the right support when additional care is needed.
This poses key departures from previous ways of thinking:
- Primary care clinicians tend to serve as the starting point for most health concerns
- Referrals and follow-up care are coordinated rather than left to the patient
- The number of platforms employees needed to navigate are reduced
- Care decisions were guided by clinicians rather than by patient guesswork
We see employee engagement improve significantly in simple, supported, and human-driven implementations because employees no longer have to navigate a maze of options and perceived barriers to receive the care they need.
Our Perspective on Care Design
The principle of simplicity is something Maple has intentionally optimized for when designing care systems.
Patients shouldn’t need to understand the whole system in order to access good care. Instead, expert clinical guidance should determine what happens next.
That philosophy shapes how we approach care delivery: primary care as the entry point, coordinated referrals when additional expertise is needed, and continuity that helps patients move through the system with confidence.
The goal is not simply to connect people with clinicians quickly, which we excel at. It is to ensure that once an employee enters the system, the system works for them.
Designing Care That Works
After implementing more simplified systems, employers are poised to see positive results on their core program objectives.
That can look like employee engagement increasing compared to previous vendors, and employees even reporting feeling more supported rather than redirected between services when surveyed.
The driver behind these changes? Employers stopped thinking about care as a collection of services and started thinking about it as a cohesive care experience.
For your organization, this means designing a system around a few core principles that deliver on simplicity:
- One clear entry point for care
- Clinical guidance throughout the care journey
- Integrated referrals and follow-up when additional care is required
Key Takeaways for Your Organization
If your organization is evaluating how care should work better for employees, it may be helpful to start by asking a simple question: What should a good care experience actually look like?
We work with organizations to answer that question through discovery workshops, system design, and implementation options that align care delivery with the unique needs of their workforce.
Because improving care access is important. But designing a care system that truly works requires something more deliberate.