When it comes to improving patient satisfaction scores, Morrsitown, N.J.-based Atlantic Health System has turned to mobile technology. "Mobility is going to change us in enormous ways," says Linda Reed, RN, CIO of Atlantic Health System, which has adopted a strategy, the mobile app MHealth, created by Axial Exchange, in an effort to streamline information transfer and improve the patient experience.
The features of the mobile app aren't all new. Atlantic Health System has had a health portal on its website for some time. At that portal, patients can log in, check their medical records, get in touch with their physicians, make notes about their weight, vital signs and other health-related metrics, and renew prescriptions, among other things. However, now that these capabilities are mobile, they're in a space where they're more likely to be used. In one short year, the app has been downloaded upward of 30,000 times on phones, tablets and other wireless devices.
The app advantage in terms of patient satisfaction is more than just health information access anywhere, anytime, says Ms. Reed. She says it gives health systems a place to start on the journey to bring patients into health systems and provide them with tools to improve and monitor their own health. Here's why Atlantic Health System loves its new mobile app:
1. It helps patients engage with their health. While physicians may not always be able to use self-reported data patients input into health apps, the important thing is that patients are engaged enough with their care to bring something like self-recorded health data to an appointment. At the very least, this kind of capability, provided by the mobile app, allows physicians and patients to reframe the way patients manage their health and the way physicians provide health recommendations.
2. It increases information accessibility. Atlantic Health System's app has a function called "healthtracker" allowing patients to keep track of weight, blood pressure and medication lists and enter the data into a personalized database. In addition to saving this information for review with a physician at a future appointment, patients can go into their electronic health records and review their health history if the need arises. For physical accessibility, the app includes mobile "wayfinding," which navigates patients to where they're trying to go, whether it's to the parking lot or a specific department within the hospital. "Essentially, it gives patients easier access to things we provide," says Ms. Reed.
3. It's convenient. Where do people try to access care? It might not always be at home.
"Being mobile makes care accessible," says Ms. Reed. "When do people try to find care? It might be, for example, while mom is driving in the car. If we [Atlantic Health System] stay stuck in a PC world, care is not as convenient. We're looking to facilitate ease of access." Another aspect of a mobile app's convenience, says Ms. Reed, is that it gathers all of a patient's health information in one place, giving him or her the full picture of healthcare received, repairing the fragmentation of information so often perpetuated by healthcare organizations. It eliminates the need to wait on information from different departments when all of the information is in one place.
4. It sets the brand apart from the competition. When Atlantic Health System started building a mobile app, the first question the outreach team asked was "Who is Atlantic Health System?" The health system answered this question by building the app to be intuitive and to offer the most important information a patient might need up front. The added accessibility and transparency allows Atlantic Health System to put all of its cards on the table where patients are concerned, which it sees as a unique feature of its brand.
5. It's transforming the way care is delivered. "Ten years ago we saw the evolution of the hospital website," says Ms. Reed. "Now we're seeing the mobilization of that website as a next advance in accessibility." She suggests hospitals start the mobilization process right away. "Start with your current website, then announce who you are, what's important to you and what your delivery environment looks like," she says. Patients are not the only ones taking advantage of mobile records and monitoring. Some researchers are capitalizing on the ubiquity of mobile devices and outsourcing data collection for things like sleep studies, says Ms. Reed. She suspects that such practices will become widespread if mobile monitoring and data entry become entirely automated, with data uploading on a schedule to the cloud. Either way, she says, going mobile covers many bases at once.
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