Patient engagement is and will continue to be a major priority for healthcare leaders in the years to come, according to the "Top of Mind for Top Health Systems 2020" report from KLAS and the Center for Connected Medicine.
The report surveyed 70 hospital and health system executives, nearly half of whom were CIOs, about their organizations' main IT priorities for 2020, especially in light of the ongoing shift toward value-based care. Patient engagement, along with data aggregation and analytics and precision medicine, ranked highest.
Though the executives reported very low levels of patient adoption and usage of existing engagement technologies such as patient portals, 70 percent of respondents still expressed at least some confidence in their abilities to affect patient behavior through the use of engagement platforms, mechanisms and technology.
The most popular technology currently in use is the patient portal, used by more than 80 percent of respondents. Portals were followed by telemedicine, used by one-third of those surveyed, and secure communication, at 18 percent.
Respondents were also asked in which technologies they plan to invest in the future, many of which they plan to leverage from their existing EHR vendor:
1. Telemedicine/virtual visits: 80 percent
2. Patient portal: 70 percent
3. Patient outreach: 57 percent
4. Remote patient monitoring: 57 percent
5. Secure communication: 55 percent
6. Patient education: 52 percent
7. Wayfinding: 52 percent
8. Wellness/coaching tools: 48 percent
9. Patient apps: 47 percent
10. CRM/PM platform: 43 percent
11. Patient-reported outcomes: 43 percent
12. Social media: 43 percent
13. Language translation tools/services: 38 percent
14. Provider apps: 38 percent
15. Interactive patient systems: 35 percent