Becker's Hospital Review

23 PATIENT EXPERIENCE Patient portals have biggest impact on engagement, KLAS finds By Jackie Drees M ost patients consider patient portals as the engagement technology that best simpli- fies their experience and helps them participate in their care, according to a KLAS Research report. Online patient portals allow patients to engage in their care journey in multi- ple ways, whether viewing their health information, communicating with a provider or paying bills. For its Patient Engagement 2020 report, KLAS surveyed more than 300 patients about which patient engage- ment technologies have been most impactful to them. Here's how respondents ranked the technology, each based on a 100-percent scale: 1. Patient portal: 58 percent 2. Provider communication: 24 percent 3. Appointment reminders: 12 percent 4. Self-scheduling: 12 percent 5. Self-registration/check-in: 6 percent 6. Education: 5 percent 7. Prescription refill requests: 5 percent 8. Online bill pay: 4 percent 9. Telehealth: 4 percent 10. Care team collaboration: 3 percent n Male providers receive higher patient ratings than women, study finds By Gabrielle Masson O n average, male providers receive higher star ratings in online reviews than female providers, according to a report published Jan. 28 by Health- grades and the Medical Group Management Association. The 2020 Patient Sentiment Report analyzed 2.4 million text reviews on Healthgrades' website as of Dec. 1, 2019, and classified the data by six con- tent-based themes. Five report findings: 1. Factors patients wrote the most about were bedside manner, communication, skill and care quality, staff, visit time and wait time. 2. Patients mentioned wait time, visit time and office staff up to three times more often in negative reviews than in positive reviews. 3. When reviewing female providers, patients commented more often on bed- side manner, communication and visit time. Reviews of male providers focused more on skill and care quality. 4. Providers in New Jersey and Idaho were among the highest-rated in the U.S., while providers in Maine and West Virginia received some of the lowest ratings. 5. Reviews in Southern states had higher average ratings than those in other areas of the U.S. n 68% of hospital leaders say their digital health tools are lacking in patient experience By Andrea Park T hough health systems' adoption of digital health tools is rapidly increas- ing, with half calling implementation a "high" or "critical" priority, the vast majority of those tools are not delivering the best possible patient experience, a Center for Connected Medicine report found. Here are three key findings from CCM's "The Future of the Digital Patient Experience" report, which surveyed more than 130 healthcare professionals across the U.S., with nearly 95 percent holding management positions, span- ning business, IT, cybersecurity, clinical and informatics roles. The CCM is jointly operated by Pittsburgh-based UPMC, GE Healthcare and Nokia. 1. More than three-quarters said their organizations offer at least one digital health tool to patients; 25 percent offer four or more. While one-quarter reported their organizations have yet to deploy digital health solutions, only 3 percent of those surveyed said they did not have any future plans to do so. 2. In fact, for most healthcare organizations, digital health is a major priority: A to- tal of 50 percent of respondents labeled deployment of these tools as a "critical" or "high" priority, with larger organizations more likely to make it a critical priority. 3. Despite this enthusiasm for digital health tools, however, they have yet to reach their full potential. Only 40 percent said their organizations have successfully integrated digital health offerings into the overall patient experience, and only 32 percent agreed with the statement that their organizations are able to deliver digi- tal patient experiences "on par with the best digital consumer experience." n

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