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Engage with patients all along their wellness journey

In my previous blog, I shared some recent research about the needs of today’s health consumers to help health providers like you gain insight into how best to engage people at various stages of their wellness journey.

By interacting with patients in more ways before, during, and after traditional episodic clinical visits, you can help them stay healthier. This is more important than ever as you face imperatives to rein in spiraling healthcare costs, especially those associated with chronic diseases.

And with today’s modern tools, extending patient engagement beyond the four walls of your clinic or hospital has become easier and more cost-effective. Here are a few examples of how you can take advantage of today’s mobility, productivity, cloud, and analytics solutions to engage patients in a holistic and continuous manner.

You can provide patients with online tools so they can make appointments, fill out paperwork, and access pre-visit checklists. Then, when they arrive at your clinic or hospital, you can provide them with a tablet they can use in the waiting room to peruse health news and play educational games to help them pass the time.

For patients in the hospital, you can provide them with a mobile bedside device they can use to control their room environment (such as adjusting the thermostat), access entertainment, send a message to their caregivers, and get information about their condition and their care team. This can empower patients and improve their satisfaction with their stay—something hospitals are increasingly being measured on.

You can also send a device home with patients with after-care information and reminders, and a way for them to easily connect virtually with their care team (such as via Skype) to help improve outcomes and prevent costly readmissions.

To help individuals and their health team monitor their health on an ongoing basis, data from digital scales, blood pressure and glucose monitors, pedometers, pulse oximeters, and more can be tracked with online apps. When readings are out of range, alerts can be sent to the patient and care team to catch any health issues early and help head off problems down the road.

With today’s cloud-first, mobile-first health solutions, health professionals can also engage patients more deeply by being better connected, informed, and accessible. Interdisciplinary teams can gain a 360-degree view of a patient. And they can communicate with each other and their patients through online video consultations, social media, or instant messaging.

And to help identify at-risk patients and target them with appropriate care steps, health professionals can use self-service health analytics tools.

The above are just a few examples of how today’s technologies can help you engage those you serve in new and efficient ways and improve population health. If you’d like more information or want help getting started, please reach out to us via email, Facebook, or Twitter. And, as always, let us know if you have any questions or feedback.