5 Ways to Provide Connected Care to Patients
Healthcare is among the noblest of industries, ensuring that people’s physical and emotional needs are met. The word “business,” on the other hand, usually brings to mind a separate array of concepts — profits, sales, bottom lines, and self-interest. On the surface, it seems like business and healthcare are ideologically opposed. However, business is simply a way to organize a practice so it achieves the best possible outcomes.
That’s why treating healthcare like a business can benefit everyone involved — doctors, nurses, record-keepers, patients, and medical equipment manufacturers. The best part, though, is that when the business of healthcare is done well, it doesn’t actually feel like business at all. Patients keep visiting a provider if they have a good experience, and a surefire way to provide that is to place the patient above everything else with connected care.
Technology has made this easier than ever. Here are five ways providers can use a connected healthcare solution to improve patient engagement.
1. Create connected patient journeys.
According to Salesforce Research, the majority of healthcare consumers want easy access to their health records. And they want the ability to schedule and change appointments without having to contact their doctors’ offices.
In the digital world, an intuitive and well-constructed website allows patients to create their own accounts. And cloud-based systems and blockchains that store patient data enable providers to improve efficiencies and the entire patient experience.
2. Improve communication between departments.
Cloud-based, employee-focused connected care solutions make this a possibility. Integration across systems of record guards against losing patient records and allows care to run more smoothly. Improved coordination helps providers perform their duties better, which in turn makes patients more likely to stay with their current provider.
3. Be open to patient feedback.
It’s crucial to let patients know they can approach their healthcare providers with any questions or concerns about the quality of their care. The more that patient feedback is specific and honest, the better medical professionals can become. At the same time, easy communication between doctor and patient creates relationships built on trust (rather than on dollar signs).
This is another function for connected care. Just keeping patients involved in the processes — like sending out emails to the patients after they’ve kept their appointments — can go a long way toward encouraging their perspectives and making them feel valued.
4. Train employees in best practices for patient engagement.
Studies are constantly conducted about the best ways to treat medical patients, not just physically but emotionally and psychologically. Bedside manner remains a vital aspect of healthcare. It’s important to ensure that employees are always kept up to date regarding the intricacies of patient support.
With connected care, employees instantly provide updates or small pieces of advice about how medical professionals of any type and level can look after their patients’ needs.
5. Keep patients connected with healthcare apps and patient portals.
However, that’s actually not the case. Only 20% of patients access self-service portals to communicate with providers, making portals the fourth most-common patient-provider communication channel.
That could change soon, though, since 52% of consumers now expect to find whatever they need from a company in three clicks or less. In other words, the majority of patients would likely choose a doctor with a healthcare app over a doctor without one. It won’t take long for providers to catch on, and the earliest birds will certainly get the most worms.
Connected care and healthcare apps show patients that their needs and preferences are taken into consideration, which makes healthcare feel less like a business and more like the service patients expect.