As the healthcare industry navigates the Stage 2 criteria of meaningful use, were seeing lots of coverage about new patient engagement models. Many of these models are leveraging technology and include everything from EHRs to patient portals and mHealth apps.
Engaged patients who are proactive about their health enjoy a higher quality of life and use fewer healthcare resources, effectively lowering the overall costs of healthcare. With meaningful use, healthcare providers now have more incentives than ever before to make sure they are engaging with their patients.
Meditology released a report recommending that patient engagement policies should be a part of IT strategy, so that providers can offer tools that fall under meaningful use, for example: automate patient reminders for preventive and follow-up care, chronic care reminders, patient visit questionnaires, and appointment reminders by integrating EHR functionality, clinical decision support tools, business intelligence, disease registries and predictive analytics capabilities.
With the number of hospitals using health information technology doubling between 2010 and 2012 alone, its interesting that a recent Robert Half study found that 36% of healthcare companies (more than any other industry) dont even have a mobile technology strategy.
We see a clear opportunity here for new mHealth technology that can boost patient engagement scores in a cost-effective way.
Smart Clinic is a HIPAA-compliant mHealth application that encompasses and enhances patient engagement, satisfaction and compliance. Its many features promote healthy relationships between patients and providers and have a direct impact on meaningful use including automated medication reminders, appointment requests, sending appointment progress notes, lab results, and patient visit questionnaires. Schedule a live demo today!
