Elevating Patient Engagement Solutions: Benefits, Features & Types

Patient engagement is an important aspect of the healthcare business. If you are unable to engage your patients and provide them 24×7 care and supxport, then they will move on to another healthcare provider that can take care of their health outcomes. You need to provide better care and engagement in the practice and after the practice hours by digitizing your practice care business.

Accenture mentioned that 60% of the patients are looking for technology-enabled care now. There is a demand for digitizing the patient engagement aspect. Let’s take a look at the exact definition of the term – patient engagement.

What is patient engagement?

Patient engagement is a communication medium, protocol, or a partnership between patients and doctors to share information regarding health, prescriptions, health lab reports, medical records, and other information to search for the best treatment options and improve care and engagement. As patients explore their healthcare options online, it has become critical for healthcare providers to have a holistic digital presence through a digital patient engagement platform.

What is the need for patient engagement solutions?

Pre Covid-19, if a patient wants to connect to a doctor related to a specialty, they have to travel to meet a primary care physician first and then travel to reach the specialty care physician. There is no guarantee that the physician may attend to a patient as soon as they arrive for a consultation. Post Covid-19, the scenario has become more tedious due to lockdowns and it has become a norm now to open your mobile, book a consultation with a provider in minutes, and get connected on the same day.

Moreover, chatbots can collect all the information required for diagnosis and patients can upload their medical records. Chatbots can also suggest lab testing and the tests that require blood and urine samples can be ordered in the comfort of the home. Finally, when a patient connects with a doctor, he/she is aware of the patient’s condition and can treat them accurately and minimize follow-ups.

They can prescribe medications that can be ordered from a patient engagement app and the only time a patient has to travel is for advanced tests like CT scan, MRI, or a cognitive experience is required with the doctor or admission is required. All these can be also booked with the help of a digital patient engagement platform.

Now that we know the definition of the patient engagement platform term, we will now concentrate on understanding the standard features that must be present in patient engagement solutions.

Related : Healthcare Mobile App Development

Standard features of a digital patient engagement platform for a patient

• Option to send and receive messages from doctors
• Self-scheduling and appointment confirmation by doctors to reduce admin work
• Order medication refills
• Make payments online or set recurring payments for refills, lab tests
• Enter vitals and monitor self-health
• Enter paperwork and insurance claims through forms

Related : Benefits of Remote Patient Monitoring

Standard features digital patient engagement platform for a provider

• Start an audio/text/video chat with a patient and reduce visiting or waiting time
• Automate follow-ups and feedback
• Send or schedule educational content to patients
• Access and share health records with patients

Ideally, your digital patient engagement platform should have these standard features. Let’s discuss the pros of building patient engagement solutions and the cons if an engagement platform is not present.

Benefits or pros of digital patient engagement platform

• No-shows can be reduced as the application or platform will send reminders and help in managing appointments.
• Increase engagement and loyalty as patients can give feedback and doctors/practice can adapt accordingly.
• Send success stories through integrated email campaigns available in a patient engagement solution and increase your reach to get more patients or customers.
• Enhance communication and maintain health treatment compliance through transparency with patients.

Cons of not building a digital patient engagement platform

Costs will rise in absence of a digital platform that engages patients and practice/doctors. Let’s look at the cons of not having a digital platform.

• You will end up offering a non-customized rigid experience to patients as you will never know their real-time condition and symptoms and will not be reachable online 24×7. You will lose their loyalty as they will go to a provider that can provide them with effortless support and care to improve their outcomes.
• Patients will lose interest in managing their health and it will become an issue for the entire population. If they forgot to take medications, complications will be more. As per this site, 125,000 patients die because they do not take medications on time.
• Overall healthcare costs will increase because patients will increase. If claims are not fully paid, practices and doctors will lose money and incur losses.

This proves that a digital patient engagement platform is a must.

The 3 types of patient engagement solutions

Off-the-shelf patient engagement solution

In this digital patient engagement platform, you will find that all features are available and ready to use with minimum customization. You can select or exclude features as per your wish and it will cost you around $12 to $350 per month. You can opt for features, licensing, advanced features, and support at extra pricing. Some of the examples include Vcita, DoctorConnect, and RXNT.

There are many benefits like these solutions run on the cloud and you can use them quickly. Initial investments are less compared to other types and you can scale easily if the vendor has readymade plugins or solutions available to meet your future requirements.

If the vendor discontinues support, it will become tough for you as transition costs may be high.

Off-the-shelf patient engagement solutions are best suited for practices that do not have more funds and want to cater to a limited area. Also, they do not want an integrated system and just a standalone engagement solution.

CMS based patient engagement platform

These patient engagement solutions are developed using Wix or WordPress and are hosted on the premises or in the cloud. They also have all the features of a popular digital patient engagement platform. Initial costs will be less and in the longer run, you must pay fees for maintenance, support, features, customization, and server upgrades.

If you are a clinic looking for a quick solution, you can opt for a CMS-based solution. You need to keep in mind that scaling might be expensive. Though, if you have the budget, you can add more features. Recurring costs will be more based on future requirements.

Custom patient engagement solution

Custom digital patient engagement platforms are developed by a professional healthcare IT agency like Knovator Technologies. The patient engagement solutions are developed over a long period and every solution can be customized based on the latest UI/UX requirements.

Features can be quickly customized at fewer prices because custom solutions are developed by IT vendors that possess significant experience in healthcare platforms. They are aware of the pain areas and market trends to build and deploy healthcare software at the best costs.

Typically built from scratch, Knovator’s patient engagement solution can help you become a market leader in the long run. if you have a proper focus and budget on the IT and marketing needs.

The advantage of a custom digital patient engagement platform like Knovator Technologies is that it is built from scratch is that it can integrate with other platforms like mobile apps, remote health, EHR systems, invoicing systems, IoT systems, and other systems easily to solve multiple problems at once.

It is best suited for practices that are looking to digitize their healthcare business and aiming for a higher return on investment. If you’re looking to get the best bang for your bucks, a custom patient engagement solution is the way to go about it.

Also Read : Benefits of Buy Hospital Automated Prior Authorization Solution

Final thoughts

If you are looking for a custom patient engagement solution, you can trust Knovator Technologies to build your end-to-end healthcare software. Extensive experience in designing and developing healthcare software including digital patient engagement platforms, prior authorization solutions, remote patient monitoring system and healthcare websites and apps makes us the best healthcare IT development agency.