In a previous article, we talked about the future of telemedicine as a rising trend due to the difficulties brought about by the COVID-19 crisis. We discussed several real-life cases where telemedicine truly played a vital role in protecting the sustainability of healthcare services amidst the hard and delicate circumstances caused by the pandemic.
Yet after tackling the curious case of telemedicine in particular, let us take a step back and talk about the concept of digital patient engagement as a whole. Thus in this article, we will be answering the following questions:
- What exactly is digital patient engagement?
- How can we improve it?
- What are the tools that can help doctors in boosting their patients’ overall engagement in their healthcare process?
Defining Digital Patient Engagement
Let us begin by taking a step back to define the more general concept of ‘Patient Engagement’. Then, we can explore the more specialized concept of ‘Digital Patient Engagement’.
So, what is Patient Engagement?
In principle, the term Patient Engagement is defined by experts as “the desire and capability to actively choose to participate in care in a way uniquely appropriate to the individual in cooperation with a healthcare provider or institution for the purposes of maximizing outcomes or experiences of care”.
Naturally, then, the more patients are engaged in their healthcare process, the better the communication with their healthcare provider may become. Furthermore, the more engaged a patient is in their healthcare process, the more secure and comfortable they will feel. Consequently, they become cooperative with the instructions of their healthcare provider.
And what about Digital Patient Engagement?
Now that we defined Patient Engagement, the ‘digital’ aspect of it becomes straightforward. Hence, Digital Patient Engagement refers to the digital methods, tools, and technologies that enable us to better achieve and improve overall patient engagement.
How do you achieve Digital Patient Engagement?
1. Give your patients access to their medical information
One major aspect of patient engagement is to keep your patients constantly in the know. Nowadays, thanks to advanced technologies like Web Portals and Cloud systems, easy access to information around the clock has become much easier than before.
Web portals and mobile apps
We touched upon the significant role of web portals in the healthcare sector, here. And to put here in a few simple words, web portals and mobile apps can help add a further sense of flexibility and convenience. They do so by offering your patients access to their medical affairs through the comfort of their phones and computers. Mobile apps can provide instant ubiquitous access to medical information, as well as fast communication with the patient’s personal doctor in cases of emergency.
Cloud enablement
Especially in healthcare, the importance of Cloud computing in achieving patient engagement cannot be overlooked. Through a Cloud-based system, a patient can feel that they are fully in charge of their medical process.
2. Listen carefully to your patients’ feedback
This second part is extremely vital in patient engagement as it has to do with letting your patients be heard. After all, healthcare is a service. And like any service, it is not delivered successfully unless it achieves customer satisfaction. And how can you measure your customer/patients’ satisfaction with the service you provide to them? Simply, you have to listen to their feedback!
3. Make your patients feel secure
Last but not least, a digitally insecure patient is not fully engaged one. Thus, it is no-brainer that any digitalized system, especially in the healthcare sector, must apply state-of-the-art cybersecurity tools and measures. However, it is equally important to constantly keep your patient fully aware that every last piece of his information is stored and handled within a highly secure system. How do you achieve that? There are several things to consider.
One main aspect of security that you should consider, besides enforcing strong user passwords, is supporting multi-factor authentication. After all, there is no limit to how much we must highlight the importance of allowing multiple layers of authentication when it comes to accessing the system. Long gone are the days where passwords alone can be sufficient to prevent unauthorized access. Thus, a fully secure system must at least support two-factor authentication, and require additional layers as needed.
Another significant aspect of security to think about to implement proper information encryption. Needless to say, encryption plays a vital role in safeguarding your information against cyber threats. And this role becomes even more critical when we talk about the healthcare sector and handling patient information.
To wrap up…
In the end, it is important to highlight the fact that healthcare, just like any other service, thrives and flourishes by keeping clients—in this case patients—engaged and actively in charge of their medical process. This engagement can be achieved by a number of things, as we discussed. Finally, the more engaged your patients are in their medical experience, the better this would reflect on the overall service quality, as well as on your healthcare organization as a whole.
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