The Next Stage Of Engagement: Patient Portals Must Extend Beyond The Basics
By Gary Hamilton, InteliChart
A recent study estimates that as much as 80 percent of patient outcomes are related to factors outside of clinical care, such as patient behaviors, education and economic challenges. This finding is likely not surprising to providers who regularly face patients that do not follow care plans or do not understand how their lifestyle is negatively affecting a chronic condition.
Overcoming these obstacles requires an intense focus on patient engagement. Monthly office visits, however, are not enough to help patients adhere to their care plan and make different lifestyle decisions. Providers must therefore increase home-based interactions to understand patient challenges and help them find solutions.
Historically, patient portals have been the chosen tool providers used to communicate and educate patients in their home. Portals, though, are only part of a comprehensive patient engagement solution. To effectively confront factors that influence the other 80 percent of outcome drivers, organizations need integrated population health management (PHM) tools and more proactive patient outreach.
Choosing the right partner for this multi-pronged patient engagement strategy is essential. Providers need partners that offer leading-edge technology to help them anticipate adverse events and communicate with patients to prevent unnecessary care and improve outcomes.
Optimizing The Portal
The push to implement patient portals over the last decade has been successful, but adoption among patients has been lackluster. A March 2017 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found nearly nine out of 10 hospitals and physician practices offered patient portals, but only 15 percent of hospitals’ and 30 percent of physician practices’ patients accessed medical information through the sites.
Since the patient portal is integral to strengthening patient engagement, making the tool useful and attractive to patients is mandatory. Ease of use and quick delivery of information and features patients need most often are a must for a patient-centered portal. For example, accessing most recent lab-test results or prescription renewal requests are often popular features. Yet, as organizations merge or are acquired, patients may find they cannot access their data from the entire organization and need separate log-ins and passwords, which can certainly discourage adoption and engagement.
Even if the portal does provide desired information and tools, perhaps patients find it so difficult to navigate they get frustrated and stop accessing it all together. Some patients never log-in to the portal because instructions are sent in the mail days or weeks later, which can diminish their motivation to engage in their care. Regardless of the reasons, learning what patients dislike about the portal is a major step in improving adoption rates.
In turn, organizations need a technology partner who understands the importance of offering an easy-to-use, intuitive patient portal and delivers such a tool.
Expanding Functionality
Organizations should also seek out technology companies that are experienced and understand current patients’ expectations versus 10 years ago. Newer features including online appointment scheduling and bill pay are not only more convenient for patients, they benefit the practice in numerous ways. Online scheduling can reduce the number of incoming phone calls and free up time for administrative staff, while online bill payment can reduce collections efforts and accelerate cash flow.
Another key feature to add to the portal tool is appointment confirmations and reminders as well as bill-payment reminders. Traditionally, these alerts would either be sent through postal mail or to a patient’s email, both of which can have very low response rates. When delivered through mobile, however, these alerts can be much more effective at encouraging appointment attendance, as well as bill payment.
Along with reminders, organizations can also alert patients that a patient satisfaction and outcomes survey is available for them to take through the portal, which, again, will draw them back to the site. These alerts can be sent from the portal automatically, saving time for the organization.
Population Health Tools And Integration Essential
Taking functionality even deeper, the portal should support an organization’s population health management (PHM) strategy. For example, when the PHM technology automatically initiates a clinical intervention based on certain test results combined with other pre-defined rules, the portal can serve as the communication hub for providers and patients. A case manager can then inquire about the patient’s health status through the portal and schedule appointments for follow-ups if needed.
An organization’s selected technology partner needs to be able to offer all of these advanced features. More importantly, partners must be able to seamlessly integrate disparate electronic health record (EHR) systems to the portal for a comprehensive, accurate and reliable view of patients’ data and communication history.
Portals that are proprietary to only one EHR vendor may not offer such integration capabilities. For large healthcare organizations, though, having a complete view is crucial for PHM and patient engagement. That is why it’s important to seek a technology partner with not only a proven track record of successful portals, but also the qualifications to navigate the requirements of numerous IT vendors and platforms.
With a unified patient portal that offers continued engagement and PHM tools across the enterprise, providers will have a greater advantage in overcoming the obstacles that prevent care plan adherence. Together, with the right technology partner, providers can help patients overcome social challenges and move them towards deeper engagement and better clinical outcomes.