Guest Column | June 2, 2016

Mobilizing Patient Engagement: Developers Leverage New Tools For Health Data Activation

Chris Mycek, Chief Customer Officer, Cadient, a Cognizant Company

By Chris Mycek, Chief Customer Officer, Cadient, a Cognizant Company

The latest Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey of more than 4,000 hospitals once again showed there is plenty of room for improvement when it comes to patient engagement, especially in terms of receiving the right information at the right time about medications and care transitions.                                                   

Fortunately, emerging technologies are enabling healthcare stakeholders to find innovative ways to increase engagement by providing patients with more access to their own health data. Not surprisingly, at the heart of this innovation, smartphones are becoming a key pillar. In fact, a recent study on mobile phone usage by Flurry Analytics found that, while healthcare apps are not the “most frequently used” category, they do have the strongest 30-day retention, beating out finance, games, and even weather apps.

The sticking power of health apps demonstrates the growing impact that phones, wearables, and other tracking devices are having on patient engagement, data tracking, and even medical research. In other words, whether people are dealing with an illness or just trying to stay healthy, these mobile tools have become firmly entrenched as part of the health and wellness routine for millions of people.

Most notably, Apple’s release of ResearchKit sparked hundreds of innovative iPhone-based studies. Now, focusing on a slightly different aspect of the medical continuum, Apple’s CareKit platform is helping bridge the connection between patients and their care teams. For pharma and healthcare marketers in particular, the new framework includes several powerful features that developers have already begun to take advantage of — all of which should help organizations address many of the patient engagement gaps found in the recent HCAHPS survey. This includes:

  • Care Card: This feature helps individuals track their care plans and action items, such as taking medication or completing physical therapy exercises. Activities can automatically be tracked and entered using sensors in Apple Watch or iPhone. For pharma and healthcare brands, this functionality unlocks powerful opportunities to drive ongoing compliance.
  • Symptom And Measurement Tracker: The CareKit Tracker allows users to easily record their symptoms, monitor temperature for possible infections, measure pain or fatigue, etc. Progress updates include simple surveys, photos that capture the progression of a wound, or activities calculated by using the iPhone’s accelerometer and gyroscope, like quantifying range of motion. For organizations that require titration or offer products with the potential for serious side-effects, this next generation tracking capability provides the opportunity to deliver new levels of personalized care beyond a pill.
  • Insight Dashboard: The dashboard maps symptoms against the action items in the Care Card to easily show how treatments are working. This visual feedback is a powerful tool for not only charting progress, but also providing motivation for future behavior change. Brands that already embrace visual storytelling to communicate their messaging will find this dashboard approach to be especially useful.
  • Connect: This functionality makes it easy for people to share information and links patients with doctors, care teams, family members, and even brand teams about their health and changes in condition. As patients begin to take a more active role in monitoring their healthcare, this ability to share the information with wider teams of HCPs, family members, and the brand will become even more critical.

The healthcare industry is witnessing innovative applications similar to CareKit, which point to how patient engagement and data gathering is rapidly being transformed by mobile technologies. In addition, the industry is seeing more technologies and applications come available that are leveraging mobile platforms. For example, pregnancy apps that use platforms like CareKit to help expecting mothers easily share information about their pregnancy and well-being with doctors, nurses, or family members or diabetes apps that track symptoms and gains insights via the Dashboard functionality.

Additionally, this is making an impact with healthcare providers — most recently, Texas Medical Center designing apps to guide and support care pathways for its eight million patients to improve their health through enhanced connectivity with care teams. One of its first apps is considered a replacement for paper surgical discharge forms — allowing patients to be much more engaged in their transition of care.

Conclusion
Mobile health is certainly not a new concept for healthcare providers and pharma brands, but the rise of powerful platforms such as CareKit is helping to not only extend mobile health adoption and retention, but also creating new and meaningful levels of engagement and feedback. Patients, providers, and organizations will reap the benefits as higher levels of engagement lead to better patient satisfaction, and ultimately, better health outcomes.