My new collegues at Tower seem to like the fact that I envision and write about the application of technologies to improve the work that has to get done in hospitals. Since my work is now focused on re-defining patient experiences across all touch points (physical and virtual), we created a paper that highlights opportunities to engage consumers and patients using technologies for an enhanced web experience.
Patient Engagement and Their Experience: The Virtual Touch Points was prepared just in time for this week's Patient Experience Conference and it ties my long-term passion for improving care for the benefit of our patients to the role of information technology.
The paper explores the drivers for transforming the way healthcare organizations engage consumers, patients and their families and the web-based opportunities across the continuum of care from pre-admission through post treatment follow-up and across all departments. It describes how virtual engagement can enhance patient experiences and satisfaction with provider encounters. It also highlights the role of key technologies, such as, enterprise portals, social media, mobile applications, business intelligence and telehealth.
According to our CEO, Sue Sutton, RN, PhD, “It is important to address the needs of patients where they are in their experience and tie disparate information systems together to present a seamless interaction for patients and their family caregivers. Providing access to self-management tools and creating opportunities to help enhance their encounters with the system contributes to more engaged and accountable patients.”
The team at Tower has helped expand my view of technology applications, which we all agree, is an important strategy to enhancing today’s patient experiences, as well as, contributing to more efficient business and care processes, better outcomes and lower costs.
As the rise in consumerism leads to increasing patient responsibility for healthcare bills, IT in healthcare is giving providers the tools to engage with their patients regarding the payment process and to set payment expectations during the patient visit. A new healthcare payment trends report was recently released showing the growth of patient responsibility as well as the increase of more patient-friendly payment options (the use of online payments in healthcare has more than tripled since 2009), which enable providers to collect more payments and make the payment process easier for their patients. Here’s the link to the report: http://bit.ly/LDXJ7U
Posted by: Williamfmarvin | May 09, 2012 at 08:02 AM
Thanks for sharing the report, William! Transactional functions, such as, checking account balances, reviewing the payment history, and paying bills will continue to be an expectation of patients. It is up to our industry to decide to fulfill our consumer expectations.
Posted by: Christina Beach Thielst | May 25, 2012 at 08:03 AM