Successful Patient Outreach

P atient outreach programs are customized processes designed as per a healthcare system’s unique and specific business requirements. However, there are some common guidelines that are applicable to all the patient outreach programs, proven to yield better results and outcomes. Here’s your five-point checklist for a successful patient management program. Dive in.

1. Broaden the Horizons with an Omnichannel Presence. A certain group of your patient communities may be comfortable with the traditional ways of reaching out to them over the phone. However, this is only a minimum percentage of your ideal audiences. Most of next-gen tech savvy healthcare consumers are accustomed to hyper-personalized and high-tech digital experiences and they expect the same from their healthcare providers as well.

Consider branching out to several media of communications including email, secure chat, instant automated chatbot interactions, self-serve options including selfscheduling, re-scheduling, cancellations among many others. Also, consider improving their financial experiences by facilitating integrated payment reminders and payment gateway solutions, personalized recommendations of care plans based on their insurance coverage. These are some of the nuances and intricacies of the patient outreach programs that can proactively engage patients in their care journeys – leading to better health outcomes, higher patient satisfaction scores, patient loyalty and retention.

2. Unlock the Digital Potential. Patients as consumers are engaged across multiple channels and have their own preferred media of communication, which are ideal to reach them at the right time via the right channel for highest levels of engagement. Patient outreach solutions when seamlessly integrated with digital technologies can automate workflows and enable frictionless communications across multiple stakeholders, facilitate secure data exchange including patient medical records, patient-Physician interactions and other confidential and valuable data in a highly compliant and secure platform

3. Foster Patient-centricity. Allow patients to choose their preferred channels and time of communication. Use interactive surveys and forms to gather these patients’ choices and preferences that help design tailored messages that can be delivered to a specific set of their consumers at a specific time for maximum response and engagement. Highly interactive patients and their families are the ones that are engaged throughout their care journeys – resulting in better outcomes, satisfaction and enhanced patient experiences. Personalized patient education materials can also be shared through their preferred mode of communication in creative and engaging formats including audio, videos, infographics, gaming and others. This ensures that patients are up-to-date with their pre-surgical and post-surgical care steps and guidelines.

4. Educate. Engage. Enhance. Patient education plays a significant role in proactively engaging them in care journeys while seamlessly improving engagement and health outcomes. Massive volumes of patient data can be gathered through various sources including Patient Reported Outcomes (PRO), Patient Generated Health Data (PGHD), Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), to design unique and engaging content specific to patient’s needs and personally delivered through their preferred channels. These patient education materials help them stay on top of their care plans, while helping them feed their medical status and information in real-time through the patient management platform.

5. Track and Monitor Outcomes. Any healthcare organization needs to track and monitor the results of their patient outreach program in order to constantly improvise on their programs. Hospital Reported Outcomes (HRO) plays a significant role in gathering valuable data that help get deeper health insights to make a transformative impact on the patient engagement program. Data can be structured and streamlined to improve workflows and make the necessary tweaks in processes, to improve the clinical, operational and financial performance.

To get your free and personalized consultation on how our patient outreach program can help achieve better health outcomes and optimize financial performance of your healthcare organization, give us a shout!