In our personal lives, Americans have grown used to giving up personal information to technology in exchange for convenience. We manage passwords using smartphone keychain and apps. We share our emails, phone numbers and birthdays to get store coupons. We save our credit cards in online shopping carts.

As healthcare professionals, however, we are cautious—fearful, even—of dealing in personal information because of the 5-letter abbreviation that looms over our work: HIPAA.

HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, became law in 2002 and was designed to protect the private information of patients and to make sure they are well informed about their choices and their consent for those choices.

Yet even as far back as 2003, HIPAA recognized the need to balance patient privacy and efficiency for healthcare providers. In fact, HIPAA makes digital patient engagement, education and care management easier than you may think.

As the marketing team responsible for UNC REX Healthcare’s maternity service line, we’re constantly looking for better ways to improve women’s birth experiences at our hospital.

For most patients, their first time at our hospital is when they come to take a birth class in their third trimester, or when they are in labor and arrive to deliver. That means we have to earn their trust months before they actually use our services. Part of our strategy for improving patient experience includes reaching out to future patients to provide education and answer their care questions as early in their pregnancy journey as we can.

In the past year, we’ve made some improvements that have allowed us to connect with a larger percentage of these women, and sooner—as early as their first OB visit to community practices who deliver at the REX Women’s Center.

As more hospitals turn to same-day discharge for joint replacement patients, it’s more important than ever to make sure those patients know what to expect, how to care for themselves post-op and how to get the most from their recovery at home.

4 Traits of Health Content That Engages and Satisfies

Patient education can be one of healthcare providers’ most effective tools in today’s value-based care systems. By setting patient expectations, promoting behavior change and measuring adherence to a care plan, it can improve outcomes and have financial benefits.

At UbiCare, we call this kind of patient education “architected” content because of the research, thought and strategy that goes into its construct. It’s designed to engage patients, improve care outcomes and increase satisfaction for patients and healthcare providers alike.

No matter what you call it, patient engagement technology fueled by evidence-based, carefully “architected” content has several important elements.