What You Should Know: 

– 100 percent of hospital and health system respondents stated that staffing shortages have significantly affected revenue cycle management (RCM) and patient engagement efforts, according to a new survey by Experian Health. 

– A significant 69 percent of the surveyed healthcare executives responsible for RCM staffing foresee ongoing challenges in the long term.

Challenges Present Urgent Need for Solutions

The findings highlight the urgent need for healthcare organizations to find solutions to address staffing shortages and stabilize their operations for the long term. While staffing challenges persist, the majority of respondents prefer to shore up human resource approaches rather than leveraging technology such as automation and artificial intelligence to address staffing issues. The biggest challenges identified include finding candidates skilled in RCM and addressing staff burnout.

High Turnover Rates

The survey revealed that 9 out of 10 respondents reported turnover rates for administrative roles related to patient access, RCM, and the patient experience in the double digits, with nearly half reporting turnover rates of more than 25 percent, significantly higher than the U.S. average turnover rate. Many healthcare organizations are addressing retention issues through traditional means, including increasing salaries (46%), cross-training (44%), and boosting incentives (42%).

Patient Experience Impact

Eight out of 10 survey respondents reported that staffing shortages have worsened the patient experience. Areas significantly impacted include patient arrival and registration, appointment scheduling, prior authorization approval, insurance coverage confirmation, and patient estimates. Delays in patient care were identified as the most significant consequence of staffing shortages (40%).

AI Adoption

Only a quarter of respondents are considering consolidating workstreams across processes, and just 27 percent are exploring the use of integrated artificial intelligence (AI) to improve efficiency.

The healthcare industry is undergoing digital transformation in every aspect, with more innovative approaches replacing outdated, manual practices. Healthcare’s digital overhaul includes changes that improve the overall patient experience by prioritizing convenience and access to care. However, digital transformation in healthcare doesn’t solely improve the patient experience — it has also improved the experiences of healthcare professionals. 

One tool changing the industry that caters to both patients and healthcare professionals? A digital business card (DBC) — a more interactive, secure and eco-friendly option than its paper counterpart. 

The DBC market is estimated to reach $3.1 billion by 2027. To capitalize on its growing popularity, healthcare professionals should check out these six DBC use cases that maximize networking efforts and enhance the patient experience.

1. Make a great first impression when networking

Healthcare professionals grow their network while attending conferences. An attractive paper-based card loaded with compelling information may help spur interest from peers, but interest only goes so far. If physical business card recipients can’t conveniently contact the cardholder, they may send a card to the trash. After all, nearly 90% of business cards get thrown away within a week.

DBCs “digitize the handshake” and create a unique omnichannel experience by bridging the gap between in-person interactions and online connections, which help healthcare professionals make a great first impression on industry peers. Most promising, DBCs are easy to insert into networking conversations. Most professionals use simple, editable QR codes to share their DBC. Someone simply scans the code to call up information and save it on their mobile device. 

2. Give valuable and interactive information to patients

Three in four Americans leave the doctor with questions about their health. Due to busy schedules, healthcare professionals may be unable to answer these questions immediately when a patient calls. To receive instant feedback, patients often seek the information they need on the web. In fact, as many as 81% of Americans search online for health-related information — and that information could lead to inaccurate self-diagnosis and treatment.  

To educate and better assist their patients, healthcare professionals can share additional, reliable medical resources through a DBC. Traditional business cards lack interactivity and restrict information sharing to a compact 3.5” x 2” cardstock. With DBCs, medical professionals can add an endless amount of URLs, resources and social handles that patients can access with a single click. That way, patients know the information they’re reviewing is verified and reliable.

3. Establish a two-way communication channel with patients

An exceptional patient experience should involve a direct line of patient-doctor communication. Healthcare practices typically hand out paper business cards to satisfy this requirement. However, this approach has a significant drawback: patients or their caregivers must manually type contact information into their mobile devices. 

DBCs allow healthcare professionals to instantly establish a two-way communication channel with patients. After saving a DBC to their mobile devices, patients click a contact detail to use it — whether a phone number or email. Patients don’t have to worry about human error or scramble to find a paper card when dealing with an urgent medical need. 

4. Provide patients with a seamless way to schedule appointments

Healthcare providers can close care gaps preventing patients from receiving necessary care by simplifying the appointment scheduling process. While providers can’t offer continuous availability, they can make it easier for patients to navigate setting up an appointment on their own.

Nearly 50% of patients say the option to make and reschedule appointments online matters when choosing care. Healthcare professionals can implement DBCs to make appointment scheduling more flexible and convenient. A DBC can contain clickable links leading patients to preferred scheduling services. And if a provider uses a platform like Calendly, the DBC can also conveniently display the Calendly icon, which patients can access via a single click or tap. 

5. Eliminate business card reprinting 

Healthcare is a dynamic field. At some point, professionals will have to change the content of their business cards. With paper business cards, even the slightest change in contact details renders the card outdated. Professionals must reprint and distribute cards to provide up-to-date information to their network. 

In contrast, users can update DBCs virtually whenever required — whether that involves changing a phone number, interactive URL or Google Maps location. Updates reflect on a DBC in real time, eliminating the need for costly reprinting. DBCs also help protect the environment by eliminating the need for paper. Over seven million trees are cut down yearly to create traditional business cards. 

6. Track and analyze engagement 

After distributing traditional business cards to patients or peers at a networking event, healthcare professionals can’t track or analyze engagement. DBCs, on the other hand, obtain the following metrics:

• Card scans received
• Unique recipients reached
• Number of times recipients save contact details
• Card engagement by the time of day, location and device
• Best- and worst-performing DBCs

Healthcare professionals can monitor these metrics in real-time through a trackable digital business card solution to gain a complete picture of networking results and patient engagement. 

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There’s no denying the importance of building meaningful connections with patients and other like-minded healthcare professionals. To truly maximize these connections — and keep up with the digital transformation of their industry — healthcare professionals should consider adopting DBCs.

About Sharat Potharaju

Sharat Potharaju is the co-founder and CEO of Beaconstac, responsible for crafting the overall strategy and execution. Sharat is dedicated to achieving Beaconstac’s vision to enable digital connection with every physical object and place on the planet. Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Sharat spent a few years working in investment banking at Merrill Lynch in New York. Sharat holds a master’s degree in engineering management from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras.

The U.S. healthcare industry has hit an important inflection point. The global pandemic highlighted an increased need to deliver quality patient care. However, outdated, legacy technology is straining many health systems, and in some cases, exaggerating existing problems such as rising operational costs and high rates of attrition.

Health and hospital systems must take a purposeful approach to IT modernization — which includes embracing new technologies — to ensure success. And while each IT strategy should be tailored to the unique needs of individual systems, there are three guiding elements all healthcare institutions should keep top of mind.

1. Take a proactive approach

Much like caregivers encourage their patients to take a proactive approach to their own wellness, healthcare institutions should take a proactive approach to their IT environment. This is especially true for systems that have been impacted by mergers and acquisitions in recent years, as they may be managing the existing burdens of redundant applications and inherited technology.

To address this complexity, healthcare institutions should integrate predictive technologies like AIOps and automation to enable more efficient operations, and ultimately, ensure an uninterrupted patient experience.

For example, if a brewing issue goes unnoticed, it can create a disruption in device ecosystem health, stopping a caregiver’s telehealth appointment or a pharmacist’s ability to scan prescriptions. If it reaches the point when IT support needs to step in, that’s crucial time lost that could be spent with a patient.

Traditional IT monitoring typically falls into two categories, green for “good” and red for “bad”. However, AIOps and automation give us “yellow,” which enables us to put out the brushfire before it becomes a wildfire.

2. Look to your team

Research shows that burnout across healthcare providers has reached an all-time high, resulting in increased turnover and high vacancy rates across hospital staff. While recent studies cite a lack of technology and automation among the top hurdles, the answer isn’t simply to roll out next-gen technologies like A.I. chatbots and assume it will save the day.

The tools healthcare systems adopt must be accessible, intuitive and designed for the unique environments in which they’re deployed. That’s why it’s imperative to first understand all the players that are intimately impacted by technology each day.

One way to tackle this is by bringing healthcare professionals directly into the conversation. For example, when tapping insights from its nursing population, a hospital system may learn the current IT help desk lives in an inaccessible part of the hospital. So, when problems with their IT equipment arise, it requires a large investment of their time – time that could be spent with patients – to resolve the issue. To remedy this, a hospital may consider setting up a designated help desk for caregivers in a centralized location and staffing it with an IT expert that can offer hands-on support.

While these adjustments may seem minor, even if it improves attrition by 1%, that’s massive dollar savings.

3. Establish an end-to-end view

Decades of growth through healthcare mergers and acquisitions have resulted in old, redundant applications that are straining many systems. On top of that, many institutions during the pandemic were forced to quickly adopt new technologies or transfer existing applications onto the cloud without a long-term strategy. This was necessary so they could remain operational amid the healthcare crisis.

But today, many are now left with siloed data across their IT systems, which can result in security vulnerabilities, decreased efficiencies in operations – and even impact revenue growth.

Healthcare institutions must tackle these IT gaps by enabling an end-to-end view of their data. For many, this starts with embracing cloud technology as a way to gain flexibility and interoperability between existing systems, delivering a more secure environment for confidential data and patient information. This also enables institutions to better identify crucial inefficiencies that should be corrected, such as eliminating duplicative vendors or software to streamline costs and workstreams. 

Reap what you sow

Taken together, these baseline changes represent a strong foundation for how hospital systems everywhere — paired with new technologies — can define the future of healthcare in the U.S. 

Ultimately, a comprehensive IT modernization strategy is no easy lift. And it would be a mistake for healthcare institutions to think they can tackle this challenge alone. Rather, identify a trusted partner that understands the ethos and pathos of what drives your health system, and one that can create a modernization roadmap that fits your long-term goals.

Now is the time for the healthcare industry to embrace new technologies and invest in digital transformation. Organizations that shore-up their IT strategies today will reap the benefits of their investments for years to come. And once you have a stable IT infrastructure, you can begin to shift attention elsewhere, identifying new avenues for growth.

About Trent Sanders:

Trent Sanders is the leader for U.S. Healthcare & Life Sciences at Kyndryl, the world’s largest IT infrastructure services provider. Trent and his team help the nation’s leading provider, payer, and life science organizations accelerate IT innovation to drive enhanced experiences and outcomes across the health journey.

What You Should Know:

• Inbox Health, a New Haven, CT-based patient billing communications platform raises $22.5M in a Series B financing round, led by fintech-focused Ten Coves Capital. 
• The Series B announcement follows news that Inbox Health’s billing technology was awarded a patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in April 2023. The new growth capital will further accelerate Inbox Health’s strategic growth as it continues to improve and modernize the billing, support, and payment experience for even more patients and healthcare organizations.

Automated, Personalized Patient Billing

Inbox Health directly addresses one of the fastest-growing problems in healthcare—the challenge of patient A/R. Built for medical billers, Inbox Health automates patient billing and patient payments and modernizes the patient support experience. Inbox Health improves patient engagement by providing clear medical bills immediately after service, choice of payment methods and communication channels, and fast, empathetic support through the phone and live chat.

Today, more than 2,600 medical practices across the U.S. rely on Inbox Health, and more than 3.5 million patients have used the platform to pay a healthcare bill. By improving the patient experience, billers see an increase in profitability, cash flow, and collection speeds. With Inbox Health, billing companies report a 60% increase in collection speeds in the first 60 days. Inbox Health provides billing companies an automated, streamlined platform that saves time, reduces paper statement costs, and results in fewer patient phone calls.

What You Should Know:

• AmerisourceBergen (AB), a global healthcare company, has announced a strategic partnership with SteadyMD, a B2B telehealth infrastructure provider for the co-creation of a telehealth solution focused on Test to Treat opportunities. The solution is being offered as a pilot to independent community pharmacies across the US.
• In addition to the commercial partnership, AmerisourceBergen has also made a minority investment in SteadyMD through its venture fund AB Health Ventures.

Test to Treat Pilot

AmerisourceBergen’s telehealth solution is being developed to expand the number of Test to Treat services that independent pharmacies can offer to patients. The Test to Treat initiative was launched in 2022 to help provide quick and equitable access to COVID-19 testing and treatment in the early days of infection. The model is intended to provide a seamless patient experience and designed to reach high-risk, underserved populations.

With its telehealth solution, AmerisourceBergen is evaluating the long-term viability of the Test to Treat model for use cases, beyond COVID-19, to improve access to treatment. The pilot program has been launched across a group of 130 independent retail pharmacies, including members of the Good Neighbor Pharmacy network. Over a span of 12 weeks, pilot participants will utilize the SteadyMD platform to provide patients with a quick and accessible Test to Treat option within their pharmacy, at an affordable price. Patients can test for an illness or condition and then, if deemed necessary by a SteadyMD physician, consult with them on demand through the telehealth platform and receive a prescription for treatment.

Pharmacies participating in the telehealth pilot program can use the solution to help patients obtain COVID-19 oral antiviral therapies, as appropriate. AmerisourceBergen and SteadyMD will continuously evaluate opportunities to expand use cases during and after the program.

“The Test to Treat initiative is an important acknowledgement of the role of pharmacists and pharmacies as accessible healthcare providers and destinations,” said Jenni Zilka, Senior Vice President, Good Neighbor Pharmacy Field Programs & Services at AmerisourceBergen. “In order for pharmacies to continue making a sustainable impact on the communities they serve, we need to continue providing them the tools, resources, and authority to provide necessary clinical services, where appropriate. AmerisourceBergen’s exploration of a telehealth solution with SteadyMD to enhance the scope of the Test to Treat model is just one way we’re continuing to support the important role of the pharmacist in the healthcare ecosystem.”

What You Should Know:

Morgan Health, the JPMorgan Chase & Co. business unit announced a $25M investment in Kindbody, a fertility clinic network and global family-building benefits provider for employers offering the full-spectrum of reproductive care from preconception to postpartum through menopause.

Kindbody is a technology-driven fertility clinic network and family-building benefits provider for employers offering virtual and in-person care supporting 112 leading employers, covering more than 2.4 million lives. The company’s clients span virtually every industry and include Walmart, Medtronic, Lyft and GEICO. Kindbody serves patients at 32 signature clinics and hundreds of partner clinics in the U.S.

A New Generation of Fertility Care

Kindbody’s clinically-managed program covers the full-spectrum of reproductive health, including both female and male fertility, which encompasses fertility assessments and education, fertility preservation, genetic testing, in vitro fertilization (IVF), donor and surrogacy services, and adoption, as well as a full continuum of reproductive care including physical, mental and emotional support.

Kindbody’s model is unique in that it is the only family-building benefits provider for employers that owns and operates fertility clinics. The company saves employers 25%-30% by contracting directly to provide comprehensive virtual and in-person care to their employees. As the direct provider of care, Kindbody is uniquely positioned to decrease cost, improve the patient experience and deliver better health outcomes.

The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital health technologies across the healthcare industry. Digital transformation is now the top priority for many healthcare leaders as they seek to build resilient systems. At its core, this means implementing emerging digital technologies to modify essential operations, processes, and services to ease staff workload and withstand future challenges.

The primary drivers of digital transformation are consumerism, cost, and experience/expectations, each largely stemming from the pandemic. According to the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, health systems are considering emerging digital technologies as the conduit to transform their relationship with consumers and increase staff efficiency and satisfaction. In fact, 92% relayed that increased consumer satisfaction and engagement are the top outcomes facilities aim to achieve from digital transformation, followed by improved care quality at 56%. Additional top outcome goals include enhancing the patient experience, IT/cybersecurity, clinical care delivery, and staff satisfaction.

As these goals and digital investments progress, the once golden standard of optimizing healthcare performance has shifted from the Triple Aim (enhancing the patient experience, improving population health, and lowering costs) to the Quadruple Aim, which factors the clinician’s well-being into the equation. Over the last few years, the pandemic has repeatedly demonstrated the effects of clinician burnout and how it impacts the patient experience, health outcomes, and financial costs. As healthcare organizations seek improvements to the patient experience, care quality, and costs, they must also consider the clinician’s well-being. Digital transformation holds the key to fully re-engineering healthcare processes for the better, which will benefit the patients, clinicians, and healthcare organizations overall.

Delivering Value and Operational Efficiency

Digital transformation isn’t about removing the human component but focuses on using technology at each step to optimize the experience for all parties. In healthcare, the transformation means adopting different tools to enable patients to take a more active role in their care journey while also reducing provider involvement in non-clinical tasks to increase their time with patients.

Advanced technology leverages capabilities that keep patients and healthcare professionals better connected, helping to address the Quadruple Aim. In most industries, the customer (or patient) is a significant part of the equation. This can be better mirrored and developed within the healthcare industry through interactive patient care systems leveraging open APIs. This allows added functionality via electronic health records (EHR) and integrations with existing systems such as nurse call, environmental controls, and meal ordering to drive patient satisfaction and operational efficiency. For example, the patient can change the room’s temperature, lower the lights, order a meal, and place a service request without needing facetime with a nurse. These systems give the patient a sense of independence and control in an unfamiliar space and allow staff to remain focused on care, improving healthcare experience and efficiency through digital enhancements. 

Digital Transformation provides new ways to deliver value and can do so in a variety of ways by integrating systems at scale. The benefits of these integrations range from supplying the patient the ability to self-schedule appointments on the front end to staff using advanced analytics and Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to settle claims on the back end. The options are endless with an open API.

The ability to integrate data from different providers and systems into one easy-access platform, also known as interoperability, holds great promise for patient care and staff satisfaction. By leveraging a secure and advanced digital platform, patients can become more involved with their care. Patients can review their health records, check prescriptions, schedule appointments, request additional information from doctors, view lab results, and share health data with their providers. These tools also pair with personal devices, allowing individuals to navigate their health journey easily and safely from the comfort of their own phone, tablet, or even the television anytime, anywhere. 

At the point of care, integrations between the latest television technology and existing HIT applications are cost-effective and open the door to an enhanced patient experience with customized educational materials, easy communication methods, and improved collaboration tools. Integrations on the patient’s in-room television incorporate patients into their care, lowering costs and elevating satisfaction on all levels of the facility. When patients gain easy access to their health data, they’re empowered to make more informed decisions about the kind of care they would like to receive during and after hospital admission. Patients who are actively engaged in their own healthcare journeys see more improvement than passive participants. 

Outcome-Driven Acceleration

Empowering patients and families to be informed partners in their care improves outcomes while creating opportunities for staff to receive real-time patient feedback and make immediate adjustments to improve the patient experience. Digital transformation is accelerating healthcare using a focus on people — this means the patient experience, quality outcomes, and staff satisfaction come first. 

Transparency and open communication between patients, providers, and loved ones are at the heart of the people-focused approach and drives better results. This patient-centric focus must be at the center of every innovation and be based on listening to the consumer with empathy and putting the other person first (patient, family, and clinician). 

For example, innovative technologies that address patient pain points have been frequently leveraged to reduce new barriers. During the height of the pandemic, as necessary infection controls resulted in separation between families and admitted patients, tools such as video chat integrated with the television system in patient rooms were able to return comfort as patients could communicate virtually with their loved ones. This technology continues to be utilized and returns trust between patients and providers, reduces family separation, eases anxiety, and empowers patients and providers to communicate more effectively.

These digital transformations make care delivery more accessible and approachable for all patients. Data-driven solutions that are patient-focused present an engagement roadmap to enhance the experience while preparing the patient and family for smooth transitions throughout the care journey. This shift toward patient-focused cross-continuum care creates opportunities to accelerate mobile-optimized digital care journeys that engage and activate patients before, during, and after care. Digital technology bolsters more efficient care coordination, giving patients the right care and support at the right times in the right settings. With digital transformation, indirect communication and redundancy are eliminated, response times are reduced, and the overall care journey is more efficient. 

The Future of Healthcare

All industries, including healthcare, will continue to transform and advance using digital innovations. There are significant benefits to it in healthcare including reducing the amount of data that is siloed and providing more accessible health information to increase efficiency. 

As consumerism, costs, experiences, and expectations continue to drive digital transformation, healthcare facilities should select an end-to-end partner with a secure patient engagement system that fully integrates with the existing HIT and helps healthcare teams seamlessly collaborate with patients and families across the care continuum. A trusted service provider will be equipped in delivering value to customers and patients alike in a quickly evolving ecosystem. 

Digital transformation is designed to increase staff efficiency and benefit operations while improving patient outcomes and experience. With new ways of delivering value, digital transformation will allow patients, families, and providers to become more connected and ensure better health outcomes.

About Dave Bennett 

Dave Bennett is the CEO of pCare. His visionary approach to patient engagement, digital and mobile technologies, and IT integration ensure continuous innovation of the #1-KLAS ranked pCare platform and a company culture dedicated to delighting customers. Prior to joining pCare, Dave served in a variety of executive roles at ViiMed, GetWellNetwork and StayWell. Dave holds a CISM certificate from ISACA and is an active member of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), and the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE).

Over the last decade, the healthcare industry has experienced an explosion of digital innovation. Simultaneously, shifting consumer preferences around convenience and access to care has accelerated the pace of technology adoption at unprecedented speed, especially in the wake of the pandemic. 

The value of these digital tools is manifold: healthcare enterprises report increased operational efficiency, higher quality care delivery, cost savings, and the potential to deliver a more equitable patient experience by engaging all patients in their care. 

To most healthcare players, these advances would seem like a win-win. Yet, the industry’s expanding reliance on technology has fueled fresh concerns about disparities around how these digital health tools are accessed. When it comes to underserved populations, will they benefit? Or risk getting left behind?  

Health equity in patient portal use

The contributing factors leading to inequities in digital tool usage are complex, varied, and overlap with broader social drivers of health. The term “techquity,” or technology-related health equity, has been used more recently to draw attention to this persistent, and growing, challenge — and highlight the need to focus on equity in the design, development, and implementation of digital tools.  

The HLTH Foundation’s Techquity for Health Coalition report highlights the three core elements of techquity: access, initial uptake and use, and sustained engagement.

To narrow the digital divide in healthcare, we examined patient portals and their role in improving healthcare outcomes and patient experience. Patient portals empower patients to play more active roles in their care by providing access to their personal health information while increasing efficiency for providers and care organizations. Ideally, by streamlining patient communication and administrative tasks, providers should be able to minimize distractions and shift their focus to delivering high-quality care. 

If patients actually log in, that is. Today, 90% of hospitals and providers in the U.S. offer patient portals. Despite the high rates of adoption on the provider end, patient adoption is lagging; just 40% of patients accessed their online records at least once during 2020, though this number represents a 13 percentage point bump from 2014, according to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC). 

Research shows these adoption figures plunge across specific patient populations, revealing stark racial gaps in portal usage. A patient study conducted by the Ohio University School of Medicine found that Black patients were 40% less likely to use patient portals than white patients. 

Additionally, national market research conducted by Upfront Healthcare and Ipsos found:

• Hispanic patients were less likely than white patients to use portals to check their lab results (35.1% vs 56.5%); 
• Black and Hispanic patients were less likely than white patients to use portals to access medical records (30.8% and 27.6% vs. 42.2%); and 
• Both minority groups were less likely than white patients to use portals to communicate with their care providers (26.8% and 21.2% vs. 36.8%).  

Barriers to patient portal access 

Because race and ethnicity are social constructs and so tightly coupled with systemic inequities in the United States, we must dive deeper into these initial warning signs. This will enable us to better understand barriers and root causes of systematic differences in digital tool usage — and develop strategies for potential solutions and interventions. 

Despite slight increases in patient portal usage, there are multiple potential barriers to equitable use, including: 

Broadband Internet Access: According to a Pew Research Center survey, Black and Hispanic adults are less likely than White adults to have access to broadband internet at home. Of note, while smartphone ownership doesn’t vary substantially by race, 25% of Hispanic and 17% of Black adults rely solely on mobile device data and do not have access to broadband at home compared to 12% of White adults.     

Digital Literacy: Many portals are not designed with usability and accessibility in mind, and patients underserved in healthcare often experience unnecessary technological setbacks. The burden is put on the patient to proactively log in and sort through a number of screens to access the information they need.    

Lack of Awareness: Studies have found that Black and Hispanic patients are offered patient portal access less often than their white counterparts. While 65% of white patients said their provider offered them access to the patient portal, only 54% of Black patients and 49% of Hispanic patients reported the same. 

Health Literacy and Language: Patient portals contain complex medical information, and some may only be available in English, making them difficult to navigate for patients with low health literacy and limited English-speaking skills.  

History of mistrust: Trust and privacy concerns may also play a role in Black patients’ wariness in using portals, as they may be influenced by the systemic racism Black Americans have historically encountered within the healthcare system. In one study, Black and Latino patients preferred to speak directly to providers and were more likely to cite privacy and security anxieties as reasons for portal nonuse. 

Lack of Personalization or Need: Uptake and sustained engagement may also be low because patients do not see a need for the patient portal. In a 2020 survey, 63% of patients said they did not access their portal because they didn’t have a need. 

More work is needed to address existing inequities

To address the existing inequities in patient portal use, healthcare providers and organizations must take steps to ensure that all patients have equal access to these platforms. 

It’s critical to ensure health systems are not throwing yet another piece of technology at patients without consideration of how it meets patient needs or fits into the existing patient experience. This includes a reexamination of the initial value of patient portals and whether current tools are meeting the mark. It’s now nearly 14 years following the passage of the 2009 HITECH Act, which provided incentives for health systems to adopt patient portals in the first place. 

If patient portals are being optimized to deliver a cohesive and better patient experience, providing digital literacy training and ensuring that patient portals are available in multiple languages is necessary. Health systems can promote portal usage in all communications, and help patients understand the value portals provide in meeting their healthcare needs — for example, scheduling a visit or refilling a medication.  

Providers should also work to build trust within Black and Hispanic communities and address cultural barriers to their portal use. Providers must recognize which patient populations are not likely to utilize the patient portal and encourage them to do so by directly addressing their specific concerns. 

One way to build trust is to personalize communications with patients. Healthcare is extremely personal, so patient communications and outreach should follow. Tailoring messages to the patient’s relevant needs and perceived fears makes them feel seen as an individual person, not just a number, and encourages engagement.  

Today, advanced technologies and patient engagement platforms, as a complement to the portal, are elevating personalization and ensuring that the experience is inclusive for all patients. These technology solutions can create more tailored content that addresses the barriers to portal usage and can help inspire patient confidence and trust within the healthcare system.  

About Lindsay Zimmerman, Ph.D., MPH VP, Bartosch Patient Activation Institute, Upfront Healthcare

Lindsay Zimmerman, PhD, MPH is a healthcare expert bringing together rigor and humanity to solve our most complex social and public health challenges. She believes in a true interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving, represented by her background in academic research, data-driven technologies, and patient-focused care models.

Prior to Upfront, Lindsay led large-scale projects at health systems, non-profits, and innovation centers focused on optimally leveraging social factors to proactively engage patients to become partners in their healthcare. Lindsay also co-founded Socium Health, an NSF-funded collaborative to research and prototype patient engagement and care coordination solutions. She has her Ph.D. in Health Informatics from Northwestern University and a Master of Science in Public Health from the University of Illinois Chicago in Epidemiology.

What You Should Know:

• Sagility, a provder optimizing the member/patient experience and business process management acquires Chandler, Arizona-based Devlin Consulting, Inc. (DCI), an established healthcare technology services company with nearly 30 years of payment integrity experience.
• The acquisition represents Sagility’s first acquisition since unveiling its new identity as an independent U.S.-based company solely dedicated to the healthcare industry following the 2021 divestment from HGS. This move further advances Sagility’s vision to achieve $1B in revenue and more than double its size over the next four years.

360-Degree Precision Payment Integrity Solution

Payment integrity continues to be a disruptive category in healthcare with a promise to address shifts in billing and healthcare delivery that emerged from the pandemic. The acquisition of DCI Consulting expands Sagility’s 360-degree precision payment integrity solution offering which will help clients, including leading U.S. health plans and regional Blue plans, achieve new levels of efficiency to thrive in today’s marketplace.

Hint & Eden Partner to Expand Virtual Direct Primary Care Offering Nationwide

What You Should Know:

• Hint Health, the company powering the Direct Primary Care (DPC) movement, and Eden Health, a leading national virtual and in-person primary care provider, today announced a partnership to expand the Hint Connect footprint with a virtual DPC offering across all 50 states.
• This partnership allows employers to offer a DPC network nationwide for patients who don’t have convenient access to a DPC practice in their communities.

Innovation in Healthcare Via In-Person and Virtual Direct Primary Care Plans

According to a poll, less than half of Americans are satisfied with the quality of U.S. healthcare. Long wait times to see a doctor, short appointments, and lack of coordination between care settings leave patients feeling like no one cares about them or their health. Furthermore, healthcare costs continue to rise despite a worsening patient experience. 

The benefits of Direct Primary Care include:  

1. Access: DPC physicians typically offer same-day or next-day appointments and use technology like telemedicine, e-mail, and text messaging to make themselves more accessible to their patients on demand.
2. Quality: DPC providers are able to spend more time with their patients. Standard primary care providers only have an average of 17 minutes to spend on each patient; with DPC, providers  spend up to an hour with patients to uncover the root cause of complex health issues and offer holistic care.
3. Cost: DPC is proven to sharply decrease costs and utilization in higher cost of care settings, including emergency department, hospital inpatient, and outpatient specialty costs. With DPC, patients pay one transparent, monthly fee and know exactly what is covered. They are able to visit the doctor when needed, instead of waiting until healthcare concerns get worse. 

Hint Connect is a nationally scaled network of Direct Primary Care practices that excels at building trusted clinical relationships locally. When employers or plans offer Hint Connect, members can choose between a fully virtual primary care model or an in-person/virtual hybrid based on their personal preference, geography, and health needs. When members select the in-person/virtual hybrid model, they and their families register with Hint Connect and choose a nearby DPC location. There is no copay or coinsurance for visits. 

When members choose the fully virtual primary care experience with Eden Health, they will be able to  connect with their provider within minutes and at the touch of a button, 24/7/365. Unlike many other telehealth  solutions, patients meet with the same clinician throughout their care journey, allowing them to develop a trusting, longitudinal relationship with their provider. All clinicians are fully-employed by Eden Health and are dedicated to serving their patient panel virtually. Patients receiving virtual care through Eden Health have access to primary care, urgent care, chronic disease management, wellness and care coordination services, all through a single app and free of cost. 

“Eden Health clinicians are more than just someone picking up extra hours after their full-time shift ends,” said Hint Health CEO, Zak Holdsworth. “Eden’s pioneering work to champion a true virtual Direct Primary Care model will allow us to further achieve our mission of making DPC the new standard in U.S. healthcare.”

This partnership means that employers and plans will no longer have to make the tough decision between local options and virtual-only options. Instead, employees will have the opportunity to choose the plan that’s right for them to receive the highest quality, full access, primary care for one flat membership fee built into their health plan. Hint Connect simplifies enrollment and eligibility management, billing, and invoicing for a seamless benefit management experience. 

Together, Hint and Eden offer a uniquely comprehensive solution for organizations looking to solve the national problem of healthcare access and quality.

What You Should Know:

•  IntelyCare, the leading total healthcare talent solution in post-acute care, today introduced a new technology partnership with UKG, a leading provider of HR, payroll, and workforce management solutions for all people.
• IntelyCare’s AI-based platform and per-diem matching technology enable healthcare organizations to increase census revenue and cut staffing costs. With more than 315 technology and services partners, UKG provides one of the largest and most collaborative partner ecosystems in the HCM industry focused on creating better employee experiences to improve business outcomes.

A Collaboration to Reduce Costs, Improve Patient Experience, and Increase Revenue

This collaboration will allow healthcare organizations that utilize both IntelyCare and UKG Dimensions to increase workforce management efficiencies by enabling the scheduling and management of full-time, temporary, float, per-diem, and contract staff on a seamless interface. With the integration, organizations can view and fill open shifts at multiple facilities – with both internal and contingent staff available through IntelyCare – without having to leave UKG Dimensions.

“The large UKG customer-base of hospitals, health systems, and long-term care facilities paired with our pool of 50,000 per diem nursing professionals helps address the nurse staffing crisis head-on,” said David Coppins, co-founder and CEO of IntelyCare. Coppins continued, “Using the UKG Dimensions scheduling solution in tandem with IntelyCare’s nursing per diem and float pool management platform empowers healthcare facilities to increase revenue, reduce operational costs, improve outcomes, and stabilize their workforce.”

The integration provides a single view for facilities to directly communicate and engage with their staff and seamlessly schedule both their internal and external staff to ensure that they maintain proper staffing levels. For facilities that employ float pool staff, the integration also opens up IntelyCare’s float pool management technology, utilizing AI-driven pricing and matching capabilities to optimize the scheduling of flexible staff.

UKG solutions are developed on the FleX platform. FleX by UKG is a modern technology platform purpose-built to support great workplaces. FleX Flow, a highly adaptable API framework, anchors UKG solutions in the flow of work where people need and want them most, and helps businesses connect existing IT with innovative or emerging applications to simplify the employee IT experience.

Voice is a powerful tool. The average person speaks about 7,000 words daily (although anyone who’s spent time around young children knows that estimate is probably low). Yet amid healthcare organizations building a more customer-centric approach to customer experience (CX), many have not included a key piece of the CX puzzle: analyzing the voice of the customer.

The value of unstructured data

Healthcare organizations use a variety of existing touchpoints to connect with their customers. Surveys gather customer feedback, while word clouds provide a way to visualize information,  but structured data from these sources alone doesn’t paint a complete picture of the customer experience.

Unstructured sources, such as conversations with customers, allow organizations to access unsolicited feedback and may include:

• Inbound calls to contact centers
• Chatbot and SMS messages
• Emails, online messaging and social media interactions

Customers already (and constantly) give feedback through these channels without prompting or questioning. Unsolicited feedback surfaces the customers’ direct, authentic thoughts, feelings and opinions in their own words.

And customers are delivering a lot of unsolicited feedback: the average call center might receive over 400,000 calls annually. Add in more unstructured data from online messaging, chatbots,  and interactions with call centers, nurses and other healthcare professionals – it’s estimated over half of stored data (55%) is unknown or untapped. 

This data is invaluable. Capturing, analyzing, and using it, however, provides many challenges. Companies struggle to manage and analyze data generated from unsolicited feedback. They are often hampered by legacy technology incapable of efficiently listening to or measuring this data — but it’s necessary to understand CX. 

In fact, organizations using unstructured data in their CX insights are 24% likelier to exceed business goals. Why? Because of this unstructured data:

• Captures what’s affecting or frustrating customers, in their own words.
• Provides a greater context around customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
• Expands the sample size far beyond what’s captured in specific surveys.

Patient testimonials, provided in their authentic voices, help providers develop more tailored action plans to address barriers to care. Leveraging these patient-provided insights into developing effective CX strategies shows patients the organization cares, sees, understands and values them.

Using unstructured data to resolve customer pain points

Experts estimate unstructured data will increase by 175 billion terabytes by 2025. Considering more than 80% of enterprise data is unstructured, companies are turning to innovative tools like  AI and ML to manage this incredible volume of data.

To maximize the data generated from unstructured, unsolicited feedback — and use it to resolve customer pain points — healthcare organizations are starting to evaluate ways to source the voice of the customer and scale it to improve CX and drive action through context-rich connections with patients.

These three steps explain how the voice of the customer brings value to healthcare:

1. Go deeper into customer pain points. 

Disruptions or confusion can happen during a patient interaction where providers are working to resolve one issue but another crop up. For example, patients can become ‘stuck’ when they’re trying to understand the language of their healthcare benefits. By identifying the most prevalent issues causing friction or frustration — how deductibles work, billing and payment status, and understanding tier definitions — organizations can mitigate and reduce them. 

Unstructured feedback helps teams go deeper into the issues and identify the disruptions in their customer journey. This data uncovers useful themes and trends across interactions between patients and providers that are tracked by metrics focused on conversation topics, sentiment, and other reporting to help establish a ‘big picture’ story.

2. Aggregate insights and create an action plan. 

Conversational intelligence can help highlight specific patient conversations that need to be heard. AI algorithms can extract and process meaning and report insights from raw unstructured data, such as conversations. These AI tools parse segment, categorize, and label data, allowing organizations to examine their CX and listen to spoken stories from patients. Hearing directly from patients enables leadership to drive change from the top down and empowers front-line agents and employees to deliver improved patient experiences.

3. Train and enable customer service representatives. Empathy empowers representatives to build better relationships with patients and deliver better service. Equip employees with new training, call scripts and FAQs to deliver on your brand promise. Revisit frequently and update as needed to address trending concerns. For example, the current economic uncertainty has led to more patients worried about or struggling to pay their bills. Adjust call scripts to handle those concerns and communicate any revised collections or payment policies. 

Build a connection through empathy

Generating data from actual customer voices via chatbots and clinical visits, call centers and other digital channels becomes a powerful agent in creating a standout patient experience. Through voice, organizations can connect to the human side of the patients they serve. These data-driven insights create compelling, empathetic stories that lead to organizational change. 

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The numbers don’t lie. Each day, one quarter of healthcare customers becomes stuck somewhere along their customer journey. The amount of data generated from their encounters with healthcare teams is staggering — and the numbers will only increase exponentially. 

How quickly is data accelerating now? In 2012, the internet saw the creation of about 2.5 exabytes of data each day. The World Economic Forum estimates that by 2025, more than 460 exabytes of data (or 460,000,000,000 gigabytes) will be generated daily. Attempting to manually collect, analyze and find actionable insights to inform CX strategy is impossible now, and it won’t improve — ever.

Since over 80% of organizations expect to compete based primarily on CX, according to a new Gartner Trend Insight Report, it’s incumbent upon healthcare organizations to elevate and deliver a superior CX.

To compete effectively, healthcare organizations need quantitative and qualitative data to make competent decisions in how they grow and manage their businesses. Older technology just can’t handle the volume of data generated today — but companies need modern tech to pull this valuable data and aggregate it into actionable insights. The information gleaned from unsolicited feedback helps companies fully understand their customers’ demographics, circumstances, pain points and more.

About Leslie Pagel

Leslie Pagel is the Chief Evangelist of Authenticx – a conversation analytics company dedicated to improving the way healthcare companies engage with patients. In this role, she creates awareness, across the healthcare industry, of more efficient and effective ways for healthcare organizations to deliver on their customer objectives. With over two decades of working with customer experience (CX) teams, Leslie helps clients actualize the voice of the patient to show how these voices prompt meaningful action. 

What You Should Know:

• LifeOmic, a healthcare technology company powering precision health with its end-to-end software solution, the LifeOmic Platform, today announced the launch of its Patient Mobile App. LifeOmic’s Patient Mobile App enables the two-way connection between the healthcare team and patient. 
• With the LifeOmic Patient Mobile App, healthcare providers have access to a highly configurable solution that integrates directly into their existingworkflows to meet their unique needs.

Ushering in an Environment For Personalized Care 

The growth of mobile health, which is estimated to reach $12.1 billion by 2030, is one of the most promising trends in the healthcare industry due to its capacity to support, educate and connect patients to their care teams between office visits.However, there is a tremendous gap between medical professionals and patients due to the plethora of siloed mobile health apps available within the market. LifeOmic aims to solve this problem by providing healthcare systems and providers with the ideal solution for proactively and holistically managing patient outcomes without adding a burden to the care team. 

“Healthcare providers face two challenges — engaging patients without overwhelming staff and managing multiple apps within a system,” said Dr. Don Brown, CEO and founder of LifeOmic. “LifeOmic addresses both by providing a secure, scalable solution that integrates with patients’ records and collects data from various sources. By surfacing issues that need attention, LifeOmic streamlines proactive management without increasing staff workload.” 

The LifeOmic Patient Mobile App was designed to be the hub for all connection points. The app can be configured for different audiences and use cases—so whether it is used for remote patient monitoring, patient adherence, patient education or research, the app is flexibly designed to offer two-way communication. This enables LifeOmic to empower health systems and providers to improve patient outcomes via patient monitoring and reduce readmissions and visits to the emergency department through the valuable insights gained by leveraging patient-reported data. 

With The LifeOmic Patient Mobile App, health systems and healthcare providers can: 

● Incorporate organization’s name and branding

● Easily gather patient eConsent

● Configure the app layout to integrate with other sites and apps

● Deliver multimedia content for extended learning (video, articles, audio, flashcard content)

● Create daily patient tasks

● Gather patient-reported information from surveys

● Add video conversations; either 1:1 or group sessions.

● Configure a chatbot to process and understand patient questions

● Connect to wearables (e.g., Fitbit, Apple and Google)

● Integrate with medical devices (e.g., Dexcom CGM) 

● Use alerts and dashboards to proactively monitor patients’ health

By integrating into patient clinical records such as Epic, Cerner and Cerbo and wearable device data, the LifeOmic Patient Mobile App allows for easy electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePROs) collection to create a better patient experience while helping surface issues that need attention from staff. The app also enables patient connection between office visits, providing the necessary education and support to understand their conditions, play active roles in self-care and reduce the likelihood of complications. Provided by the healthcare system or provider, the app is completely free to the patient.

All data acquired from the app is stored in the secure LifeOmic Platform. Both the LifeOmic Platform and the app maintain the highest level of security and are HIPAA-compliant, GDPR-compliant and HITRUST certified. 

A new type of purpose-built technology is necessary to manage patient relationships.

Customer relationship management (CRM) systems are commonplace in nearly every industry, though their use in healthcare is complicated. Healthcare is incredibly complex and unique in many ways, and many generic CRM or CRM-like solutions address only one or two elements of the patient journey, such as appointment scheduling and reminders, without factoring in personal needs and preferences, health histories, or provider staffing.   

Additionally, HIPAA and state laws control how protected personal information can be collected and used, and many health systems and private practices continue to rely on disconnected technology solutions that lack integrations and interoperability, despite the emergence of standards like HL7 and FHIR APIs.

In other industries, CRM systems work best when aggregating records across channels to create a more holistic view of customers and their wants and needs. As it happens, in survey after survey, healthcare consumers say they want more personalization in their experience. Furthermore, a 2022 report from CVS Health shows the vast majority of providers agree that personalization and specific interventions, such as text message reminders or phone follow-ups, assist patients in following their prescribed care plan. Still, existing approaches to meet these demands often fall short. Given these challenges and the rise of the empowered healthcare consumer, a new type of purpose-built CRM is needed for healthcare organizations. 

Creating a Holistic View of Consumers

In healthcare, to design effective outreach campaigns, organizations must consider not only consumers’ preferred communication methods, previous conversations, and responses across channels but also factors like health history, risk level, and insurance status.

Unfortunately, information about consumers’ health journeys tends to be siloed, with limited visibility across departments and functions. Electronic health records often contain one or more pieces of the puzzle. Core systems for scheduling, patient communications, and billing hide other pieces. Of course, the more systems there are to manage, the harder it is to gain a holistic view of consumer preferences and statuses. This is particularly true when managing campaigns that involve multiple channels (e.g., SMS, email, patient portals, phone, etc.). 

Only by integrating and consolidating these systems together can organizations see the broader story their various data points are telling them, such as which groups are most likely to sign up for a flu shot based on past visits and responses and which may need some additional encouragement to schedule an appointment. By understanding the unique needs and preferences of each consumer, health systems can create targeted campaigns that are more likely to be successful and build stronger, more loyal relationships with their patients.

Designing Intelligent, Personalized Engagement

There are a few qualities that distinguish patient engagement runs through a purpose-built system for healthcare vs. off-the-shelf solutions or generic CRM systems, and they are critical for healthcare providers to manage their interactions with patients and streamline their operations. These include: 

• Historical data of past consumer interactions across channels 
• Awareness of appointment availability and provider capacity
• Integration with the EHR to enable second and third-level attribution metrics for campaign measurement

Consider that many health systems are historically understaffed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, large health systems employ thousands of physicians, each with their own specialty, services, hours, and relationship to the organization. Marketing and strategy teams are not responsible for setting physician schedules, and without up-to-date data on the capacity of the health system’s personnel, they can easily fall into the trap of running a campaign to create demand for services that are simply not available or currently feasible. Indeed, the best patient engagement campaign in the world won’t be very effective if your health system doesn’t have the resources to manage responses or the capacity to schedule appointments.

On the flip slide, forward-looking health systems may use capacity data to design campaigns in anticipation of forecasted revenue gaps to match healthcare supply with patient demand. Many hospitals budget based on physician productivity measures, driven by claims data that can lag 60 to 90 days at times. By combining historical data with predictive analytics, health systems could forecast that one of its clinics is in danger of missing its revenue goals, enabling them to proactively contact patients via their preferred channel (i.e., text or email) to drive demand for that office. 

Along these lines, health systems exploring technologies to better manage patient outreach should consider how they integrate with EHRs for attribution purposes. For example, let’s say a health system runs a campaign encouraging high-risk heart disease patients to conduct a free health risk assessment. Healthcare consumers that sign up for a cardiology appointment as a direct result might be said to be first-level attribution to the campaign (i.e., the campaign should take credit for every appointment booked). If that patient continues to see a physician, perhaps getting a lab workup or other tests, those services could be categorized as second-level attribution – namely, the campaign should take some credit for these secondary services performed. Finally, if the patient proceeds with a surgical procedure a few months down the road, the health system can go back and view the steps leading up to it via third-level attribution. The data gathered during campaigns can also help train machine-learning models to streamline and improve automated recommendations for future campaigns.  

In conclusion, while generic CRM systems may seem like a cost-effective solution for healthcare providers, they may not have the necessary features and integrations to effectively support the unique needs of the healthcare industry. Indeed, organizations that continue to approach healthcare consumerism in a siloed way will never truly understand the many individual journeys that make up the patient experience. Health systems looking to streamline operations and improve the patient experience should instead look to systems that can pull data across communication channels and health histories to create a more holistic view of consumers and, in turn, meet their preferences for more personalized engagement. 

About Abhi Sharma

Abhi Sharma is the chief product officer for Loyal, overseeing the company’s product development, engineering, design, and AI teams. Abhi has been with Loyal since 2015 and has over a decade of experience orchestrating product success for innovative companies like Blockchain, NBCUniversal, and BrightWhistle. He holds a BS in Industrial & Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Providing patients with a positive health outcome is always the priority for their healthcare provider. The journey to accomplishing this goal can often be an uphill challenge with many variables at play. Providers are tasked with not only delivering a positive health outcome but also with the patient experience and level of satisfaction as they make their way through their healthcare journey. Since the Covid-19 pandemic and the emergence of virtual healthcare, the healthcare industry has witnessed dramatic changes in care delivery and the patient experience.

The pandemic brought forth several issues in healthcare provisions and treatments, including staffing shortages, poor delivery of services, and disparities between the health needs of the population and the competencies of health professionals. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that these challenges have halted or reduced treatments for illnesses like cardiovascular emergencies, hypertension, diabetes, and diabetes-related complications. To correct these inefficiencies – and to ensure positive patient experiences and continued satisfaction – the healthcare industry had to embrace change and implement new strategies.

Understanding the perception of virtual health care

In a survey conducted by the Cleveland Clinic, results showed patients found virtual health care to be just as impactful as in-person visits. These positive responses from patients are essential to recognize, as the survey, in its fourth iteration by the J.D. Power group, shows that telehealth usage is up nearly 30% now compared to when the study was conducted in 2019. 

Several other studies have shown optimistic statistics related to virtual health care: Perhaps the most important to acknowledge are the ones in which nearly 98% of respondents reported being satisfied with telehealth experiences and 91% satisfied with video consultations. To take that a step further, about 88% agreed that virtual consultations were more convenient than in-person visits, and more than 85% believe telemedicine has the same reliability as in-person visits. These studies all support that trust in doctors ultimately correlated with higher patient satisfaction in remote visits.

These findings are also the key to understanding the patient experience and satisfaction when evaluating virtual care. It’s also apparent when looking at how it has impacted no-show rates. According to an NIH report, the rate of missed in-office appointments is more than 35%, significantly higher than the 7.5% rate of telehealth no-show rates. Convenience seems to have a heavy impact on patients here. And when there is a reduction in missed appointments, it creates better efficiency for providers.

In a 2022 McKinsey and Company survey, respondents reported that telehealth appointments were more convenient and were much more satisfied with their care than in-person care. They also showed interest in broader digital healthcare solutions. The same survey, conducted in 2022, showed that nearly 80% of doctors already offer telehealth and in-person visits. 

Enhancing the patient experience through virtual options

Virtual care options can enhance the patient experience and satisfaction through many different avenues of care. Patients and consumers are similar in a few ways. Both expect products and services to be easy to access and obtain through any device – in a timely and convenient way. When providers can offer patients around-the-clock access to virtual care through a best-in-class platform developed with them in mind, patients are placed on the road to positive health outcomes with benefits that heighten their healthcare experience and journey.

In the 21^st century, with how connected we are, people often take to the internet as soon as they do not feel well to try to understand what their symptoms could mean. Still, while they might get hundreds of immediate “answers,” that doesn’t mean they are receiving the correct ones. Patients should instead have access to a trusted provider who can give them 24/7 consistency with the most accurate and personalized attention. Digital health solutions do this in a way that provides patients with relevant, digestible, reliable information. This gives them the confidence to access their care when they need it long-term, which will bolster their engagement. These kinds of results and level of attention to care will not come with random internet searches. 

Patient data can be accessed across both realms with frictionless movement between the physical and digital worlds within a digital platform. This gives providers instant access to essential patient data, improving their accessibility to review medical history, identify patterns and make informed recommendations. This ensures providers deliver top-notch quality care by more accurately diagnosing illnesses and lessening patient risk levels. With access to all this data and insights, structural complexities are removed, workflows are simplified, and the entire experience is streamlined. The result? The improved overall health and well-being of any patient.

All-encompassing solutions for the long-term

Utilizing digital health platforms to streamline information and processes for providers eliminates mundane administrative tasks that otherwise take hours of interpreting manual data. It frees up providers to dedicate more time to their patients. Virtual healthcare platforms can also reduce patient and provider costs, provide positive health outcomes and ensure higher patient satisfaction. 

There’s no doubt: Virtual care is a means to provide patients with affordability, convenience, and 24/7 access to medical professionals. Enabling this access to patients doesn’t just enhance each encounter; it allows them to have a more significant role in their healthcare journey. Virtual care optimizes the patient experience and satisfaction, which will bolster increased satisfaction now and in the long term.

About Keith Algozzine

Keith Algozzine is the co-founder and CEO of UCM Digital Health. A board-certified Physician Assistant, he was formerly the Chief PA of Emergency Medicine for St. Mary’s Hospital in Troy, NY, where he witnessed firsthand the challenges of the modern healthcare system. Keith was also part of the national ER startup management team for Pegasus Emergency Medicine. He represents UCM Digital Health on the American Telemedicine Association Accreditation Advisory Board and serves as an advisor to the Clinical Practice Guidelines Committees dealing with telemedicine considerations for urgent and emergency care.