Patient engagement is a vital element of successful treatment in healthcare. It can also benefit medical practices from a business standpoint by improving patient retention. There are many different ways that mental healthcare organizations can increase patient engagement by updating their tools and practices.
What Is Patient Engagement?
“Patient engagement” describes a patient’s active involvement in their care. Ideally, this will include both involvement in developing a treatment plan and following through on that plan. Strong patient engagement will also be characterized by ongoing communication between the patient and provider in order to update treatment as needed and help the provider track progress over time.
Benefits of Patient Engagement
Potential benefits of patient engagement include:
- Improved patient outcomes;
- Increased patient satisfaction;
- Better communication;
- Higher patient retention;
- Fewer mistakes and delays;
- Smoother coordination of care;
- Stronger adherence to treatment plans;
- Creation of higher quality treatment plans.
Outcomes can be particularly enhanced in types of healthcare such as behavioral health and addiction treatment, which often require strong buy-in from patients, ongoing collaboration between multiple providers, and personalized treatment plans for success.
Patient Engagement Examples
Because patient engagement strategies and means of approaching them can vary so widely, patient engagement can take many different forms. The following are some examples of patient engagement in practice:
- The patient attends a follow-up appointment with their provider to discuss progress and concerns with their treatment plan.
- The patient accesses, reviews, and updates their records through an online portal.
- The provider discusses a medical condition and treatment options with the patient, giving them a better understanding of what to expect, what their options are, and how to best manage their condition.
Effective patient engagement requires buy-in from both the patient and provider, as well as access to helpful tools and communication channels.
Patient Engagement Statistics
As mentioned, effective patient engagement can result in improved outcomes for both patients and healthcare organizations. The World Health Organization reports that according to some studies, meaningful patient engagement can reduce the burden of harm by up to 15%. On the other side of the coin, one study suggests that less engaged patients are three times as likely to have unmet medical needs and twice as likely to delay medical care.
In particular, advancements in patient engagement technology is thought to have the potential to greatly improve outcomes. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the implementation of Partnership for Patients’ Hospital Improvement Innovation Networks alone was credited with the prevention of 20,500 hospital deaths and saving USD $7.7 billion in healthcare costs between 2014 and 2017.
Patient Engagement Solutions and Strategies
Solutions and strategies that can improve patient engagement include:
- Pre-visit procedures: These are actions taken by staff before a patient’s visit such as reviewing patient records and ensuring the patient has completed other necessary appointments.
- Patient follow-up management: This can involve a variety of check-ins, assessments, and communications.
- Patient engagement programs: These are comprehensive initiatives built to improve patient engagement using specific models or frameworks, as well as patient segmentation and analytics to develop more effective treatment strategies.
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- Automation: Many healthcare tasks can be automated in order to free up time for human engagement with patients.
- Remote patient engagement: Remote patient engagement options can make healthcare more accessible for patients who may struggle with the demands of in-person care.
- Shared decision making: Shared decision making describes a collaborative process where providers educate their patients about care options and work with them to determine what treatment to pursue.
- Development of trust: Building a strong rapport with a patient can encourage them to bring up questions and concerns, as well as stay in regular contact.
- Options for communication channels: Different patients will have different preferences for how they communicate with their provider, and therefore you can encourage communication by offering different options for contact, such as direct messaging, email, phone, and chatbots.
- Personalization: Creating individual treatment plans for patients may encourage a more positive view of their treatment compared to one-size-fits all approach, encouraging buy-in and communication.
- Progress tracking: Patient progress can be tracked in many ways, such as check-ins, regular appointments, and wearable tech.
Patient engagement strategies are also sometimes called patient engagement activities or patient engagement marketing, and can vary from simple procedures to more complex approaches to treatment. Various tools can also support these activities.
Patient Engagement Tools
Tools that can help improve patient engagement include:
- Patient portals: Patient portals provide many useful options for patients, such as multiple communication channels, scheduling tools, and means of adjusting records.
- Telehealth: Telehealth services allow patients to securely communicate with their providers without needing to physically be present.
- Wearable devices: Wearable devices can track many aspects of patients’ health during their day-to-day lives.
- Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM): These are tools that can measure and transmit patient information to their provider.
- Electronic Health Records (EHR): EHRs can help improve patients’ access to their information and improve digital collaboration.
- Educational resources: Various educational resources such as brochures, videos, and even one-on-one discussions can help patients better understand conversations about health.
- Secure communication channels: Secure communication channels such as direct messaging and video conferencing applications can improve access and security as well as increase points of contact.
Patient engagement is a constantly evolving practice and therefore it is important for mental healthcare providers to stay in the know about useful developments in technology and best practices.
