Many fear entering a doctor 's office. They are afraid of talking to a doctor, filling out endless paperwork, encountering unknown bills and receiving unwanted diagnoses. These are all problems, however, that modern patient engagement technology seems to be alleviating. With patient engagement technology digitizing forms, allowing for secured payment and helping manage treatment plans the gap between patients and provider seems to be decreasing tremendously. Ultimately patient engagement technology is clearing communication pathways and helping improvement long term health and status of patients in a multitude of ways!
The first benefit noted with patient engagement technology is the ability to give and encourage preventative care. Large Hospitals
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Thus, leading to the rise of preventive care not reactive/responsive care. The second benefit of modern patient engagement technology is the ability for patients to receive concentrated care. This means rather than a patient first going to a general physician and then being referred to a specialist, proper patient engagement technology allow patients to contact specialists directly and address their concerns with them immediately. Often times there are long wait times to meet with a specialist however simple email/phone contact can often boost a patient 's happiness and relax them prior to meeting with a specialist. Also emails can be used to clear up any simple issues and appointment time with specialist can be better focused on the larger health issues at hand thus making appointments much shorter and efficient. The third benefit of patient engagement is a result of the two prior mentioned patient engagement technology perks: Emergency care alleviation and better doctor interaction. Emergency care centers are known …show more content…
mHealth Apps is a company that creates games and interactive technology that teach players how to take care of themselves when they are sick and how to avoid sickness. These applications available on phones and computers draw patient attention to keeping themselves healthy. For example cooking games that encourage healthy cooking engage patients all the while teaching them how to take care of themselves. So these apps kill two birds with one stone: they entertain and teach patients! Patient engagement technology provided by Solution Reach is revolutionary in many ways. One characteristic stands out in particular: the ability to translate doctor messages into different languages. This feature is extremely useful for foreign patients or patients who cannot speak the same language as the doctor. This feature brings patient and doctor closer in terms of communication and understanding. Understanding the core concerns of a patient can sometimes be the dictating factor of whether or not an accurate diagnosis is delivered! Certain implementations of patient engagement technology can also help improve patient health in the long run. For example, patient engagement technology that allows patients to see their treatment plan/ calendar prove to be extremely useful. These digital treatment plans are not only easy for patients to access but also easy for doctors whom now can
The PCMH model promotes doctor-patient interaction and the personalized management of each patient by their primary care provider. The reimbursement system in particular sets this model apart from others. Physicians are reimbursed for the time spent with the patient in the clinic as well as for coordinating the patients’ health care team and communicating with the patient out of clinic. This means that, “doctors can be paid to send their patients a letter, or a link to a computer web site or a text message”.1 This will not only generate stronger patient-doctor bonds but also enable the patients to be more active in their health care plan. The model offers patients easier access to their health care team by providing more opportunities of communication outside the clinic in which they can receive medical counsel in a timely manner. This is made possible by the reimbursement system and its ability to compensate for out of clinic communications. The PCMH model therefore provides a preventive stance on medicine and ensures that the patient receives quality care on a regular
Today patients are encouraged to be active in their care. Patient involvement has led to quality
Montague and Asan (2013) did a field study where 100 patients’ ages 18 through 65 were observed and video recorded during their visit in a primary health clinic. The researchers wanted to see how much communication and eye contact the physicians would do with their patients when using paper charting compared to using computer charting in the EHR. The results of the study showed that physicians paid more attention to the EHR on the computer then they did their actual patients 46.5% of the time and 79% when they used paper charting (Montague & Asan, 2013). The studies showed that EHRs could hinder communication between patients and their
According to the author, nursing practice needs to stay current with technological advances while keeping its identity as a patient focused profession. Nurses use technology to improve care from a patient?s perspective, both in quality of care and cost. At the same time, nurses must learn to balance technological knowledge with personal skills, thus providing optimum clinical care while maintaining a person-focused relationship with the patient.
There are several possible methods of addressing the healthcare concerns of today. I focused on three ways to address this issue. The first would it be to make electronic records universal. Secondly, focus on patient centered care. Lastly, start healthcare groups throughout the practice of medicine.
When walking into a hospital, nursing home, or physician’s office, electronic devices are used everywhere. The doctors have pagers, drugs are released from an apparatus similar to vending machines, and the patients are connected to intravenous pumps and monitors, while they lay on beds that move with the touch of a button. Everything seems to be electronic, except for patient charts. A new system, called eHealth, was devised that would make these patient charts electronic. The goal for electronic health is to unite all healthcare by making patient records available to all providers in order to improve the quality of care patients receive. eHealth can be adopted into hospitals, physicians’ offices, and even ambulatory services. A 2006 study found, “Ambulatory EHRs improve the structure of care delivery, improve clinical processes, and enhance outcomes” (Shekelle 61). With professionals working together, procedures, scans, tests, and even visits to the hospital can be eliminated and in turn reduce the hospital’s expenses. However, this reduction may not add up to the investment the facilities will have to make. Adopting this system will cost more the some facilities are able to spend. However, investing in eHealth is a risk hospitals should take to improve patient care. eHealth has to become affordable to all providers for healthcare to reach its full potential.
There seemed to be hardly any difference in the volume of office visits for the patients who used an electronic messaging program with a patient portal, based on a retroactive research of 2,357 adult primary care patients in Mayo Clinic’s Rochester, MN. The research was from April 2010 to August 2011. The researchers stated in the study that the portal has actually been promoted in order to reduce expenses on appointment setting up as ...
Communication and strong patient-provider relationships are two key aspects of a successful health care organization. Patient portals provide the technology to improve both of these aspects to create the most effective and personalized care for the patient. Successful communications strategies are imperative to health care organizations because the patient’s health depends on it. Patient portals create an efficient environment in which the patient feels connected to their health care provider and communication is effectively driven through interaction both in and out of the office.
The ability of healthcare to provide patients with a well rounded care process that integrates various services and tracks them over time is becoming more crucial to patients as new approaches using alternative interventions and new technology become more available. The ambulatory care continuum consists of many disciplines including outpatient testing, outpatient surgery, home healthcare, physical therapy service, and more. Patients are gaining access to new information within the ambulatory care continuum and with the advent of e-health, it is important that providers give patients the opportunity to utilize all new methods of care that organizations may provide.
This technology fits well with as industry looking for new care models to help alleviate the financial and physical burden created by chronic diseases. Mobile health technology is allowing for a shift of care from the acute-care, hospital setting to rehabilitation centers, patient residences, and skilled nursing facilities. This becomes crucial as CMS expanded its Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program to include five conditions: chronic lung problems, heart failure, pneumonia, heart attack, and elective hip and knee replacements (Rau, 2014a). Hospitals can be penalized up to three percent of Medicare payments due to hospital readmissions that occur within thirty days of discharge. According to Rau (2014b), 18 percent of Medicare patients in 2013 were readmitted within a 30 day period costing Medicare roughly $26 billion, $17 billion of which comes from avoidable readmissions. The financial strain associated with chronic illness has catalyzed a movement toward using technology in a meaningful manner to improve health quality. Meaningful use is forcing entities to use certified electronic health records (EHR) in order to improve care coordination and quality. mHealth serves an extension of the electronic record enabling remote data capture that can be monitored in order to improve health outcomes and prevent
Abstract-This paper aimed to inform the readers to provide the concept of health information technology, mainly concentrated on electronic health records (EHR) and how it benefits overall quality of health services. Even though EHRs are widely accepted and have been adopted increasingly, patient engagement still lower than the average expected. Reasons are discussed why patient engagement has been low while the adoption of EHRs increases. The paper draws some research findings and provides examples to illustrate how patient disengagement affect the quality of care. It also discusses what appreciable tasks have done among
The preliminary effects of the Meaningful Use Program have began to have an impact on improving the quality of care and its’ safety and efficiency. I gained a greater understanding of information technology and it’s role and importance to my current and future practice. I learned the goal of the Meaningful Use Program isn’t just to install technology in facilities across the nation its so much more. The goals are to empower patients and their families, reduce health disparities and support research and health data. The EHR can prevent medication errors, reduce long term medical costs, improve population health and through the Meaningful use program the vision of this program is becoming reality.
There are extremely large gaps in our entire aspect of understanding the role of communication services in health care delivery. The care of patients is interesting topic that needs to be addressed, it involves different individuals at all aspects of life, all needing to share patient care information and discuss the management perspective. The special services are increasing with interest in, the use of, information and communication technologies to support health services. Yet, while there is significant discussion of, and investment in, information technologies, communication systems receive much less attention and the clinical adoption of even simpler services like email, voice-calls, and any other electronic interactions is still not commonplace in many health services. Laboratory medicine is perhaps even more poorly studied than many other areas, such as the defining what primary care and hospital services are. Given this lack of specific information about laboratory communication services, this paper will help identify the financial structure of our healthcare system, particularly as it relates to health disparities, the uninsured, and functional communication challenges that America has been faced with, analyze the key components of a communication system, including the basic concepts of a communication channel, service, device and interaction mode. The review will then try and summarize some of what is known about specific communication problems that arise across health services in the main, including the community and hospital service delivery, and how it will we be able to improve the quality of care.
ED volumes are not the prime element of overcrowding, ED overcrowding as a condition in which the identified need for emergency services exceeds available resources in the ED, and this situation happens in hospital EDs when there are more patients coming to the Ed than staffed, treatment beds and waiting times outstrip a reasonable period (Barish, Mcgauly & Arnold, 2012). Mobile health (mHealth) is described as the use of mobile and wireless technologies for many health purposes (Ventola, 2014). Researchers and representatives consider mHealth has the ability to enhance health care delivery and outcomes, offer a platform for customized medicine, and support patients in disease management (Ventola,
From state and federal levels, the healthcare industry has come a very long way, experiencing changes along the way. The development of advanced technology that has enhanced the quality of healthcare delivery systems will help all patients to be able to benefit. Doctors are able to access patient records at a faster rate and respond to their patients in a much more timely fashion. E-mail, electronic transfer of records and telemedicine will give all patients and physicians the tools needed to be more efficient, deliver quality care and deliver quality telecommunication at a faster pace than before.