Next-gen patient engagement: Applied intelligence and omni-channel messaging

Patient engagement and user experience is a goal high on the priority list for many hospitals and health systems that wish to enhance communication with consumers, better include patients in their care decisions and ultimately improve outcomes. Information technology can help caregivers on the front lines of healthcare better engage people to nail down these ambitions. And the next generation of patient engagement IT will offer better and new tools and approaches to help caregivers and others aim high and hit the mark. Better bidirectional messaging with members of a patient's care team is a next-generation feature of patient engagement technology, said Brian Eastwood, an analyst at Chilmark Research, a healthcare IT consulting firm. "Such communication – in a patient's preferred modality, whether via text message or within an engagement app itself – addresses the lag time between responses that is common with e-mail or phone communication," Eastwood said.