by Dan Hoemke
The healthcare landscape is changing. The commercial and CMS-regulated Medicare and Medicaid markets are transforming. And patient engagement must be at the center of all of it.
When it comes to population health, consumer engagement will be the engine that drives sustainability for the future of our healthcare system. This will make patient engagement solutions all the more important for healthcare systems going forwards.
There are 11 different reasons why patient engagement failures need to be addressed before our healthcare systems can achieve the sustainability that will drive them into the future.
We discuss them all in our in-depth patient engagement solution webinar series (watch episode 1 here for free), but here we summarize five of the most important reasons.
A scramble to effectively manage population health
Healthcare’s stakeholders are scrambling to align and address the imperatives of increasing healthcare costs, and effectively managing population health.
The rapid shift in health and care delivery models are primarily a response to three key drivers of change:
The migration from volume-based to value-based payment structures and payer-provider incentive arrangements,
The continued march of healthcare consumerism shifting more responsibility and empowerment to individuals and their families,
And advancements in predictive analytics and health management informatics that enable targeting for patient-level clinical and health management interventions.
Although this shift is complex and challenging, these three drivers have already served one immensely critical function:
They have helped to align incentives for healthcare’s key stakeholders: payers, providers, and consumers, so that collective, collaborative action can benefit everyone.
But as sophisticated as the contracting and incentive payment mechanisms are, as refined as the insurance and benefit models are, and as powerful as the informatics have become, one critical piece of the puzzle is still conspicuously absent:
What’s still missing?
No one - not payers, not health systems, nor population health management solutions and service providers - seems to have “cracked the code” on how to reach and effectively engage patients for sustained participation and adherence in clinical programs and interventions. This is a huge opportunity that’s being missed. With white label patient engagement solutions, providers can quickly develop the solutions that will engage the modern consumer, so the technology is out there.
Because patient engagement is so critical to the future sustainability of our evolving healthcare system, I believe bridging the “Outreach To Engagement Gap” with science, process methodology, and technology (patient engagement solutions) is the Holy Grail of modern healthcare.
And although we discuss solutions in our webinar series, every solution starts with understanding the problem that needs solving.
So what is the fundamental problem?
Actually, there are 11 critical reasons for patient engagement failure that need to be addressed in order to arrive at an ideal solution.
I’ll briefly summarize the first 5 below, but for a full list and detailed understanding of each, watch our webinar series here on the problems, opportunities, and ultimate solution we can collaboratively deploy.
Reason #1: Solution fragmentation
There is little connectivity or integration between many of the key tools and capabilities we have today. For all intents and purposes, these integral components remain siloed, leaving key links in the solution-chain disconnected.
Reason #2: Misplaced confidence in technology solutions
Wearables, healthables, and consumer apps hold great promise and are clearly part of the solution. Reliance on technology alone, however, has proven largely ineffectual with low utilization. And where utilization of digital health technologies is high, it’s typically among the most healthy and not among the people who need to be engaged. The consumer wearables user is already engaged.
Reason #3: Not focusing on the right people
Clinical and health management program efforts typically focus on high-cost utilizers of healthcare, many of whom represent a limited opportunity for interventional effectiveness or ROI.
Predictive Analytics that truly identify and focus on “Rising Risk,” where there is the greatest opportunity for interventional effectiveness and ROI, represent a better bang for the buck.
For high-cost utilizers, the standard of care for treatment and case management is typically sufficient. But even then, both populations represent an opportunity for outreach and engagement. Just for markedly different reasons.
Reason #4: Focusing on engagement before outreach
While engagement is incremental to the application of clinical and health management interventions, they can’t be effectively applied in the absence of effective outreach.
Modern marketing methodologies and technologies need to be more effectively implemented in healthcare to reach consumers where they are, and speak to them in a way that moves them.
Reason #5: Limited contact information
There is continued reliance on mail and telephone contact information, which is often incomplete and inaccurate. Rarely is email or mobile phone information accessible and new strategies need to be employed to unlock these key communications channels.
With limited contact options, “Unable to Reach” is most often the prevailing metric.
Conclusion: Patient engagement solutions
Patient engagement is a key element in the sustainability of healthcare services. At present, patient engagement solutions are failing, undermining the quality of the service and adding unnecessary costs.
The reasons for this failure are many, and we have highlighted some of the most important ones. To gain a deeper understanding of the reasons why patient engagement solutions are failing, and how they can be improved, head over to our free webinar.
Get access to our full video discussion below…
Cracking The Code On Consumer Health Engagement, Part 1 - The Problem
Cracking The Code On Consumer Health Engagement, Part 2 - Solution framework
