Although digital health apps and technologies abound, they do not necessarily make the patient, provider or caregiver journeys less complicated, more efficient or more enjoyable.
During a February Becker's Hospital Review webinar sponsored by Quil — and moderated by Quil's CEO Carina Edwards — Ed Tufaro, senior vice president of operations at Philadelphia-based Rothman Orthopedics Institute, discussed how adopting integrated, digital health solutions that are focused on the stakeholder experience can set organizations on a path to consumerization of healthcare.
Three insights:
- Fragmented patient experience is a problem for both patients and providers. Fragmentation can be due to multiple factors, including poor communication between patients and providers, inadequate care coordination on the part of providers, and low health literacy on the part of patients that prevents them from navigating the health system with confidence. Healthcare consumers yearn for a better experience and are getting more involved in their own care, which highlights the importance of patient engagement. But clinicians need better support that allows them to engage with their patients in the right way at the right moments.
- A digital touch at the right time can help reimagine the patient and provider experience. Digital tools that support patient education and activation, capture data and deliver the right information at the right time are a critical component to improving the user journey. Multiple tools already do this independently. However, as Rothman Orthopedics started on this path, a top priority was having an integrated solution that does all of those things. "Streamlining all of that into one tool that makes patients feel like it's a single interaction was our goal number one; goal number two was engaging our physicians around care pathways," Mr. Tufaro said.
- Evaluating and incorporating a digital health tool requires strategic thought. Best practices on choosing the right digital tool — which may offer content such as short videos and articles, nudge quizzes and games to check the user's knowledge and understand how they feel — include answering the following questions:
- What key business problem are you trying to solve?
- How will implementing this solution impact all stakeholders?
- Will it enhance the patient experience using consumer activation principles?
- What kind of governance is involved?
- How does it integrate into existing clinical workflows?
- How can it scale across existing EHR infrastructure investments?
From a functional perspective, other important aspects to consider when choosing a digital tool are the ease with which the tool can be experienced across different screens (e.g., smartphone, smartwatch, tablet), connectivity to an organization's patient portal, the ability to invite family caregivers, up-to-date information and personalization based on a patient's health milestones.
On the provider side, key considerations include capacity to integrate into clinical workflows and capture patient-reported outcomes. "There's this translation layer that [organizations] need to support the consumerization of healthcare. And that's the piece we have to do differently," Ms. Edwards said.
Enterprise platforms such as Quil that "live" between the patient portal and the EHR have the potential to revolutionize how patients, providers and caregivers each experience their respective journeys. Organizations that integrate these solutions into their systems will be on the fast track to doing good for their stakeholders while doing well for themselves.
About Quil
Quil is the digital health company helping people navigate and organize their health lives and is a joint venture of Comcast and Independence. Quil Engage is a care engagement platform that delivers intelligently individualized care journeys to support patients during every step of their care. Our powerful Engagement Engine activates and educates patients while feeding real-time insights back to their providers; empowering real-time decision making and intervention. Through modeling best practices of the entertainment industry; patients are engaged in their care across the right device, for the right task, at the right time.
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