Patient engagement software is a beneficial tool you can integrate into the current system of your health care facility. It’s useful not only for you as a medical practitioner but for your patients as well. With the help of patient engagement software, you can maintain patient satisfaction and loyalty.
Patient engagement software typically works in harmony with automatic appointment prompts. The latter is an equally handy tool for a medical practitioner to have.
In this article, you’ll find the benefits of remaining connected with your patients through patient engagement software. Most importantly, you’ll learn how to choose the right patient engagement software provider.
What Is Patient Engagement Software?
The market for patient engagement software has grown recently. Despite that, many medical professionals remain unaware of this new technology. Most physicians in the field don’t even know how patient engagement software can fit into the system they’ve used for years without a problem.
To put it simply, you can interact with your patients by using patient engagement software. It allows you to manage your relationship with your patient while giving them additional sources of information.
A patient engagement software vendor is not the same as a patient portal software provider. The latter is often too simplistic. Most portal providers’ primary function is to keep messages secure and view or download patient files. On the other hand, a patient engagement software vendor provides more advanced features than most portal providers.
With that said, here are some other features of patient engagement software:
1. Employee Adoption
Whatever software you plan to integrate into your system should be accepted by your employees. The great thing about patient engagement platforms is that they’re easy to like and get used to, so you and your employees will not have a hard time adapting to this technology.
2. Connectivity With Other Vendors
When choosing a platform, pick something that’s compatible with other types of software you use in your facility. For example, if you have billing software, it would be good if you can combine some of its features with the patient engagement software you opt for. Doing so will allow for greater efficiency, especially since you can’t have software that can do it all. Similarly, the patient engagement software should be able to integrate some apps to make your life easier.
3. Maintain The Portal
Getting patient engagement software doesn’t mean you’ll have to get rid of your patient portal. They can work side by side, and the software can always take your patients back to the portal.
4. Combines Your EMR
All your electronic medical records (EMR) would seamlessly connect with your patient engagement platform. This means you can now integrate your referral calls into your patient’s records. You and your team will also be able to receive information coming from your patient’s EMR through the platform.
5. Supports Multiple Languages
If you have patients who speak languages other than English, then you will find a patient engagement platform incredibly helpful. The technology allows you to communicate with your patients even if you don’t share the same language. That way, you can better assist your current patients and accommodate new ones without worrying about language barriers.
6. Analyzes Tone
Patient engagement platforms are also smart enough to determine how a patient’s response correlates to their feelings. The software can analyze the tone of your patient’s statements. Because of that, you can figure out how to solve the issue before your patient gets frustrated.
7. Keyword And Chatbot Features
Patient engagement software offers automated responses for those types of interaction that don’t require staff input. You can assign automated answers to usual questions such as those regarding your location and office hours. Through the software, you can also automate responses with simple keyword triggers. With such features, you can encourage engagement with your potential patients 24/7.
8. Offers Synchronous Communication With The Patient
Most importantly, interactive is the primary adjective that can be used to describe patient engagement software. It offers a deeper connection with young and old patients alike with its bidirectional communication feature. This means your patients can start a conversation with you or respond to your messages quickly.
What To Look For In A Patient Engagement Software Provider
Now that you know how a patient engagement software can benefit your health care facility, the next step is to get one from a reputable provider. Here are some of the ways you can select the right patient engagement software vendor:
1. Providers Should Be Adept In Technology
Whichever vendor you’re going to choose, make sure that they’re well versed in technology. You have to pick one that understands the latest innovations and the psychology behind the technology they’re offering.
Patient engagement software involves remote patients. To manage a group of remote patients successfully will require a lot of knowledge and experience in the technology department. After all, this is about handling people and not just technology alone. For that reason, your provider should know what the technology does and what it takes to make it a successful piece of software.
2. Be Particular About The Software
There are many patient engagement software providers out there, so you’ll have to be picky if you want to find the most suitable one. When checking your options, look for a platform offering compassionate communication and factual and relevant information. Also, search for software that integrates seamlessly with your electronic health records (EHR) or EMR.
If what you go for doesn’t meet those criteria, then you likely won’t create a meaningful and deep connection with your patients. Instead, you might cause inconvenience to them.
3. Mode Of Communication
See if the provider offers text messaging, email, and other modes of communication. You should also find out if there are hidden charges for those if they’re available.
In ensuring that there’s more than one way to initiate a connection, you’ll enable your patients to pick their preferred mode of communication, which in turn would make them feel more comfortable. This is especially ideal for when you’re dealing with patients of all ages.
4. Extended Support And Care
Speaking of communication, you should do business with a vendor whom you can easily reach. Think about what’s going to happen if the software malfunctions, you run into a bug that alters the information, or the messaging feature suddenly goes down.
All of those situations can occur randomly, so you have to make sure that the vendor will be able to assist you in times of trouble. Preferably, you want a company you can quickly contact or one that offers live customer support. Before committing to a platform, you should be confident enough that the vendor will fix any technical issues that might pop up along the way.
5. Pick One That You And Your Patients Can Trust
Aside from having a good relationship with the vendor, it would be best to use software that lets you build trust with your patients.
Trust is crucial in any relationship, especially those in the health care system. Your patients give you private information believing that you’ll protect it no matter what. With patient engagement software, their information is no longer limited to you and your staff. Now, the vendors can also access that data.
This is why you need to work with a software vendor that you can trust and guarantees maximum data protection. Otherwise, you’ll also be compromising your patients’ trust in you. They’ll undoubtedly remember any form or instance of a data breach, so reliability and data security should be part of your standards when choosing a patient engagement software vendor.
6. Measurable And Unified Solution
As time passes by, you’ll become busier than you are now, and your practice will grow. This is why your patient engagement software should be future-proof.
The vendor must be flexible enough to cater to your evolving needs. What’s more, the vendor should be aware of any technological changes in order to improve their software. You should also ensure that the vendor will implement regular software updates.
7. Reputation Of The Vendor
A good way to check a vendor’s reputation is to take a look at other’s experiences with them. Ask fellow physicians using the software how reliable the platform is and whether they’ve encountered any problems or issues with it. This way, you’ll get a grasp of the software’s capability even before purchasing it. You’ll know what to expect from the vendor’s services as well.
8. Check The Cloud Features
Although cloud features may seem like a win at first because of the convenience they provide, not all software with cloud services are made the same. While it’s true that it gives you access to more processing power and turnkey storage, you have to make sure that your vendor uses a cloud service that can handle the software properly.
Some services will try to lock you in the system should you switch to a different platform. This means you’ll have a hard time moving your data. You have to be aware of such schemes before deciding to commit to a patient engagement software vendor. Thus, ask whether your vendor will allow you to transfer your data or information to another cloud system if you decide to go for another vendor in the future.
Conclusion
While it’s true that patient engagement software can be beneficial, getting it from an unreputable vendor won’t do you any good. Thus, it’s incredibly important to find the right vendor. Follow the tips mentioned above and always do your research before deciding to do business with a patient engagement software vendor.