What Is Patient Engagement?
Patient engagement is a concept that combines the two namely patient activation and patient intervention. This increases patient activation and promotes a positive patient behavior from the protagonist like obtaining preventive care or exercising regularity.
Technically speaking, patient engagement is everything from patient portals to social media strategies, from tracking vitals along with wearable accessories and actively participating in their own health and wellness. All said and done, although, everyone is mouthing this new buzzword, not many know the real meaning of it. Patient engagement tools can carry it out. What those tools are is a question that everyone may ask.
What Are Patient Engagement Solutions?
At a recent HIMSS conference, exhibitors were promoting patient engagement solutions and educational sessions were offering ways to engage patients. The same organization published a survey during this event, which revealed that 72 percent of the respondents identified consumer and patient engagement considerations like engagement, satisfaction and quality of care as the core business issues impacting their organizations over the years to come. It also brought forth the fact that IT strategies were increasingly being employed to engage patients in their own health issues. In the survey, eighty-seven percent of the patients admitted that their organizations offered a portal that would let patients manage their own healthcare issues.
This is a part of patient engagement solutions. However, this is not the whole part of patient engagement. In fact, portals are the plumbing in the patient engagement process and the clinical data collected is the water flowing through the plumbing system. For patients who are thirsty, just having a suitable plumbing system is not enough. It is necessary that water flows from the plumbing conduits continuously. Additionally, it is also necessary to have a good plumber around to attend to any issues in the plumbing system or to the smooth flow of water through the plumbing system.
Thus, we have seen that patient engagement solutions comprise the whole gamut of the patients engaging themselves in their health, including reducing weight, doing activities that boost immunity, monitoring their daily health and taking timely medical help if the situation is aggravated. All this along with the associated hardware and software which are used to manage the patients records, comprise the total patient engagement solutions.
When we involve technology in managing the patient’s health, we should derive benefits from the technology, by enabling patients to monitor their health in real-time. It will not be long before health insurance companies will engage with such patient engagement solutions who cater to various patients for their business needs.
Conclusion
Thus, we have come to know what patient engagement solutions are and predicted the future by affirming that health insurance companies may start engaging with patient engagement solution providers so that a patient’s health may be monitored and maintained in real time. Both will derive benefits from this activity. The health insurer will get information regarding the patient’s health and the patient engagement solution will come to know to what extent the patient can be engaged in monetary terms.
Matt Wilson
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