Digitalization has revolutionized the healthcare industry and changed the way healthcare service providers engage with their patients. Digital technologies are enabling patients to navigate complex healthcare systems and be more connected with their healthcare providers.
With the help of digital patient engagement, patients can gain access to better care and solutions, thus positively impacting their lifestyle changes and achieving better health outcomes. They are also more satisfied with their care and more likely to recommend their providers to others.
Taking a glance at the provider's side, digital technologies are equipping healthcare service providers to keep an open line of communication with their patients. With investments in digital patient engagement technologies, healthcare providers can enhance their daily practice efficiency to ease their workload. Fostering patient engagement further results in overall healthcare cost savings.
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Understanding Digital Patient Engagement
Digital patient engagement encapsulates using digital technologies to offer medical care to patients actively. This involves giving patients access to communication tools and information like appointment scheduling methods, check-ins, reviews, request management, and ongoing services to promote their well-being.
Digital patient engagement incorporates digital tools like wearables, mobile devices, and patient portals. This approach goes beyond traditional patient engagement methods by leveraging technology to improve communication between healthcare providers and patients, manage the patient-provider relationship, and facilitate medical resources.
By embracing digital patient engagement tools, healthcare providers can better understand the patient’s perspective. They can provide information on available treatment options. This process further helps in fostering trust and cultivates long-lasting positive relationships.
Moreover, meticulously designed digital health technologies can also widen access to underserved communities. By enabling remote access, these technologies are helping overcome geographical barriers to ensure that patients have equitable access to healthcare information.
Why is Digital Patient Engagement Important?
Digital patient engagement in healthcare is important as physical presence is no longer required. The proliferation of mobile devices, along with easy access to healthcare, has revolutionized consumer industries.
The healthcare industry is opening to the idea of leveraging innovative solutions to enhance patient communication, reduce manual work, and keep patients better informed about their care. This significant shift in automating scheduling and communication while also harnessing software solutions enables healthcare providers to enhance patient education and improve the overall patient experience.
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In the evolving patient-centered healthcare ecosystem, healthcare providers can communicate information and track, prevent, and treat diseases while educating about health and wellness through smartphones, wearables, and telemedicine. By leveraging digital technologies, healthcare facilities are streamlining their processes and offering personalized and accessible health services. Patient engagement platforms further enable active collaboration between healthcare providers and patients, resulting in better patient outcomes and lower healthcare spending.
Digital Patient Engagement Platforms and Healthcare
AI and machine learning-led solutions are equipping healthcare professionals to elevate their standards and enhance engagement platforms, thereby enriching the patient’s journey and assisting them in gaining unprecedented insights into improving diagnostics and care processes.
Different technologies are impacting digital patient engagement. Let's explore a few solutions healthcare providers can explore to enhance patients' engagement with their digital products.
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Integrating AI-powered solutions
Artificial intelligence today offers a range of opportunities for healthcare institutions to explore options to boost patient engagement. These include personalized consultations and AI-powered chatbots for patients. Healthcare organizations are considering different factors before implementing AI.
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Leveraging wearable healthcare devices
Wearable devices today play a significant role in health monitoring, diagnosis, and treatment to support patient engagement by integrating their services with these gadgets. Research has highlighted that the number of smartwatch users is expected to reach 230 million by 2028.
With these devices, healthcare professionals can incorporate the accumulated data into clients and enhance their service experience for patients significantly. This will help lead to increased engagement, allowing professionals to connect with their patients more frequently.
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Exploring telemedicine software
Telehealth and telemedicine software help in boosting patient engagement. They also help offer home consultations that can benefit patients with mobility issues or those who live remotely. Virtual check-ins further facilitate regular monitoring of the patient and treatment adjustments to overcome barriers. Another effective method to enhance patient engagement is by offering medical specialists more time for patient interactions via online and offline mediums. Providers can also explore solutions to free up specialists' time.
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Personalizing healthcare via apps
If a healthcare organization specializes in niche, specific healthcare services, they should offer personalized care plans. This will help ensure offering more personalized advice by striking a caring tone. This will further enhance patient engagement and lead to increased app usage and clinic visits.
Beyond the software types and solutions mentioned, the digital platforms help in conducting regular health check-ups. Patient engagement platforms help implement these features while also assisting with preventative health measures like vaccinations and screenings, as well as post-physician follow-ups.
To implement digital patient engagement tools successfully, healthcare professionals need to
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Choosing the right proof-of-concept solution: By specifying the needs of the patient population and considering factors such as age, technological literacy, and prevailing health issues, healthcare professionals can offer the right solutions and assess their compatibility while gaining insights into their patient preferences and behavior.
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Testing the tools: Involving a diverse group of patients to get complete feedback along with regularly updating the tool based on user intake will help ensure user-friendly and relevant treatment.
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Foreseeing challenges: Patients and healthcare staff need to be resistant to change. To deal with this, healthcare providers need to provide all patients with consistent and reliable access to these digital tools. Such solutions include simplified interfaces, multilingual backing, and alternative access, such as telephone-based services.
With these practices, healthcare providers will be able to work their way and improve patient engagement with digital tools.
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Final Thoughts
Today's digital transformation of healthcare facilities requires robust integration and interoperability of the virtual engagement platform. This is vital to achieving disease diagnosis, preventing rehospitalization, speeding up patient payments, and improving adherence to treatment plans.
Patients globally are increasingly embracing digital health services, and healthcare providers are exploring ways to adapt to these changes by nurturing a holistic digital presence and a robust engagement platform. For a more personalized and meaningful experience, implementing digital patient engagement frameworks will further help in fostering patient-focused solutions, thus leading to a better patient outcome. Healthcare providers also need to prioritize active patient participation to enhance overall wellness and ensure patients receive optimal care.
SG Analytics, recognized by the Financial Times as one of APAC's fastest-growing firms, is a prominent insights and analytics company specializing in data-centric research and contextual analytics. Operating globally across the US, UK, Poland, Switzerland, and India, we expertly guide data from inception to transform it into invaluable insights using our knowledge-driven ecosystem, results-focused solutions, and advanced technology platform. Our distinguished clientele, including Fortune 500 giants, attests to our mastery of harnessing data with purpose, merging content and context to overcome business challenges. With our Brand Promise of "Life's Possible," we consistently deliver enduring value, ensuring the utmost client delight.
A leader in the Healthcare domain, SG Analytics is assisting healthcare companies to leverage the power of information. Contact us today if you are in search of efficient Healthcare solutions to make sound business decisions.
About SG Analytics
SG Analytics is an industry-leading global insights and analytics firm providing data-centric research and contextual analytics services to its clients, including Fortune 500 companies, across BFSI, Technology, Media & Entertainment, and Healthcare sectors. Established in 2007, SG Analytics is a Great Place to Work® (GPTW) certified company and has a team of over 1100 employees and has presence across the U.S.A, the U.K., Switzerland, Canada, and India.
Apart from being recognized by reputed firms such as Analytics India Magazine, Everest Group, and ISG, SG Analytics has been recently awarded as the top ESG consultancy of the year 2022 and Idea Awards 2023 by Entrepreneur India in the “Best Use of Data” category.
