Patient Empowerment through Custom EHR: Giving Patients Control of Their Health

Patient engagement and care delivery are correlated and we all know it right? That’s why even the doctors suggest other doctors to track your healthcare journey. As someone from the healthcare industry you cannot disagree right?

Being one of the core aspects of healthcare, the importance of patient engagement or patient activation cannot be simply ignored. And as the healthcare industry is undergoing a digital transformation, the need to keep patients engaged over digital tools is becoming even more evident.

Interestingly, while healthcare providers demanded separate systems for carrying out different activities, now wants to bring everything together in one. And they are not to be blamed, these separate systems are indeed efficient, but healthcare providers simply started asking ‘Why should I use separate systems for everything?’

In their quest to find the right connection between systems, they found EHRs at the epicenter and following the trends of digitally keeping the patients engaged, customized electronic health record development demand shot up.

And surprisingly, the inclusion of patient engagement tools in these customized systems showed impactful results. For instance, a large network study with over 6,300 practices and 50 million patients showed that higher digital engagement gave practices better financial performances and smoother operations.

Taking it to the new levels, many practices relied on remote care delivery models and particularly for chronic-disease populations, engagement through wearable devices increased patient participation by 20% leading to better monitoring and timely clinical interventions.

Another study also suggests an immense improvement in reducing hospital readmission rate. Yes, a systematic review of patient portals suggest 37% improvement in medication adherence, fewer office visits and less readmission rate.

Patient engagement empowers patients and in this digital age of healthcare delivery, you need patient empowerment through custom EHR, because with a patient portal you actually give your patients the power to take control of their health.

On that note, in this blog let’s see how patient empowerment in healthcare can be done through custom EHR and how it can transform your practice, while preparing it for the near future.

Empowering Patients through Personalized Access

Electronic health records are nothing but a comprehensive and electronic version of your entire health history. Being a healthcare provider you must know this, and the information it contains. Moreover, since it is connected with desperate healthcare systems such as test labs, pharmacies, you don’t have to worry about manually updating these changes.

Now, in a custom EHR software, you give the patients direct access to their health records, where they can easily access their medical history, test results and treatment plans. They also get the liberty to directly access everything they require through the patient portal, which makes the navigation fairly easy.

Along with that, the medical terminology is quite difficult to understand to someone from a non-medical field. The custom EMR software provides a solution to that as well, by customizing the interfaces with visuals and summaries that help the patient understand the reading in a better way.

Last but not least, there is always something that medical professionals might miss, but when patients take control of their health, they fill in their own information such as allergies, medications, etc. This not only improved their engagement in the care journey but also improved accuracy and control in providing holistic care and all this is only possible if you have a patient-centered EHR.

Now, imagine your system having end-to-end visibility and giving your patients access to this data, can make them more inclined to their health. This empowers patients to take back control of their health and engage effectively to improve their care journey and work to get the desired outcomes.

Fostering Patient Engagement & Self-Management Through Integrated Data

When we talk about patient engagement, it literally means their proactive involvement in decision making and taking steps to manage their health by themselves. While there are several ways in which it can be done, giving them proof will only give them more encouragement.

By integrating your custom EHR software with wearable devices and health apps, patients can actively track their health metrics. You can directly or indirectly instill patient engagement features in your software. This provides them enough details to know what changes are needed to be brought in their lifestyle that would help them in making their health better.

Furthermore, to simplify their understanding process, the integrated data can be visualized and analyzed within the custom EHR software itself. This would further empower the patients to monitor their progress and make informed decisions about their health. For instance, if a person with a heart condition sees a surge in cholesterol levels, then they can self-assess and make necessary changes in life to keep their cholesterol in control.

Along with that, your custom EHR software can also include educational resources which patients can use for educating themselves. In this way, with your custom EHR software you can promote self-care initiatives and take effective preventive measures.

Strengthening Patient-Provider Communication

We often hear that communication is the key, and in healthcare it is the key to not only deliver personalized care but also to proactively involve patients in their care journey. While instant communication can be established through traditional means, there are many obstacles that can disrupt this and the top one being inconvenience.

On the other hand, for empowering patients with custom EHR, you can integrate secure messaging features to allow real-time and seamless communication between patients and their care teams. For instance, with secure messaging functionality, communication can be effective in improving patient health outcomes, where, in case of any confusion or experiencing any issue, the patient can directly connect with the provider to address their concerns promptly and in real-time.

To further personalize the experience, the custom EHR can be used to streamline appointments and request medication refills. In this way, patients can improve their involvement in their care journey, be a part of taking informed care decisions and share their own needs and insights through which more inclusive and holistic care can be delivered.

If you read the paragraphs previous to this, you must have noticed that these workflows put the patient at the center and the care plan is planned on the basis of that. This somewhere empowers patients and by using custom EHR for patient engagement, you give a delightful digital healthcare experience.

Enhancing Security & Privacy

In this entire process, your custom EHR software will be majorly dealing with sensitive data which is very private in nature. While traditional, off-the-shelf software is secure, with custom healthcare software, you can further enhance the security and ensure privacy of patients.

For instance, with the custom EHR software you can prioritize robust security measures which are specific to your healthcare practice. This might include abiding by all the regulations and compliances like HIPAA, GDPR, state-specific practice laws that are specific to your practice.

In this way, you and your patients are more in control of the data that is being stored and managed in the custom EHR software. Along with that, patients also get the liberty to selectively share the information with the personnel they want to share that information with.

Patient empowerment is an integral part of care delivery and for getting the desired results, it has always had a huge role to play. However, with the arrival of technology many believe that the lines are blurred, well actually they make me clearer than ever. Wondering how? Well, read this guide of must-have and advanced features for patient empowerment and giving patients more control of their health.

Patient-Centric Features that Strengthen Empowerment

When healthcare professionals ask us, ‘How custom EHR improves patient engagement?’

Rather than telling them to instill so and so features, we suggest they give patient empowerment through custom EHR. Meaning giving them more control of their health and actually letting them know that they are in control.

When you understand the correlation of how empowerment improves engagement, you will automatically know the features and how to keep them engaged.

Here, you might ask, ‘How EHR gives patients control of their health?’ Well, now that you’ve asked the right question, here are some of the essential features and functionalities that you need to have in your custom EHR system:

• Mobile Access
• Personalized Patient Dashboard
• Telehealth Support
• Real-time Health Vital Updates

All the features that I have mentioned actually let the patients take control of their health and since they are leading their care journey from the front, providing personalized and accurate care to patients becomes much easier.

Frequently Asked Questions