As healthcare moves toward accountable care models where providers are the risk-bearing entities, activating and engaging patients to improve their health and adhere to their treatment plan is key to the patient-centered organization's success.
Engaging patients in accountable care organizations that financially depend on the assigned patients staying adherent to their treatment plans and avoiding frequent hospital readmissions can be a challenge. However, since providers are the patients' most trusted source of health information, they have the unique advantage of cutting through distracting and often misleading information from websites and mass media reports. Providers can leverage this trusted relationship to select effective communication tools designed to be incorporated into the patients' everyday lives to help them take a more active role in their care.
In addition to conventional communication methods, providers can use desktop computer and mobile platforms to engage patients. The adoption of technologies allows providers to help keep ACO-assigned patients aligned with and loyal to the physicians and hospitals within the organization. Ensuring patients remain within the ACO strengthens the organization and helps achieve better outcomes.
Communicate on the patients' terms
A 2013 Health Affairs study analyzed recent literature on patient activation, which was defined as "the skills and confidence that equip patients to become actively engaged in their healthcare." The authors found that activating patients, regardless of their current status, and implementing "policies and interventions aimed at strengthening patients' role in managing their healthcare" can contribute to improved outcomes.
However, providers too frequently engage patients on their own terms, calling during normal office hours and delivering handouts during visits or hospital stays. This type of episodic activation will not be effective or sustainable in an ACO that faces penalties if the patients fail to follow their physicians' recommendations between care encounters and are readmitted to the hospital or make unnecessary visits to the emergency department.
Patient portals are the key to connecting patients with all the ACO-affiliated providers while at home and delivering an array of communication tools to engage patients. Electronic access to medical records held by a physician removes the initial barrier between the patient's home and the care delivery organization. Patient portals offer patients the ability to view their historic and most recent test results to chart progress, review their physicians' treatment plan recommendations, schedule appointments and read or watch provider-selected educational materials online, instead of just searching Google.
Explore mobile device platforms
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumers own a smartphone, according to the Nielsen Digital Consumer Report released in February 2014. Smartphone owners usually have the device with them, which further increases opportunities for activation. The increasing use of mobile technology proves portals should not be confined only to the home computer. ACOs should also ensure the patient portal platform they select is just as robust and user friendly on mobile devices as it is on desktop computers. This can be accomplished through a mobile version of a website; However, a branded, dedicated smartphone app is likely to be used more frequently and more engaging to the patient.
The most popular functions on the mobile patient portals include prescription renewal requests, appointment scheduling, viewing lab or test results, and non-urgent direct messaging with providers. These functions can be helpful for patient engagement and communication, and they also help satisfy two core measures of stage 2 meaningful use attestation, which require eligible professionals and hospitals to electronically provide a clinical visit summary as well as lab results, medication lists and other information.
Administrative benefits for the ACO
Apart from fulfilling the meaningful use core measures, mobile and desktop computer patient portals offer numerous administrative benefits for ACOs. For instance, consider that the average primary care physician sees 400 patients per month, and 60 percent of those encounters involve lab results that need to be shared with the patient. The portal relieves ACO-affiliated providers and administrative staff from time-consuming phone calls or letter creation, which can equate to thousands of dollars in cost savings annually for the organization.
Another common time-consuming administrative task is new patient registration or hospital pre-admission paperwork, which often requires the patient to complete several pages about his or her historical and current health status. By proactively delivering documents through the portal, patients can fill out these forms at home on the computer, when they have the time and access to information. Accuracy is improved, and data can be extracted directly from the portal which saves time for administrative staff and providers.
Activating patients and engaging them in their care relies on ample communication, especially for those assigned to an ACO directly compensated based on its quality of care delivery and ability to control costs. Communicating with patients through conventional methods of mail and phone should only be part of the total process. Introducing electronic tools, such as patient portals designed for desktop and mobile devices, increases the communication opportunities and allows providers to reach patients on the patients' terms. More activated and engaged patients will improve healthcare and increase revenue for the ACOs.
Vern Davenport is president of Medfusion.
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