Top 3 Elements Of Patient Engagement (Checklist)

Every business to improve and grow their functions needs good quality and quantity of client engagement. Isn’t it true? You know it is. Likewise, for a healthcare organization to result in a healthy, happy, and satisfying outcome, patient engagement is the most necessary one.

Whether it is positive or negative engagement from the side of the patients, it decides and helps the organization to grow along with new lessons. Patient/client engagement is a key feature to healthcare organizations, without it, one cannot survive or even exist.

The patient engagement which is of high quality can increase the uninterrupted and good quality of care delivered. Healthcare organizations across the United States, to achieve more benefits and gains, are using various means of patient engagement.

According to HealthIT.gov, the focus on patient engagement is important because engaged patients have the knowledge, skills, ability, and willingness to manage their health and care and to act on clinicians’ recommendations. Practices that invest in health IT for patient engagement can expect returns in the form of better outcomes and lower costs.

They also say that the use of an integrated electronic health record (EHR) stands out as a leading way to drive engagement and reap significant advantages.

How It Is Done?

So how do clinicians and physicians gather information about the patients and process with it? This is where patient portals come to the rescue. Physicians use information gathered through patient portals and other platforms for various purposes.

It includes processes to study how a patient is reacting or responding to a particular type of treatment and make appropriate decisions about the changes in treatment plans if needed.

For example, patients with high blood pressure or glucose level can check their variations from the comforts of their home, and send them to their physician. This way the physician can adjust their medication with ease without making them do visits in person.

This saves time and money for both the doctors and the patients. That is why it is the most cost-effective way.

RELATED: Learn the need for digital patient engagement tools in 2022

Let us now see the 3 main key elements of patient engagement that can boost your practice’s efficiency and outcome.

1. Patient Goals – Understanding Is A Must

Okay, for ensuring better patient engagement, we have to first look into the goal of patients. Each patient may have different types and kinds of goals set for themselves.

In this pandemic-driven world, people are more conscious about their health and daily routines. Everyone wants to be happy and healthy. It’s not so different for patients. Patients are being more conscious about their wellbeing and healthcare which is a good thing.

The goals may vary from just getting better in the present to the future long-term goals. 

From young children who want to recover from surgery to participate in their dream competition to parents who want to take care of their health to see their daughter’s growth and successes might have different goals. The size of the goals doesn’t matter.

By studying the motivation of your patients, you can understand and engage with them more easily. This way they help you to structure your patient engagement strategies and help you find ways to interact with them more efficiently. 

This helps you as a healthcare organization to make them see and experience the efforts and steps you take to understand them and to engage with them in their process. This helps to build their trust and collaboration in the process of patient engagement.

2. Engaging With Patients

Collaboration is the key factor here. It’s so simple. Engaging patients in their healthcare is the solution for better care delivery. Take any business or studies. Directly collaborating and reaching the clients or patients can give double-positive results.

This engagement increases the chances of good healthcare outcomes and the experience of the patients. They will feel secure and confident about the treatment or whatever process they are going through in a healthcare organization if they are fully engaged.

The patients should be completely aware of the treatments and procedures they undergo. Make discussions about the problems and treatment plans with them. Make them completely understand the consequences and build their trust.

Let them tell their stories. Let them ask questions about the situation and narrate to them what you need to say gently so that they won’t feel threatened or shocked, depending on the situation.

3. Patient Portals And Telemedicine

As you all know, the ultimate tool to boost patient engagement is Patient Portals. It is the first step to patient engagement. Patient portals allow patients to interact with their clinicians, review their Electronic Health Records (EHR), visit their past clinical documentation, laboratory results, etc.

In this digital world, every service is available through smartphones. People are expecting and choosing these kinds of interactions for easy access. It reduces costs and saves time. Patient portals help people reach their doctor online and even make payments for the service rendered online.

This online platform mainly helps those patients with chronic illnesses. Regardless of their location, they can contact their physician on a timely basis, avoiding serious emergency consequences.

In this pandemic, patient portals come as a great rescue to all patients and caretakers ensuring continuous care delivery.

On the other hand, Telemedicine is more affordable the in-clinic visits. Even though patient portals can be the yellow brick road to boost patient engagement, telemedicine can go to higher levels that patient portals cannot.

Deriving from the Greek prefix “tele”, telemedicine means “far medicine”. Visits for follow-up care can be avoided by leveraging telemedicine to see their health care providers from any location. Telemedicine also helps the physicians in containing the spread of deadly diseases and flus and delivering care at the same time.

The changing narratives of new technologies help telemedicine to deliver care faster to unreachable people.

Click here to learn how to boost patient engagement in your practice

An Overview

Patient engagement should be the goal of all healthcare providers. It is fundamental for an organization’s growth. Patient engagement can be achieved by providing solutions and using many online platforms. 

At Vozo, we provide you with the best solutions and platforms like patient portals, electronic health records (EHR), telemedicine, etc, to make your patient engagement activities easier and simpler to achieve greater practice efficiency.

We are your right and final destination as the solution provider. Visit us through the link given below to explore and increase the opportunity to grow your practice worldwide.

“Let’s increase your practice’s patient engagement efficiently, together”