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Patient Engagement
Rhetoric Turns Into Reality
Once more of a concept than a reality, sincere patient engagement efforts aim for patient collaboration in order to manage health, promote wellness, and lower costs. The door is open for vendors to market a number of products, but how are providers prioritizing their patient engagement strategies? Which vendors and technologies are they really counting on? With the help of 143 providers, this report seeks to clarify today’s patient engagement landscape and offers the following definition: Patient engagement is improving the wellness of patients by using enabling technologies that empower patients to take responsibility for, understand, and report on their adherence to collaborative plans of care.
1. MEANINGFUL USE AND PATIENT SATISFACTION DRIVING PATIENT ENGAGEMENT
Today’s patient engagement efforts vary in scope, complexity, and impact. Almost one-third of interviewed providers have not gotten past patient engagement as a government mandate. Other engagements (e.g., patient satisfaction and marketing engagements) are handled more proactively, but only 10% of this report’s respondents described a clear focus on the holy grail of cooperating with patients to proactively maintain wellness.
2. PATIENT PORTALS ARE FOUNDATIONAL AND MOST IMPACTFUL
With ties to CMS reimbursement, portals are pervasive. Beyond MU, portals are foundational to many patient engagement efforts—98% said they use one, and nearly half of those said portals are their most impactful technology. EMR vendors own the patient portal market, and most providers say their core EMR vendor is at least somewhat involved. Cerner and Epic help in multiple patient engagement areas. athenahealth’s risk sharing makes patient engagement a combined effort with customers. More proactive care, driven by population health needs, spurs growth in outreach, IPS (interactive patient system) software, and CRM.
3. FEW PROVIDERS HAVE A COHESIVE STRATEGY
In most instances patient engagement efforts are independent departmental efforts. Current roles focus on episodic patient-experience/patientsatisfaction efforts. Only 14% claimed having an aligned strategy with oversight from administrative and/or clinical leadership.
4. EMMI AND EPIC STAND OUT IN MULTIPLE SEGMENTS, PRESS GANEY AND GETWELLNETWORK LEAD IN PATIENT SATISFACTION & IPS MARKETS RESPECTIVELY
5. PATIENT WEARABLES LEAD IN CONSIDERATION FOR FUTURE INVESTMENTS
Patient engagement efforts are limited by only imagination and resources. Though consideration is low, patient wearables top the list of interests. IPS and CRM solutions have room to grow within health systems. Patient education, patient satisfaction, and patient portals receive the least interest, as most organizations have already adopted these technologies and services.
Designer
Natalie Jamison
Project Manager
Robert Ellis
This material is copyrighted. Any organization gaining unauthorized access to this report will be liable to compensate KLAS for the full retail price. Please see the KLAS DATA USE POLICY for information regarding use of this report. © 2024 KLAS Research, LLC. All Rights Reserved. NOTE: Performance scores may change significantly when including newly interviewed provider organizations, especially when added to a smaller sample size like in emerging markets with a small number of live clients. The findings presented are not meant to be conclusive data for an entire client base.