Technology is pervasive in how we manage our day-to-day activities. 89% of adults in the U.S. report using the Internet or owning a smartphone. The vast majority of patients report that they want email communication with their physician.
How can you take advantage of this ubiquity in healthcare practice?
Connecting to patients through digital educational messages can be automatic and, in turn, provide patients with a consistent and welcome connection to their healthcare provider. Patients can reference your messages multiple times to understand and integrate key information into their daily behavior, extending your relationship into their home life.Of course, you want to provide this level of quality care to all your patients. Making continuous digital education and communication your standard of care allows you to provide for all of your patients equally—not only those who self select, or “opt-in.” Doing so will have a great ripple effect throughout your hospital, from providing a better patient experience to simplifying hospital workflows and efficiently meeting compliance regulations.
Increase patient satisfaction and outcomes.
When patients provide their email address, they are implying consent to digitally receive educational materials. Leveraging an opt-out approach—or sending digital messages to everyone unless they ask not to receive them—will make sure that all patients receive easy access to timely and accurate information and resources for education and support. Knowledgeable and confident patients are better able to manage their own health and healthcare. As a result, they have better outcomes.
Value-based care models, including ACOs and CJR, focus on uniting the disparate components of care to a complete episode—before, during and after a hospital stay. This is because most of the time patients spend within an episode of care is outside your practice or hospital. Proactively sending them the specific information they need during this time gives you control and influence throughout the entire care continuum. Furthermore, it has been proven that engaged patients cost less.
Use technology to simplify workflows, reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Technology enables you to give your patients the info they need—in the manner that they want.
Automatically delivering digital patient-specific education efficiently aligns with your existing systems and processes, and provides critical access to your full population when analyzing, using and documenting data. Having all patients enrolled in your educational messages provides you with comprehensive data, removes any selection bias, and allows you to manage expectations and build confidence.
Better meet compliance requirements.
Digitally educating and connecting with all your patients becomes even more important as you move to Meaningful Use Stages 2 and 3, which require hospitals to provide patient-specific education resources to at least 10% of inpatients.
Sending opt-out educational communications to all patients meets those standards in a way that is fully HIPAA compliant. Email communication to coordinate patient care is supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Electronic connections are the most efficient and effective way for hospitals to stay connected with and support patients on an ongoing basis. Given that the majority of patients want digital communications with their care team, opt-out electronic connections are the best way to guide and support your patients with the specific education resources they need.
To learn more, check out OPT-OUT Digital Connections With Patients Are IN!
