Patient engagement software facilitates the encouragement of a patient’s active participation in the maintenance of their health, the building of a collaborative patient-doctor relationship, and the improvement of the overall patient experience. Hospitals, medical practices, and other healthcare organizations are increasingly becoming subject to the same kinds of expectations that retail and hospitality industries deal with; as a result, patients expect compassion, acknowledgment, immediate communication, and easy access to information from their healthcare providers.
Products in the patient engagement category must offer one or more of the following functions: patient portal or patient communication, reputation management, outreach and marketing, surveys and feedback, patient education, self care management, or appointment reminder. Providing a patient portal to facilitate communication between provider and patient as well as enable active participation of the patient in regards to their own health is a major benefit of patient engagement solutions. Patient engagement software enables hospitals and clinics to practice reputation management and feedback generation, triggering a cycle of post-appointment reviews, reputation boosting, practice and provider adjustments, and overall improved patient experience. Patient engagement tools can also simplify the process of reaching out or marketing to new or referred patients, which can include the dissemination of health education information and literature. Patients with chronic care, as well as their physicians, can leverage patient engagement software to maintain their at-home or self-administered medication or therapy regimens. Some patient engagement solutions can also serve as appointment reminders, either via the patient portal or HIPAA compliant messaging software.
Patient engagement software can either be patient facing or physician facing, and take myriad forms—anything from a patient portal to medical online reputation management tools to patient-experience survey management capabilities. Patient engagement software equips healthcare organizations with tools to improve methods and levels of engagement. Patient engagement software can integrate with relevant technologies such as interactive patient care systems (IPC), telemedicine software, patient intake software, EHR software, and clinical communication and collaboration software.
To qualify for inclusion in the Patient Engagement category, a product must:
- Provide a method of active patient engagement such as patient portal, patient surveys, digital intake forms
- Improve or provide insight to healthcare organizations on ways to improve patient satisfaction
- Track and measure improvement of patient experience
