Todays mHealth Technologies are positioned to become powerful forces for collaboration between healthcare providers and patients; but how do healthcare providers invite patients to engage in creating better health outcomes for themselves in a more significant way?
First, providers must acknowledge that the first generation of healthcare technologies, EHRs and portals, succeeded at simple data collection but failed to provide much incentive for patients to engage with providers to create better health outcomes. For many patients, these technologies were overly complicated, had few useful functions and did not allow for greater interaction with healthcare providers.
Second, it is time to recognize that patients are actually healthcare consumers. As consumers, patients will use technologies that add value to their experience and ignore those that dont. For healthcare consumers, that can mean the ability to communicate with physicians and staff, access documents like test results and prescriptions, and extend the office visit into the real world through surveys and monitoring.
When patients are provided the right tools, collaboration with providers is inevitable. Emerging mHealth Technologies like Smart Clinic aim to bridge the gap between a device screen and an office appointment, making each individual an activate participant in their healthcare and creating genuine partnership between providers and patients.
