Patient engagement IT market changing, slowly, with the imperatives of consumerism

If healthcare providers are now placing more emphasis on quality patient experience than they used to, the art and science of patient engagement has been a key priority for many years.

And for many years, it’s been presenting hospitals and health systems with challenges, as they aim to thread a unique needle: investing in the right technologies that will reach the right patients in the right ways.

“Patient engagement is one of the most complex and overwhelming areas of healthcare IT that KLAS measures, involving dozens of relevant HIT capabilities and a slew of vendors claiming to offer them,” as the research firm explained in its new Patient Engagement Ecosystem 2019 report.

Ideally, engagement tools such as online portals and smartphone apps will also offer an optimal user experience. Patient portals do the job in a basic way, of course, but could most clearly be improved. Better-designed UI, more creative functionalities and easier connections with regional HIEs are just some suggestions experts have proposed, to say nothing of the frustrating but widespread phenomenon of “multi-portalitis.”

With its new research, KLAS says is hopes to “cut through the noise in this chaotic market,” it says. Unlike most of its usual reports, which are based around customer reviews, this one focuses on vendors’ own claims of their products’ strengths.