Much room for improvement with patient engagement

Healthcare organizations are still doing the bare minimum when it comes to digital, between-visit or post-discharge interactions with patients, according to a report from Chilmark Research.

Broader market dynamics, such as consumer advances in mobile and cloud technologies, federal incentives like the Meaningful Use program, shift to value-based reimbursement, and greater consumerization of care delivery through retail clinics and pricing transparency, would suggest greater patient engagement but only the leading, most innovative organizations are making it a focus. 

The basic patient portal, often tethered to an EHR, still serves as the foundation for a majority of digital patient interactions, according to the report. Chilmark found a mixed market for new approaches to clinical patient engagement, where some provider organizations have yet to adopt even these basic patient portals, while others have begun piloting advanced “smart” tools. Even the more innovative organizations are putting patient engagement behind efforts such as integrating clinical networks, building analytics capabilities, risk-based contracting and population health management.

Aside from organizational challenges, the report says that progress on patient engagement offerings from vendors is mixed. Chilmark profiled 14 vendors for the report and found that most struggle with creating a longitudinal record using a combination of external clinical and patient-generated data. Most deployed patient portals today have limited or no mobile-friendly patient tools (beyond mobile-optimized browsers) or advanced care planning applications.

"The majority of today's market is operating at a kind of standoff: provider organizations are relying on their existing vendors to lead the way on new engagement tools, while those companies have been reactive, not proactive, with their customers' engagement needs," said Naveen Rao, author of the report, in a press statement.

"The more innovative products-–the mobile apps, cloud-based care plans, remote-monitoring plays-–are coming from outside traditional legacy vendors' purview. While some of the bigger vendors are showing signs of updating their products, we expect to see most legacy vendors follow a buy rather than build strategy to address market needs more rapidly."

"While the patient portal reigns as the default engagement platform, we are seeing a blossoming industry full of novel techniques, innovative technologies and even some fresh ideas for how to keep patients involved in their care," writes Rao in the report.

"These typically involve a far greater degree of collaboration between clinicians and patients, and often result in the production of patient-generated health data that can serve as a valuable piece of patients' overall longitudinal record," he adds. A complete record, with patients' data stored alongside clinical notes, lab values and so forth is able to serve as both a "single source of truth" on a patient across multiple care settings, as well as a medical "home base for their ongoing care journey."

Nonetheless, while these newer approaches "are being piloted in dozens of pockets around the country," Rao writes, "entering 2015, more comprehensive deployments remain elusive."

Access the report.