As the health-care industry changes and evolves, patient engagement has become an increasingly critical aspect of delivering consistent, high-quality care. To help drive it, patient engagement software provides health-care providers with powerful tools to connect with their patients, manage their health information, and ultimately promote better health outcomes.
To help meet their unique needs, health-care professionals must find software developers capable of creating solutions that deliver on and exceed their expectations. Thankfully, companies like Orases develop advanced customized software that meets the needs of providers while directly benefiting patients.
In this article, we’ll explore the key features and benefits of patient engagement software, and how it can help health-care practitioners to improve patient satisfaction, reduce costs, and enhance the overall quality of care they provide.
So, whether you’re a health-care provider or a patient looking to learn more about this exciting, innovative technology, keep reading to learn more about patient engagement software and how it improves health care as a whole.
The Basics of Patient Engagement
To fully appreciate the impact of patient engagement software, let’s look at what patient engagement is and why it’s vital for health-care providers and organizations to utilize. At its core, patient engagement simply refers to a patient’s active involvement in their health-care journey. This can encompass everything from inpatient care to emergency room visits and even outpatient care settings like doctor’s offices and retail clinics.
Patient engagement is all about empowering patients to take an active role in their health-care journey. It’s about giving them the tools and resources they need to make informed decisions about their health and participate in their care in meaningful ways. Whether through online portals, mobile apps, or other digital tools, patient engagement software is changing how patients interact with health-care providers and organizations.
Proper patient engagement is so important to health-care professionals because it’s been proven to enhance patient outcomes and reduce health-care costs. By empowering patients to manage their own health-care information, communicate directly with health-care providers, and participate in care decisions, patient engagement software helps reduce readmissions, speeds up patient payments, improves adherence to care plans, facilitates early detection of diseases, and so much more.
Understanding Patient Engagement Software
In today’s digital age, patient engagement software has revolutionized how health-care providers interact with their patients. Simply put, patient engagement software is a technology that streamlines and automates communication between health-care specialists and patients. It enables patients to easily access their health-care providers whenever they need to, providing a convenient and efficient means of staying connected.
While early patient engagement software solutions focused on automated appointment reminders, the technology has since evolved into what is now commonly known as patient engagement platforms. These platforms offer a range of tools and strategies for reaching out to patients, including two-way communication that enables patients to respond to reminders and other messages.
By capturing patient response data, patient engagement platforms also offer added visibility and efficiency for medical office staff, allowing them to manage patient appointments and EHR data more effectively. In short, leveraging the power and potential of this innovative technology can help providers stay connected with their patients and deliver the high-quality care that patients expect and deserve.
The Features of Patient Engagement Software
From appointment scheduling to secure messaging, the features of patient engagement software are designed to improve overall patient outcomes and increase patient satisfaction while improving the efficiency of providers and the quality of service they provide.
Accessible Medical Billing
Patients can obtain detailed information about their health-care bills and medical expenses through online access, providing complete price transparency. They may also have access to resources like options for payment plans that help them cover their health-care costs. This gives patients greater control over their health-care process by improving their financial management.
Improved Portal Management
A patient portal enables patients to handle their health-related matters, which also includes online scheduling. When designed appropriately, like utilizing a custom software solution from providers like Orases, such a portal empowers patients to arrange their appointments according to their convenience.
Secured Patient Communication
Patient engagement software solutions feature a secure messaging system that facilitates private and rapid communication between patients and medical staff. Moreover, this patient communication platform is integrated with SMS, email, and phone for added convenience.
Greater Patient Feedback
Comprehensive patient engagement solutions provide patients with online reviews of physicians and practices. Additionally, the patient engagement software automatically sends post-appointment surveys to patients, enabling medical practices to consistently enhance the quality of care they provide.
Easier Patient Registration
Patient engagement software makes registration simpler for patients. Patients can access new patient forms and other relevant materials online with ease, without the need to fill out any physical paperwork, call anyone, or even download an application.
Improved Patient Transparency
With the use of patient engagement software, patients can access comprehensive information related to their health, such as electronic health records, lab results, health history, and other related data.
The Benefits of Patient Engagement Software
Patient engagement software has proven to be a game changer in health-care settings of all sizes and structures. Small medical practices appreciate patient engagement platforms because it helps them stay competitive in the marketplace and extends their medical office staff’s capabilities.
For larger health-care organizations such as hospitals and health systems, patient engagement software can generate substantial cost savings and additional revenue streams. Without the benefits of automation and digital tools, health-care organizations would struggle to match the ease of patient communication that patient engagement software offers.
For health-care organizations that have already invested significantly in these systems, patient engagement software represents an opportunity to maximize ROI and drive higher portal adoption.
But the benefits of patient engagement software extend far beyond cost savings and efficiency gains — by empowering patients to take an active role in their health care, patient engagement software can enhance patient satisfaction, improve outcomes, and ultimately save lives.
Let’s explore some of the additional benefits that patient engagement software offers:
Reduced Costs and Expenses
Not only does patient engagement software help medical providers improve patient outcomes and communication, it can also lead to significant cost savings for health-care organizations. One major factor contributing to these savings is the reduction in manual work and data entry, which can be both time-consuming and error-prone.
But that’s not all. Patient engagement software also utilizes cutting-edge, cloud-based technology that replaces traditional hardware and equipment that require regular upkeep, disinfecting, and maintenance. This means that health-care organizations can save on the costs associated with physical equipment and free up staff time for other important tasks.
Another way that patient engagement software can help reduce costs is through its ability to power digital billing statements and mobile-first patient payments. By eliminating the need for paper statements, postage, and the manual work involved in mailing them out to patients, medical providers can save both time and money while providing a more convenient and efficient payment experience.
Improved Staff Productivity
By using patient engagement software, medical office staff can reduce their manual workload and free up their time to complete more skilled tasks. In addition, automation and digital tools enable staff to multitask certain roles that were previously limited to one patient at a time.
For instance, one-to-one patient communication can result in phone tag, with both the patient and staff leaving voice mails and waiting for the other party to return their call. With patient engagement platforms that offer two-way patient chat and secure messaging solutions, medical office staff can safely communicate with patients directly via text message.
As text messaging is the preferred communication method for many patients, this not only increases efficiency and enables staff to carry out multiple conversations at once, but it also leads to higher patient satisfaction. Furthermore, these digital tools can streamline the process of patient communication, making it more effective and efficient than ever before.
Improved Patient Attendance
No-shows for medical appointments have been a persistent challenge for medical providers for years now. Not only do they drive up health-care costs and create scheduling gaps that are hard to fill, but they also lead to lapses in care and increased risks for patients. Research shows that patients who miss appointments are at higher risk for complications and may require more complex medical interventions later on.
Fortunately, patient engagement software offers a solution to this problem. By leveraging established best practices for scheduling and communication, patient engagement platforms help ensure that patients are reminded of their appointments in a timely and effective manner.
Patients can easily choose to confirm, cancel, or reschedule their appointments online, giving medical providers the flexibility they need to manage their schedules effectively.
Help Drive Patient Engagement With Solutions From Orases
At Orases, we understand that every health-care organization has unique needs and requirements when it comes to driving and managing patient engagement. That’s why we excel at developing customized software solutions tailored to meet the unique needs of our health-care partners.
Our team of experienced developers and designers work closely with providers to identify their pain points, goals, and objectives, and then create custom software solutions that deliver. Orases has a long-standing and proven track record for developing custom solutions that improve the overall operations of the providers we work with.
To learn more about how your health-care practice can improve patient engagement and drive better health outcomes, reach out to Orases to explore our wide range of advanced custom software solutions.
Our experienced team is dedicated to delivering software that not only meets your needs, but also exceeds your expectations at every turn — contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help you achieve your goals.
