Healthcare Providers of the future will ‘Engage’ Patients and not ‘sell’ to them

Sitting inside this fancy French restaurant and wondering whether ‘escargots’ means ‘Spanish carrots’?
Just returned from IKEA and got an uninterpretable instructions manual?

Such situations not only give unexpected outcomes, but make you seem ignorant and foolish. But the most ignorant are those who treat health knowledge either as too esoteric or as grandma’s tales.

A common man with low health literacy usually feels the same whenever he is buying any healthcare product or services. Checking Google, getting confused first and then anxious, and finally just leaving it to his fate. There is little, if any, engagement culture in health care. Patients are more than test results and body parts. This needs to change and in fact the movement has started.

The new way for Patients to understand and store their reports

What is Patient Engagement?

Patient engagement encourages proactive participation of patients in their own healthcare and increases patient’s confidence in the healthcare system. An engaged patient is more aware about his health and knows what information he has to seek from his healthcare provider.

If you are a health care provider reading this then we want to present a case in point why including a patient engagement piece is a win win!

1. Saves patients money: An engaged patient understands his risk for health conditions, and what symptoms to watch out for. Consequently, he is more likely to avoid costly medical emergency procedures by seeking care in a timely manner.
2. Improves your bottom line: We spend so much effort in acquiring new customers, right? But did you know the cost of acquiring a new customer is 5 times more than retaining an existing customer?
   Higher engagement ensures the patient chooses you over others and comes back to you leading to higher repeat rates.
3. Additional revenue for the provider: An engaged patient has an idea of what lifestyle modifications can improve his health conditions. He is more likely to indulge in preventive healthcare like annual health check-ups
4. Patient satisfaction and higher referrals: The overall experience your patient will have, will not be of anxiety and fear but rather one that is positive where they feel in control of the process — result — they will spread positive word of mouth and would like to recommend your brand to their friends and family
5. Ensures you are up to date with technology: Patient engagement requires you to upgrade your software and systems as per the latest standards. It streamlines your data and makes it an asset to leverage.

Now that you know it makes sense to invest in Patient Engagement, how to go about it?

1. Standardise your data: Most providers collect huge data often not in a format that can be leveraged for patient engagement. Ensure you have unique identifiers for the patients, API integrations are feasible and your different systems can talk to each other in a seamless manner.
   You’d be shocked to know that 70% of providers we speak with wish to have our patient engagement suite but don’t have data in shape to support that.
2. Adopt advanced technology in your healthcare system: Electronic Health Records (EHR), Healthcare Customer Relationship Management Platform (CRM), and Patient portals can be used to collect and analyze patient data such as his clinical history. This can help provide personalized communication, as well as personalized care to your patients.
3. Simplify healthcare information for your patients: Use visual aids to show lab results and trends in their health over time. Check out the latest softwares for personalized reporting experience.
4. Use various channels like automated emails and WhatsApp chatbot to communicate with your patients: The purpose of this communication can be, a) to provide test reports to patients, b) to clarify health related doubts of your patients, c) to get feedback from patients, d) to advise health packages (preferably by using customized messages depending upon age and health status of a patient), etc.

But the bottom-line —
Start somewhere, and get other stakeholders from your organisation involved in getting to know and communicate with your patients better !

Smart Health Reports are essential. We are sure you knew that before, and if not, COVID-19 or this article must have done that by now.

NirogGyan offers user-friendly medical reports, meant to improve health awareness. All so that you can live a great life!

Visit us at niroggyan.com or call Shweta @ +91–7678277891 to know more.