The more engaged patients are in their healthcare, the more likely they are to experience positive outcomes and report higher satisfaction with their care.
Here are five patient engagement resources and partners to know.
1. Electronic Access to Surgical Events. EASE works in the same manner as the text messaging services people use each day. Surgical staff can use the app to send texts, photos and videos to the patient's family. Short updates are sent every 30 minutes.
2. Docent Health. The Boston-based healthcare technology startup offers a number of solutions to improve consumer-centric approaches to healthcare. San Francisco-based Dignity Health partnered with Docent to offer a new program aimed at improving the maternity experience of expectant mothers at its hospitals. Through the program, a specially trained team works in coordination with the clinical care teams to cultivate positive relationships with the female patients and track their patient preferences, care goals, medical history and concerns, among other things.
3. National Quality Forum. NQF convened a panel of 21 experts to draft the first national standards for healthcare decision aids, used to improve shared decision-making between providers and patients. View the standards here.
4. Outcome Health. This Chicago-based information provider — formerly ContextMedia Health — offers a host of products designed to foster better patient engagement in the healthcare setting. In November 2016, the company partnered with the American Academy of Dermatology, the largest dermatology association in the U.S., to provide the association's members and patients with decision enhancement technologies and educational content for use both before and during patient-physician consultations.
5. SmarTigr. This patient education resource, manufactured by Raleigh, N.C.-based TeleHealth services, is used in a multitude of hospitals to improve patient engagement. One year after implementing SmarTigr technology, AnMed Health — a multidisciplinary five-hospital system headquartered in Anderson, S.C. — improved HCAHPS patient satisfaction scores and patient health literacy.
More articles on patient engagement:
Survey: 98% of patients feel comfortable connecting with providers via online portals
5 tips for clinicians to improve patient introductions
Rural patients document experience of living with chronic disease through photographs