In this new era of digital care delivery, healthcare organizations are looking for innovative methods to continue delivering high-quality care while their internal resources to manage day-to-day operations dwindle. However, as groups scale to solve this challenge with patient communication technology, they are finding not all healthcare automation will meet their unique needs. Further optimization is needed to develop their necessary campaigns using available technology.
Here are three resources to guide patient communication initiatives:
How to Solve Gaps in Care and Recover Patient Volume
Health systems and medical providers have spent significant amounts of time and resources addressing the barriers to patient access that cause patients to fall behind in follow-up and preventive care. And with the compounding of a pandemic, gaps in care have skyrocketed. These gaps in care have far-reaching consequences for patients and the healthcare industry.
Prolonging or putting off care of an acute illness or injury can allow conditions to worsen, resulting in higher acuity, more complications, and requiring more resources to treat. What might be even more concerning are the diseases and chronic conditions that are treatable and recoverable with early detection and interventions. Heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, and autoimmune conditions are all easier to manage when diagnosed early and/or when patients adhere to their care plans.
Medical providers are doing their best to close these gaps in care, catch up on deferred care needs, and address lasting health impacts with healthcare automation.
How to tackle gaps in care using patient communication technology
7 Proven Health Campaign Strategies to Close Gaps in Care
As organizations help patients navigate a post-pandemic-surge in care needs, there is also a renewed focus on using health campaign strategies to close widening gaps in care. Patient engagement has long been associated with lower costs, better clinical outcomes, and improved patient experience, and is now becoming foundational to practice operations.
Many patients are catching up with missed screenings and compounding complications from care delays, which requires providers to scale up quickly to serve a patient’s individual needs, obtain new clinical data, and set a treatment plan that is both actionable and communicated effectively. An additional challenge is that the more complex a patient’s health is, the more likely it is that other gaps in care can occur without strong patient engagement.
The good news is that care providers can tap into new and existing data to create targeted patient communications—also known as health campaigns—that not only help patients understand and manage chronic conditions but encourages compliance with other routine care, such as screenings and vaccinations.
Learn the seven key strategies to implement targeted health campaigns
Activating Patients Through Targeted Messaging and Segmentation: A One Pediatrics Case Study
With multiple practices serving the children and parents of Kentucky, One Pediatrics’ new healthcare automation programs have helped them maximize patient outreach, communications, and scheduling.
One Pediatrics uses Relatient services to reach patients throughout the year, across communication initiatives. Kellie Doligale, the Care Coordinator, will source the appropriate recipients for custom messages depending on the practitioner’s needs.
“We write messages to people we haven’t seen in a while, or we also make it seasonal, like around vaccinations,” said Doligale. In addition to customized and seasonal communications, Doligale implements a monthly birthday check, cross references to see if those patients are due for a well-visit, and then customizes the message around those information points.
Watch the One Pediatrics video
Do more with intelligent patient communication technology
Learn how provider groups of all specialties and sizes are optimizing patient communication in The Comprehensive Guide to Better Patient Communication and Engagement.
