Patient Engagement Solutions Platform for Hospitals: All You Need To Know
Visiting a hospital is not as joyful as going on a vacation, but it would be great if the overall engagement experience remains similar. That’s what Hifinite is trying to achieve by offering a patient engagement solutions platform for hospitals named hiCare Chronic Disease Management Solution.
What is the need for a patient engagement platform? What are the benefits of deploying this solution at your healthcare facility? What if you don’t deploy it? And how our patient engagement solution works? This article will shed light on these questions and many more.
What is the market status of a patient engagement solution?
Globally, the market size of the patient engagement solution was valued at 15.1 billion USD in the year 2020. This value is estimated to increase at a CAGR of 21.4% by the year 2028.
Furthermore, the 2020 Accenture survey reported that 60% of participants expressed interest in using technology for patient-provider communication.
What is patient engagement?
Patient engagement is defined as the partnership between a patient and the provider where they share medical information.
What is the need for a patient engagement system?
Usually, when patients fall sick, they will visit the clinic or hospital directly, where the physicians prescribe one therapeutic course, and the patient should follow it. Patients had less opportunity to discuss their medical condition or treatment options.
Currently, the healthcare sector is getting digitized to improve patient engagement. Physicians can reach their patients anywhere, anytime, with a patient engagement solution. They can alleviate deterioration in patients' health conditions and deliver high-quality care at the right time.
Hence, a patient engagement system is meant to manage patient-physician relationships by facilitating communication between providers and patients and sharing health-related educational resources.
What are the features used in a patient engagement platform?
A patient engagement system offers the following features that include:
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New patient registration
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Management of patients’ health records
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Scheduling and rescheduling appointments with physicians
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Automated appointment reminders via text
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Real-time monitoring of patients' vitals and adherence to medications
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Online HIPAA-compliant consultation via phone, chat, email, in-app messaging, text, and video
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Supports patient education
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Facilitates online payments
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Satisfaction survey forms
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Prevention and wellness coaching
What are the benefits of a patient engagement solution for hospitals and clinics?
Implementation of a patient engagement solution can provide the following benefits:
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Reduces no-shows
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Reduces ER visits, hospitalizations, and hospital readmissions
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Easy appointment rescheduling
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Attracts new patients and retains already existing patients
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Reduces the communication gap between patients and their care providers
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Improves patient compliance since they’re also involved in the decision-making process
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Improves medication adherence
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Establishes brand loyalty as patients fill in surveys
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Get real-time patient feedback
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Improves revenue for providers
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Promotes care quality scores
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Prevents health risks by identifying chronic conditions at an early stage
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Improves patient satisfaction rate and care coordination
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Frees staff time
How does a patient engagement solution used in chronic care management?
According to the 2018 Empirical Study of Chronic Diseases study, approximately 133 million or 45 percent of all people in the US suffer from at least one chronic illness. This number is consistently growing. Chronic diseases, especially cancer, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and heart diseases, could lead to poor health outcomes resulting in more ER visits, hospitalizations, poor quality of life, and death.
How do providers engage with patients proactively who are at a higher risk of developing chronic illness? What is the way to improve patients' health outcomes, providers' revenue, and costly healthcare costs?
Having a patient engagement solution is the answer to all the above questions.
As the healthcare sector transitions into a value-based care system, care providers struggle to improve patient engagement. With a patient engagement solution, you can achieve three objectives:
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Detection and prevention of the medical condition
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Disease management with the care provider
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Disease management through self-management
What will happen if the clinics or hospitals don’t have a patient engagement solution in place?
Lack of patient engagement can disrupt the healthcare sector, which leads to the following consequences:
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Reduced patient inflow
A recent survey reported that nearly 75% of US people expect a customized experience regarding caring services. If one clinic or hospital does not offer it, patients will opt for another clinic or hospital that does. The upshot? Clinics or hospitals that ignore patient engagement might lose existing and new patients.
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Inefficient health outcomes and declining quality of life
Patients are less likely to adhere to the prescribed medications without a patient engagement platform, and physicians can't track their medication adherence ratio.
Recent studies revealed that medication non-adherence affects over 50 percent of patients with chronic illness as they skip their medications. Hence, approximately 125,000 patients die every year in the US due to medication adherence.
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Increase in overall healthcare costs
Lack of patients' engagement in their own health conditions often leads to failure in catching the signs of diseases at an early stage. By the time these patients contact their providers, it will be too late, leading to a costlier treatment with an increase in overall healthcare costs.
The US spent nearly $10,966 per person on healthcare in 2019, and this value is almost double compared to other developed countries on average. On top of that, the COVID-19 pandemic skyrocketed healthcare costs.
How does technology improve patient engagement?
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 60% of healthcare organizations across the world have already deployed technologies to connect with patients at least 12 times per year.
One of the promising applications is remote patient monitoring (RPM). With an RPM-enabled patient engagement solution, it is possible to collect data on patients' vital signs and transmit it to the provider. Thus, providers can track the vitals anywhere, anytime, and offer timely treatment.
Similarly, patients will remain mindful of any changes in their health condition and participate in choosing the right treatment option.
As a patient engagement platform employs a risk assessment strategy, care providers can track the health condition of all patients, identify high-risk patients, and recommend a personalized treatment plan.
Patients can schedule appointments online with their physicians and connect with them via communication tools anywhere round the clock.
Is there any evidence of the success of patient engagement adoption?
Yes.
A 2018 study report revealed that a simple mobile app is the key to patient engagement in monitoring and reporting asthma symptoms.
Dr. Rudin and his team from RAND Corporation performed a 6-month feasibility study on using a patient engagement solution. After six months, they were surprised to find high patient engagement. 92% of patients were still continuing to report their asthma outcomes through weekly questionnaires, and over 80% received at least one call based on the health outcomes.
All the participants revealed that the solution was simple and easy to use. It made them remain more connected to their physicians, improved awareness about asthma symptoms, and could successfully avoid emergency care. Similarly, providers also reported a reduction in administrative workflow burden.
A 2016 study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research reported that automated brief messaging with mHealth apps could help in improving health outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes.
Is it possible to see how a patient engagement platform can help reduce no-shows?
Yes. A patient engagement solution for hospitals can help in reducing no-shows by using the ROI calculator.
Suppose the average number of appointments comes to 100 per month, the present cancellation rate is 10 percent, and if you earn $100 per appointment, then your current monthly lost revenue comes to $1000/-.
The average decline in no-show rates ranges from 20% to 70%.
Hence, if you would like to lower your no-show rate by 20%, then your final increase in monthly revenues would come to $200/-.
Why hiCare Chronic Disease Management Solution?
Our hiCare Chronic Disease Management Solution is an easy, secure, automated, powerful, and customizable texting platform that can deliver a reliable and scalable patient-provider engagement platform.
Our engagement platform will significantly improve clinical outcomes, increase productivity, and reduce costs through a feasible SMS/phone call + web service platform.
Our hiCare Chronic platform includes the following features:
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Cloud-based software where only the internet and a computer are required.
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It’s not necessary to download the app.
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Scalable and easy to use
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HIPAA compliant secure, and reliable platform
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Easy integration with your existing systems
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Multiple texting solutions starting from appointment reminders to surveys and much more
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Patient Engagement using Email, Phone, Chat, Text, In-App Messaging, and Video
We can create an experience that improves patient satisfaction through technology by providing an automated, text-based platform backbone as the future of patient engagement.
Final Thoughts
Several providers are still cynical about deploying a patient engagement system. They fear that elderly patients will not be able to access this solution. At times, providers are not ready to accept that it is used to improve communication with patients. Despite all these challenges, healthcare organizations that own a patient engagement solution enjoy the following benefits:
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Continuous 24/7 patient support
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Keeping the physicians on top of their patients’ health conditions
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Reduction in overall healthcare costs
So, would you like to deploy patient engagement software? Feel free to reach our Hifinite team.
References
Arambepola C, Ricci-Cabello I, Manikavasagam P, Roberts N, French DP, Farmer A
The Impact of Automated Brief Messages Promoting Lifestyle Changes Delivered Via Mobile Devices to People with Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of Controlled Trials. J Med Internet Res 2016; 18(4):e86. doi: 10.2196/jmir.5425PMID: 27095386PMCID: 4873307 (Link)
Raghupathi W, Raghupathi V. An Empirical Study of Chronic Diseases in the United States: A Visual Analytics Approach. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018; 15(3):431. Published 2018 Mar 1. doi:10.3390/ijerph15030431 (Link)
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/patient-engagement-solutions-market
https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/life-sciences/coronavirus-patient-behavior-research
Kleinsinger F. The Unmet Challenge of Medication Nonadherence. Perm J. 2018;22:18-033. doi:10.7812/TPP/18-033 (Link)
Bosworth HB, Granger BB, Mendys P, et al. Medication adherence: a call for action. Am Heart J. 2011;162(3):412-424. doi:10.1016/j.ahj.2011.06.007 (Link)
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries-2/
