Mobile Patient Engagement: New Ideas Sometimes Clash With Old Technology

Health systems are learning that they need to plan carefully to give consumers access to services on a mobile platform. Healthcare organizations are finding that an effective patient engagement strategy involves more than just opening a patient portal. A good platform not only gives consumers access to health system services and resources, but allows them to access those services on the device and at the time and place of their choosing all without overwhelming either the consumer or the provider with unnecessary steps or tasks.

"It has to separate the signal from the noise," says John Lock, chief transformation officer for MedStar Health, which launched a new patient experience platform designed by b.well Connected Health this past January. The Maryland-based health system, he says, has a strategy in place to "get you to the right care at the right time and on the right modality."

The patient engagement or patient experience landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years, in part due to the challenges imposed by the pandemic but also because of the shift to patient-centered healthcare, a philosophy that's been around for about a decade. The advance of mHealth devices and telehealth platforms has created new channels for accessing care and given the consumer more power to choose how and where to get that care. Healthcare executives are finding that they can no longer sit back and wait for the consumer to come to them; they must be proactive, reaching out to the consumer, or that consumer will go somewhere else.