Patient Engagement Software

Patient engagement has become the engine for running a successful medical practice. It can involve anything from the use of patient portals, which allow patients to securely engage with the a through self-service, to communication between providers and patients via other channels such as secure messaging and email marketing.

Patient engagement software enables medical practices to engage with patients throughout the time of care and also significantly lessens the repetitive daily tasks of medical staff. The market for patient engagement software is growing fast, but many practices still aren't sure what the software does and how it fits into their medical practice.

This buyer's guide will help you better understand this market, determine whether you're ready for patient engagement software and give you the information you need to select the best tool for your practice.

Here's what we'll cover:

What Is Patient Engagement Software?
Common Functionality of Patient Engagement Software
What Type of Buyer Are You?
Benefits of Patient Engagement Software
Market Trends to Understand
Key Considerations

What Is Patient Engagement Software?

Patient engagement software allows physicians to communicate with patients, manage the patient-provider relationship and offer various medical and educational resources to patients.

Patient engagement software may appear to resemble a patient portal, since both offer engagement between providers and patients. However, a true patient engagement system offers more than what a simple patient portal offers. In general, patient engagement software combines various aspects of medical software, such as medical billing, practice management, customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation.

 

Common Functionality of Patient Engagement Software

Vendors offer a variety of functional breadth and depth in their patient engagement software platforms. Here are some of the most common capabilities:

Secure messaging	Enables providers and patients to communicate in a safe and encrypted manner.
Patient scheduling	Allows patients to search for and book appointments online. Can be integrated with the practice's EMR or EHR system.
Appointment reminders	Enables medical staff to remind patients of scheduled clinic visits through email, text message or recorded messages so they spend more time with patients in the office rather than on the phone.
Patient registration	Allows patients to fill out new patient forms electronically and provide their health history, medication lists etc.
Patient document management	Enables patients to view, download and transmit their health reports, lab results and other medication summaries from one provider to another.
Patient education	Includes educational and medical resources that are delivered to patients online. The software enables physicians to preselect medical content for specific patients, or content is automatically selected based on medical conditions.
Bill payment	Shortens the revenue cycle by offering more payment options to patients.

What Type of Buyer Are You?

Before you start evaluating patient engagement software options, you'll want to know what buyer category you belong to and any unique considerations for your situation. Providers considering patient engagement software will fall into one of the following categories:

Small practices (one to five physicians). You are likely looking to deploy patient engagement software in an effort to grow your patient base. Most cloud-based patient engagement platforms would be suitable for you, since they often offer subscriptions on a per user basis. Look for platforms that offer features such as online form filling for new patients, which will be a big time saver for growing practices.

Midsize practices (six to 25 physicians). You're interested in providing added value to your existing patients as well as adding new patients. You likely have straightforward requirements that are met by most cloud-based systems. Look to features such as online appointment scheduling, appointment reminders and patient education to improve the patient experience.

Appointment reminders on Nextech's patient engagement mobile platform

Large practices (25+ physicians). You'll likely fall into this category if you're a multiple specialty clinic and/or have a large number of providers. You should look at scalable, robust solutions that integrate with your existing technology. For example, integrated bill payment features offered by patient engagement systems can make your revenue cycle more efficient.

Benefits of Patient Engagement Software

Practices implementing patient engagement software stand to benefit in a variety of ways. The key benefits include:

• Enhanced patient satisfaction. By using technology to engage with patients as well as improve the process of patient care, medical practices should notice an increase in patient satisfaction. Features such as secure messaging and online appointment scheduling will enhance the overall patient experience.
  
• Improved quality of care with fewer readmissions. Patient engagement software can deliver personalized educational resources electronically to patients, sometimes in the form of videos or other interactive media. This can lead to higher engagement levels on the parts of the patients and their families, reducing the need for readmission or unnecessary trips to the office or clinic.
  
• Better decision-making. It is well known that teamwork and collaboration provide better results. Patient engagement software promotes collaboration between physicians and patients, which can lead to more effective decision-making regarding care.

Market Trends to Understand

As you search for patient engagement software, be sure you're informed about these latest related trends:

• Availability of mobile apps. Everything is going mobile and patient engagement software is no exception. Many vendors offer mobile apps so physicians, medical staff and patients can access the software on their mobile devices. The portability and convenience of mobile devices allows physicians to engage with patients on the move. In addition, patients also get access to secure messages and notifications from any location, thus enhancing the patient experience.
  
• Shift to cloud-based software. Most buyers will seek patient engagement software that operates in the cloud and requires minimal IT infrastructure, low upfront costs and maximum accessibility. Several vendors offer cloud-based patient engagement software, and buyers should be ready to evaluate them. The exception is larger medical practices that are already using on-premise EHRs, which might want to consider licensed patient engagement systems depending on their specific requirements.

Key Considerations

Here are some important factors to think about before you implement patient engagement software:

System integration. You must consider patient engagement software that integrates well with your existing technology, such as an EHR, EMR, practice management system etc. Proper integration should make it easy to share existing patient health data between systems.

Cloud or on-premise deployment. Before shopping around, decide which deployment option will work better for you. Check with vendors to learn what options they offer. The majority of patient engagement software is delivered in the cloud and hosted on third-party servers. However, a few vendors offer on-premise patient engagement solutions.

Ease of use. Any new software must be easy to learn and use. A complex system that is not user friendly will deter medical staff and patients from using it, therefore defeating the purpose of implementing a new tool. Take advantage of the free demos and trials offered by software vendors to evaluate ease of use.

Mobile support. Since there is a growing number of software users who prefer to use mobile devices to access medical and health information, check whether vendors offer a mobile application as well. The mobility aspect also enables your patients to access the software on the move and engage better with physicians.

Meaningful use. There are various objectives and measures in different stages of the meaningful use incentive program that are related to patient engagement. For example, offering patient-specific education can help practices seeking eligibility for EHR Incentive Program Stage 3 benefits.