Health systems exist to serve patients - a fact made abundantly clear by the rising relevance of patient satisfaction scores on health system outcomes. With patient preferences influencing bottom lines, it’s in every health system’s best interest to understand the evolving needs of modern patients. Check out five strategies that prioritize patient engagement. 

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Offer a complete digital experience.

From email to banking to insurance, the mobile phone is the center of daily gravity when it comes to organizing one’s life and personal affairs. Now, healthcare is here to join the digital party. From 2020 to 2022 alone, the percentage of patients who accessed their medical records online skyrocketed by 50%, from 38% up to 57%. As the trend continues, the need becomes clear: people want convenient digital access to their medical records. 

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Guarantee digital security.

To encourage patients to utilize new digital documentation systems, they must know their information is safe. It took some time for people to trust money-transfer apps that connected to personal banking information. Still, once that trust was established, the ease of sending and receiving personal funds was revolutionized. Regarding healthcare, people must be guaranteed that their health data is private, secure, and HIPAA compliant. When everyone knows the water’s safe, everyone can jump in. 

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Ensure more face time with clinicians to build trust.

Patients want to know their doctors and to feel in some capacity that their doctors know and care about them. With unprecedented administrative work keeping burned-out doctors too busy at their keyboards to spend extra time with their patients, patients feel the squeeze. Clinicians using increasingly popular AI documentation platforms to ease their paperwork burdens are seeing dramatic amounts of time saved each day - time they can then gift back to themselves and their patients. When providers and patients get more face-to-face time, genuine medical care occurs. When patients have the full attention of their highly trained doctors, and doctors can offer that full attention, everyone wins. 

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Enable accessible communication.

Anyone who leaves an appointment and suddenly remembers a question they forgot to ask their clinician knows how hard it can be to track down and contact their doctor in an entire hospital system. Once a patient leaves those hospital doors, they don’t want to “disappear.” By opening up clear communication channels between providers and patients, less information falls through the cracks, and communication frustration plummets. Apps that organize and mobilize patient medical records and connect patients directly to their clinicians’ instructions are changing how healthcare connects and communicates. When communication is strong between providers and patients, patients feel seen, heard, and safe. 

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Increase transparency (and cut costs in the process).

In 2018, unplanned hospital readmissions were estimated to cost $57.7 billion. Among the many reasons, poor communication between providers and patients is often the highest on the list. With healthcare costs rising in 2024, patients need to know their time in healthcare facilities is well spent and that their communication with their providers is reliable. Providers using AI documentation platforms that loop in patients to exact care instructions are safeguarding themselves from the many misfortunes caused by miscommunication - misfortunes that cost patients and providers money and time. Leverage AI and communication platforms to make each patient visit cost- and time-effective for physicians and patients, watch budgets open up, and improve patient experience scores. 

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