Healthcare has advanced a lot from symptom fixing and signing on prescription pads. The healthcare future is all about active patient participation where patients are not only recipients of care but co-providers of their own care.
This is what they refer to as patient engagement — a crucial determinant that is able to change outcomes, enhance satisfaction, and reduce healthcare costs.
And what is patient engagement, anyway? Essentially, patient engagement is the effort and time clinicians invest in involving patients in their care — from prevention and collaborative decision-making to use of technology, education, and patient-centered models of care.
This book addresses why patient engagement strategies are important and offers 10 practical, achievable strategies that healthcare organizations and clinicians can leverage to improve it reasonably across illness, health literacy, and all ages.
Why Patient Engagement Strategies Are Important?
Let’s start with a quick look at the value of patient engagement with modern healthcare.
1. Improved Health Outcomes
Repeatedly, evidence shows that active patients are more likely to:
- Maintain chronic disease well (e.g., diabetes, hypertension)
- Adhere to medication and treatment
- Change behavior to healthier lifestyles (e.g., nutrition, exercise, smoking cessation)
- Use regular screening and follow-up
2. Reduce Healthcare Costs
Reducing hospital readmission, ED visits, and unnecessary testing, patient activation will lower:
- Insurance reimbursement
- Hospital utilization
- Provider operating cost
3. Patient Satisfaction
Activated patients are: HEARD, valued, respected
- Responsible for their medical care
- Trust their healthcare providers and system
4. Shared Accountability
An activated, informed patient owns their care, which:
- Facilitates preventive care
- Assures better compliance
- Provides communication and transparency, healthier, happier, more compliant active patients — win-win for all.
10 Evidence-Based Patient Engagement Strategies To Improve Patient Activation In Healthcare
Let’s examine 10 evidence-based and proven patient engagement strategies to be active participants in care.
1. Provide Telehealth Visits
Telehealth isn’t just a COVID-era thing we all forgot about. It’s stuck around because it works. People can talk to their doctors without leaving the couch—or fighting traffic or sitting in a waiting room full of coughs and magazines from 2012. For anyone juggling work, kids, or mobility issues, that’s huge.
- Older adults and people with disabilities
- Residents of geographically isolated or rural communities
- People who have competing work schedules, child care, or transportation needs
Best practices:
- Provide simple-to-use video conferencing equipment
- Provide pre-visit and visit technical assistance
- Become HIPAA-compliant and encrypt the data
- Provide online scheduling, rescheduling, or cancellation
Effect: Patients enjoy the convenience, quickness, and simplicity of telehealth, so they are willing to compromise by doing more and following up more.
2. Send Periodic Emails With Relevant Health Information
You know what still works? Email. Simple, right? Just sending patients helpful stuff—reminders, tips, updates—between visits. It doesn’t have to be fancy. But it should feel like it’s actually for them. Use it for:
- Provide seasonal or age-related preventive health tips
- Remind for upcoming tests or vaccinations
- Inform them of disease management
- Send newsletters on well-being, nutrition advice, or mental wellness resources
Personalization is the key: Personalize content according to patient demographics, condition history, and interests. For instance, send:
- Pregnancy tips for pregnant women
- Type 2 diabetic diet tips for type 2 patients
- Mental wellness resources for antidepressant patients
Impact: Builds trust by periodically checking in on the patient, reminding your company about them, and building health literacy.
3. Utilize Apps For Medication Reminder
Getting people to actually take their meds… oof, it’s a struggle. But here’s where tech is a lifesaver.
Apps that ping patients—“Time for your pill!”—make a huge difference. Some studies even show adherence jumps by almost 70%. Patients will be vulnerable to:
- Skipped doses
- Difficulty in understanding instructions
- Discontinuing the drug too early if they experience improvement. Smartphone reminder apps address the issue with reminders on time, dose reminders, refill reminders, and progress tracking. They even offer caregiver monitoring in some cases.
Apps to use:
- Medisafe: Personal reminders and drug interaction
- MyTherapy: Monitor medication, mood, and vitals
- Pill Reminder by MedsAlarm: Easy to use for geriatric patients
Effect: Patient reminders on time improve patient compliance, and thus result in better outcomes and reduced complications.
4. Make Online Portals More Accessible
Patients want to do stuff online: book visits, check test results, peek at records. No calling. No waiting on hold.
Stats say over 75% of people already book their appointments online. If your system’s clunky or not mobile-friendly? Yeah, they’ll bounce. Enhance usability by:
- Providing multilingual support
- Providing cross-platform compatibility
- Writable and EMR-friendly
- Providing access to test results, refill requests, billing reports, and appointment scheduling
Tip: Provide chatbots or live chat for 24/7 support.
Impact: As long as patients are able to maintain control of their health in a convenient place — without much hassle — they will be more likely to remain active and current.
5. Implement A Concierge Medicine Model
Concierge medicine is a model of health plan for employer-sponsored plans that delivers high-quality and customized access to care to members.
The concierge primary care model often reduces administrative burdens and allows for more meaningful interactions between doctors and patients.
Though it may be too costly for others, it’s a great option for:
- Affluent patients
- Patients with complex chronic conditions are to be treated by them
- Those who are seeking wellness or holistic-patient-centered care
Membership is paid for:
- Physicians being available 24/7
- More time for appointments
- Coordination of preventive visits
- Whole health check-ups
Impact: Patients are heard and respected — resulting in high engagement, increased satisfaction, and loyalty.
6. Make Use Of Health Devices
Easy-to-use medical devices have enabled real-time self-monitoring. Involve patients in employing:
- Wearable fitness trackers (Fitbit, Apple Watch) for heart rate, steps, sleep
- Smart scales and blood pressure monitors
- Continuous glucose monitoring sensors (CGMs)
- Smart inhalers for patients with asthma. Go one step ahead by inputting their data into your EHR system to adjust treatment and analyze trends.
Impact: Patients are more engaged towards action and outcome and care, infusing participation and accountability into care planning.
7. Individualize Care Planning
Universal standards are history. Patients expect today’s care to be tailored to their biology, health, lifestyle, and tastes. Individualized care planning can include:
- Spiritual nutrition instruction or allergy instruction
- Customized exercise programs based on physical impairment and/or disease
- Behaviorally based functional timelines
- Mental health care and stress management abilities
Engage the patient at every turn: Involve the patient as an active participant to increase their buy-in and ownership.
Influence: The patient is more likely to follow through with a plan if he/she has some stake in its development — particularly if it can be connected to daily life and belief system.
8. Use Multiple Formats For Patient Education
Better education eliminates fear, increases confidence among patients, and improves decision-making. All patients learn, but at his/her own rate. Offer:
- Videos of procedures or surgeries
- Infographic or graphic for drug or disease management
- Webinars or online workshops on chronic disease
- Printouts for elderly or non-Internet users
- Use plain language, reduce jargon, and offer graphics as necessary. Also, translate documents into other languages to accommodate multicultural communities.
Effect: Empowered patients who have mastery over their circumstances and decisions are more self-reliant, more self-reflective, and more likely to take care of themselves.
9. Seek Feedback And Respond To It
Working with each other fosters trust. Use patient feedback to inform your services, processes, and communications. Strategies include:
- Patient satisfaction surveys on visiting
- Asking for reviews online
- Anonymous suggestion boxes
- Text reminders asking for their experience
Above all: Follow through on feedback. From wait room notices to evening hours, demonstrating that patients are heard makes them invested and loyal.
Outcome: Heard patients become loyal, engaged, and willing to refer your practice.
10. Train Employees In Empathy And Communication
Employees, not only physicians, impact patient experience. Patience, communication, and empathy need to take a priority place in training. Include:
- Role-playing of tough conversations
- Cultural sensitivity training
- Delay, diagnosis, or billing update scripts. Train front-desk receptionists to welcome patients warmly, recognize repeat customers, and resolve problems empathetically.
Impact: Patient appreciation, smile and look, and patient-friendly description can be magic in letting patients feel heard, respected, and engaged.
Empowerment Is The Future Of Healthcare
In a time of digital revolution and precision medicine, patient engagement is not an option — it’s a requirement.
By harnessing technology, compassion, personalization, and education, healthcare organizations can create more positive, activated, and empowered patient relationships.
As patients are informed, educated, and empowered, the overall healthcare experience is enhanced — from improved clinical outcomes to lower costs and greater satisfaction.
Whether you’re a small clinic or a large hospital system, investing in patient engagement strategies is not just good medicine — it’s good business.
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