Technology is revolutionizing every aspect of our lives, and the medical industry is no different. Patients now not only expect to be able to use technology to handle their healthcare but they also expect the convenience of having their healthcare access at their fingertips.
Fortunately, this can be a major perk for healthcare professionals. In fact, using technology to engage patients is a fantastic way to incorporate these new digital tools into your practice. If you’re wondering how you can use these tools to enhance your patients’ experiences, look no further than these 5 methods.
1. Encourage Engagement Through an Online Health Portal
Patients are accustomed to getting everything online in this day and age. The fact that there are now methods of sharing their personal medical results easily and securely is a huge step forward for healthcare professionals. These online health portals mean patients will have their medical information at their fingertips. It gives them a place to pose questions for their doctors, review their test results, make appointments, or even look at resources for dealing with issues they might not be ready to address directly with their doctor yet. It’s a valuable asset to the patient experience and makes it that much more likely that patients will consistently address their healthcare needs.
2. Promote Patient Education
Using an online portal, you can provide valuable resources about sensitive topics or common questions. This gives your patients access to information that comes from a reliable source rather than the general internet, and provides them with answers to questions that they might not be ready to ask quite yet.
3. Provide Patient Health Data
Beyond delivering test results, doctors can use a patient portal to deliver a comprehensive look at the patient’s current health level. It can be a central hub that has multiple doctors feeding information into a single platform for the patient’s convenience. This helps provide them with a full assessment of their overall health and gives doctors the opportunity to learn more about their patients and possibly collaborate on treatment options.
4. Embrace Wearable Technology
For many patients, getting active is a key component of building a healthy lifestyle. Wearable technology now alerts patients more effectively about different aspects of their health, including how much they’ve moved that day, how long they have been sitting, and how many calories they may have burned overall. Wearable technology can be a huge asset to helping patients keep their doctor’s recommendations in mind on a day-to-day basis and give them a better chance of making long term lifestyle changes.
5. Better Patient Experience
The presence of an online portal shows patients that your office is committed to making their experience as quick and painless as possible. This will not only help you build a rapport with your patients, but it will also streamline some of the more inconvenient aspects of dealing with healthcare. This will make patients less likely to neglect their healthcare needs due to the inconvenient nature of scheduling appointments and dealing with paperwork.
Technology is the future and your patients expect you to move forward with the era. Patients now expect the convenience and ease that comes with online platforms, and the medical field is no exception. By utilizing all of the options that technology has to offer, you will be maximizing the relationship you can have with your patients and offering them above and beyond what you’ve been able to provide in the past. The opportunity that technology presents goes beyond general patient convenience. The ripple effect could certainly save lives.