As many hospitals place a renewed focus on patient engagement, they would do well to avoid these six common pitfalls, according to Steve Ambrose, who consults on disruption and strategy in healthcare consumer engagement.
In a piece he contributed to The Hill, Mr. Ambrose outlined the following six patient engagement mistakes to avoid.
1. Not hitting patients in their pocketbooks. Mr. Ambrose suggests hospitals incentivize patients financially for participating in engagement platforms. "Use loss aversion to set two different fees for care service, premiums or medications — a normal, full fee for those not participating in an engagement program, and perhaps a 10 percent reduction for those who do," he wrote.
2. Being driven solely by mandates. "While mandates for meaningful use and patient portals exist, your overarching communications and messaging must be patient-centered and genuinely sincere," Mr. Ambrose wrote.
3. Lacking an overarching engagement strategy. Patient engagement should be separate from patient experience and overall wellness programs, Mr. Ambrose argued, and hospitals shouldn't confuse having patient engagement tactics with having a patient engagement strategy.
4. Not establishing clear metrics of success. Hospitals need to define what patient engagement means to them, and then establish how to measure it. For instance, it could mean medication adherence, utilization of care or when a patient reaches out for help on their own.
5. Not measuring patients' personalized engagement chains. A PEC is a documented path of how and when a patient interacts with the organization, according to Mr. Ambrose. Every single touch point or physical exchange represents an opportunity to take your trained staff and change health consumer lives. How do you measure and document this?" he wrote.
6. Lacking buy-in from all parties. Employees at every level of the organization will be involved in a successful patient engagement strategy, so hospitals need to have buy-in from executives and front-line employees alike.
"Patient engagement shouldn't be about meeting mandates, but exceeding expectations," he concluded.