What do medical practices, Uber Eats, Amazon, and Netflix have in common? People can now communicate with their doctors as simply as they can order a meal, send a present, or watch a movie online.

Physicians’ offices give patients access to services with immediate digital and mobile-friendly solutions at a breakneck pace. The healthcare business has undergone significant changes in recent years.

As a result, there is currently a solid and ongoing emphasis on patient self-service as a means of treating and connecting with patients.

Platforms like Uber Eats, Amazon, and Netflix rely on convenient, customer-centric services, and healthcare organizations should do the same to demonstrate their willingness to adapt.

Questions Facing Healthcare Organizations

Healthcare institutions are currently seeking answers to particular concerns. These are some of them:

• How can we better understand the obstacles that chronic disease patients face daily?
• What efforts can we take to get ahead of the game and engage patients likely to be impacted by chronic diseases and risk factors?
• How can we overcome the numerous obstacles patients confront when addressing the complex health system?
• How can we help the patients manage their health and have a more tailored engagement experience while acquiring confidence?
• How can we use big data analytics and intelligent automation to help our teams achieve better outcomes?

Improving patient participation is the ultimate solution to all of these issues. The healthcare industry is transforming a value-based care system in which providers are compensated based on patient health results.

In this era, clinicians must increase patient engagement since engaged patients are happier and healthier, which leads to improved health outcomes and lower healthcare costs.

Obstacles to Patient Engagement

While engaging patients is the answer, it also necessitates the creation of intelligent patient experiences by organizations.

These encounters build trust, aid in the early detection of chronic illness risks, encourage knowledge and behavior change, and ultimately enhance outcomes.

Although significant progress has been made in patient experiences, as with other industry shifts, more work remains to be done.

It is especially true for chronic conditions like diabetes, which come with their own set of obstacles. Patients with diabetes may have the following symptoms:

Substantial deterioration in life quality: Complications from diabetes make even the most straightforward actions difficult. As a result, patients’ reliance on payers grows as they seek assistance to overcome these obstacles and avoid the declining quality of life.

Decreased Life Expectancy: Diabetic complications or comorbidities are common in people with chronic diabetes. Naturally, these harm a patient’s quality of life while shortening their life expectancy. In these cases, payers must collect as much information as needed during the patient engagement cycle to improve life expectancy and quality of life.

Increased Healthcare Costs: According to the American Diabetes Association, each chronic diabetes patient spends an average of $16,752 a year. Payers can minimize this amount by solid dedication to early diagnosis and better participation.

Comorbidity Increases Exponentially: Other chronic illnesses such as obesity, chronic kidney disease (CKD), and cardiovascular disease (CVD) may develop, making diabetes management even more difficult.

Considering all of these factors, a new patient interaction strategy is essential.

This strategy will provide the assistance needed to improve patients’ overall experiences, find crucial data points, and involve members on a deeper level.

Future Steps Towards Patient Engagement

The successful transition to patient empowerment necessitates a strategy based on five tried-and-true best practices:

Know what you want to achieve: Recognize the necessity for a technology solution as well as the needs of your patients. Know what features, user capabilities, and integrations will be required for customization.

Look for tools that are “future-proof: Find a solution that meets your current needs while also being scalable as your practice grows.

Simplify and centralize: Employ technology that is simple to use for both physicians and patients to encourage adoption. For patients, this means accessing the information on any device at any time.

Effective change management should be implemented: Keep physicians, employees, and patients informed about any changes in workflow or accessibility, as well as the benefits. The importance of early and continuous communication cannot be overstated.

Use a crawl-walk-run strategy: There are numerous benefits and avenues for patient engagement. When practices have a plan in place, they are more likely to succeed, prioritizing use cases with the highest need and the most effortless demonstration of ROI.

Also Read: The Significance of Patient Technology in Healthcare

The Bottom Line

The healthcare industry is transforming a value-based care system in which providers are compensated based on patient health results.

In this era, clinicians must increase patient engagement since engaged patients are healthier and more joyful, which leads to improved health outcomes and lower healthcare costs.

Encouraging patients to participate actively in their healthcare journeys and care plans is a critical goal for practices and health systems, and it’s an arena where we’ll continue to see the potential for development and innovation.