Gone are the days when patient interaction meant a check-up, handing out a prescription, and never seeing the patient again, as healthcare these days involves much more, such as keeping patients informed of their health conditions, sending them reminders of their appointments and medicine times, and overall creating meaningful relationships with them.
Here is how you can use smart tools to improve communication with your patients.
Patient Portals for Easy Access
Patient portals are an excellent way for patients to know their latest records, as they can have all their information in one place, such as doctors’ consultations and prescriptions. It cuts down the need for keeping track of all your paper prescriptions and keeping them in one place, and having to worry when you lose them. Through patient portals, information is always available quickly and efficiently.
Text Messaging Services for Patient Engagement
As a healthcare provider working at a hospital and having to deal with a lot of patients, mass text messaging services can help save you a lot of time when you want to send a message to a larger number of patients, such as changes in your office timings or some other healthcare alerts such as the availability of some medicine or procedure or some discount that your clinic is offering. Also, most people miss out on emails, but text messages are read by people immediately, ensuring that they reach everyone.
Wearable Health Devices for Remote Patient Monitoring
There are also many health devices that patients can wear that can record things like their heart rate levels, sleep times, blood pressure levels, and their physical activity rates, and can also be remotely accessed, so all the data can be available to the patient or the healthcare provider without actually meeting the patient, which is very convenient and comes in handy, especially when the patient has undergone a procedure such as an operation and is in the rehabilitation phase, and you want to keep a constant check on them. You do not need to meet the patient to keep a check on them constantly. Instead, you can just check their updates through the app. There are also options to set up alerts in case something goes wrong, so if some level spikes, you can immediately call up your patient and give them the necessary instructions.
Chatbots and AI Assistants in Healthcare Communication
AI is prevalent, and currently, chatbots are trained enough so that they can answer all questions regarding medical needs. As a doctor, your time with each patient is limited, and you may not be able to answer all the patients’ questions and satisfy them. On the other hand, there are some AI tools that patients can use to get all the answers conveniently and to their heart’s content. They can ask as many questions as they like and understand in whatever way they want. AI Assistants can also help with scheduling and sending appointment reminders to patients, saving a lot of time.
Secure Messaging Apps and Telehealth Platforms
Messaging apps between patients and their health care providers should be private and secure so that none of no patient information gets leaked. On top of that, messaging apps themselves are a blessing as patients can easily talk to their doctors and stay in touch with them remotely without having to visit the hospital or clinic. They can report their symptoms to the doctors and get appropriate advice on which they can act immediately, and this is especially important for patients who find it hard to move, such as elderly patients. There are also telehealth services, which have become very common these days, and allow patients to consult their doctors remotely via video calls. It is a very easy process as healthcare becomes much more accessible. Patient monitoring that is done remotely has actually shown very promising results, with hospital readmission rates reducing by 45% for heart failure patients.
Conclusion
Through such smart tools in the healthcare industry, processes in the healthcare industry have become faster and much more effective. Other than speeding up the process, smart tools also cut down on errors and bottlenecks and streamline processes in the healthcare industry. As a healthcare provider, the faster you embrace change and adapt to these processes, the better, as you do not want to be lagging.
Photo Credit:
Photo 1, Credit to Freepik || Photo 2, Credit to Freepik (CC0 1.0)
