Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/520575
45 Executive Briefing: Patient Engagement Strategy athenahealth is a leading provider of cloud-based services for electronic health records (EHR), practice management, patient commu- nication and care coordination, helping caregivers thrive through change and stay focused on patient care. Recognized as an industry leader, athenahealth received five 2013 Best in KLAS awards, including #1 Overall Software Vendor and #1 Patient Portal. Unlike conventional health IT systems, athenahealth combines cloud-based software, networked knowledge and back-office services to keep more than 62,000 providers prepared for industry change—everything from Meaningful Use to value-based payment models. Cloud-based software is continually updated at no extra charge, with a single version available to all providers at once, ensuring physician alignment across the care continuum. athenahealth alleviates administrative burden by taking on paperwork, tracking claims, managing pre-registration and more. With athenahealth as a partner, practices and health systems are well-equipped to thrive today and in an uncertain future. When a hospital has achieved a culture that supports patient en- gagement, staff, physicians, nurses and other care team mem- bers encourage patients to use the portal. Here are a few tips for how best to do so, depending on patients' preferences. • Promote the portal to existing patients and with new patients as they come on board. Make the benefits of using the portal clear, and provide incentives for patients to use it. • Ask providers to talk with patients about how the portal can improve their experience. • If necessary, walk patients through registering for the portal, and show them how to do tasks they do regularly. • When someone calls to do a task that they could do on the portal, walk them through it using the patient portal and en- courage them to try it next time. • Try to understand and address any hesitancy or concerns with using the portal. • Rely on the patient portal for as much of your communication to patients as you can. The more you use it, the more they will too. • Accept that some patients will not use the portal. Make sure it is consistently an option so they have opportunities to change their mind. Third step: Measure success and prepare for change Use your patient engagement vision to set achievable targets and ways to measure progress. Patient portal adoption and patient satisfaction rates are two other basic, yet incredibly important, measures for hospitals and health systems to track and monitor on an ongoing basis. Depending on your vision, your practice may also want to track metrics such as patients' understanding of how an intervention will help with health goals, how patients are using technology to progress toward health goals and any changes in confidence in managing their own health. At the very least, leaders should consider monitoring how many patients have signed up to use the patient portal, how many email addresses have been collected, or how often patients connect with providers and staff through the portal. To encourage contin- ued success, establish a rewards or recognition system to cel- ebrate providers and staff when goals are reached. It may take time to see outcomes in patient engagement. Patients who have adopted the patient portal may not have another inter- action with the office for some time after they sign up. You will probably first see a time savings from reporting lab results on the patient portal and answering messages instead of patient calls. Check in with everyone in the practice to review the adoption re- sults and talk through what processes from your original plan are working and which are not. Ask for suggestions on how to improve the processes, and then integrate into your plan any new proce- dures that might be effective as well as adjusting any that are not working. Finally, make sure the patient engagement strategy and tech- nology solutions are flexible enough to accommodate inevitable change and practical for maintenance across an integrated sys- tem. Cloud-based solutions can roll out changes and updates to everyone on the network simultaneously. Consider working with vendors that prioritize service, innovation, connectivity and part- nerships, so the hospital benefits from both cutting-edge tools and long-term expertise in patient engagement solutions. Conclusion Patient engagement is a continuous process of collaboration be- tween patients and providers that is essential to achieving the triple aim of healthcare. This is an opportunity for healthcare to catch up to consumers who are already accustomed to interacting with technology in a variety of ways while also strengthening the relationship between the patient and the care team. Hospital lead- ers must define their vision for engagement, build a culture that supports engagement, fuse technology tools and support systems into that culture, then measure success and prepare for adapta- tion. Rather than seeing this as an extra step, hospitals and health systems must view patient engagement as the new normal. n 'Patient engagement' is really the industry catching up to patients' expectations and standards. When you look at it this way, hospitals and health systems are just getting started, and many leaders are unsure about how best to proceed.