COVID-19 made patient engagement a much larger priority for many healthcare providers. Maybe that’s what’s gotten you interested in this topic.
If so, you probably have a lot of questions about the patient engagement solutions market.
What products does it consist of? Why do healthcare clinics use them? And just how big is the market, anyway?
We put together this article to answer those questions for you. Keep reading to learn more.
What are patient engagement solutions?
A patient engagement solution is any tool that a healthcare clinic uses to prompt patients to become more active participants in their health plans.
Engaging your patients comes with loads of benefits. So when healthcare companies invest in technology that makes it easier for them to do that, they typically see a positive return on that investment.
How big is the patient engagement solutions market?
As of 2020, the patient engagement solutions market had a valuation of $4.41 billion.
That’s already a sizable figure. But analysts predict that the market should reach around $5 billion by the end of 2021 and experience roughly 16.6% annual growth from now until 2028.
This growth stems from increasing consumer demand for digital healthcare products and a growing recognition of their value from providers.
Why invest in patient engagement products?
If you’re thinking of investing in patient engagement products, there are several good reasons to do so. Here’s a look at the most important benefits of entering into this market.
Improve patients’ health outcomes
Engaged patients are more active participants in their health plans.
They tend to follow the advice that they get from their physicians and will often track their progress towards important health goals from home.
That’s why research shows that engaged patients typically have better health outcomes than non-engaged ones. So making a strategic investment in patient engagement technology could help you deliver more impactful care to your patients.
Increase loyalty
Additionally, engaged patients tend to be more loyal than their non-engaged counterparts. This makes sense. When someone engages with their healthcare, they usually make more of an effort to get to the doctor’s office and form relationships with their physicians.
Of course, a patient is also more likely to be loyal to your practice if you provide them with their desired healthcare outcome. And investing in patient engagement technology could help you do that.
Bring in more revenue
Ultimately, boosting your patient engagement figures should also help you bring in more revenue.
When your patients are more engaged, they both visit your practice more often and stay loyal to it for longer. That means investing in patient engagement technology should help you hang onto more of the new business that you get.
The hidden costs of ignoring patient engagement
Patient engagement solutions can be costly. That could make some clinics hesitant to invest in them. But these healthcare providers may actually end up costing themselves more in the long run by ignoring patient engagement technologies.
Healthcare is a competitive industry. Patients have a choice over their providers and will select the ones that give them the best experience and outcomes.
That means if your competition starts investing in patient engagement tools and you don’t, you could start losing patients to them.
So although you will have to spend some money upfront to get started with patient engagement technology, doing so could help you avoid significant downside in the future.
Leveraging patient engagement solutions to improve your clinic
Now that we know both how big the patient engagement solutions market is and why it’s that big, let’s look at some of the ways that you can leverage these tools to help your clinic.
Add digital signage to your clinic
One of the most effective ways to start improving patient engagement at your clinic is to invest in digital signage.
That’s because digital signage empowers you to accomplish several patient engagement tasks with a single technology.
For example, you can do each of the following things with digital signage:
- Share important health information
- Direct patients to health resources
- Advertise your digital offerings
- Tell patients about the importance of being engaged
- Minimize barriers to care
Check out this article to learn more about how digital signage helps healthcare clinics.
Create a patient portal
Another great way to boost your engagement metrics is to add a patient portal to your website. These enable your patients to interact with their healthcare team from the comfort of home.
Patient portals make it much easier for patients to stay engaged with their healthcare plans because they provide a straightforward way for them to communicate questions and concerns with their physicians.
Here are some of the features that you may want to prioritize while building out your patient portal:
- Test results
- Medical records
- Insurance management
- Medication plans
- Personalized patient data
Invest in telehealth
Telehealth has grown quite a bit since COVID-19. Now, many patients are starting to expect it from their healthcare providers.
So if you don’t already have a telehealth service set up, now could be the perfect time to get started with one. Doing so should help to boost your patient engagement numbers by giving them the ability to visit with a physician without having to leave the comfort of home.
Offer remote patient monitoring integrations
Another major trend in patient engagement is the rise of individual health monitoring devices, such as the FitBit and Apple Watch. If you’re looking to engage your patients more, one idea is to start offering integrations for these with your healthcare plans.
For example, you could add FitBit integration to your clinic’s mobile app. That way, a patient can automatically share their health information with their doctor once they sync their app with their wearable device.
This could help your team deliver better health outcomes to its patients as well by giving them access to more up-to-date information about their health.
Put out an educational newsletter
Newsletters are a great way to share the latest health information with your patients. Simply providing them with this information could help to make them more engaged with their overall health.
But newsletters are also a good way to keep your clinic at the top of a patient’s mind. If someone reads your newsletter every week, they’re much likelier to think of your clinic the next time that they need medical attention.
Build a mobile app
Nowadays, so much of what we do happens on our smartphones.
That’s why it’s important to ensure that your patients can easily interact with your clinic while they’re on their phones. And the most effective way to do that is by creating a mobile app.
Your mobile app is a great place to share important health updates with your audience.
You can also build out features that make it easier for patients to work on their health. For example, you could add an eating journal to the app for patients who need to lose weight.
As you’re designing the app, make sure you survey your patients to see what features they would find useful. That way, you make sure that you’re spending your limited resources building out the features that will truly deliver the most value to your target audience.
Sign up for patient engagement software
It could also be a good move to set up software at your clinic that’s specifically devoted to the task of patient engagement.
This type of software usually helps you accomplish the following patient engagement tasks:
- Sending out appointment reminders
- Secure messaging
- Patient scheduling and registration
- Online and mobile bill payments
- Marketing
Just make sure that you do some research before signing up for one of these services. There are lots of options out there and you’ll want to consider at least all of the major ones before making a financial commitment.
UPshow helps healthcare clinics engage patients
The patient engagement solutions market is big and getting bigger. If you want to start taking advantage of these services, then one of the most cost-effective ways to do so is by adding digital signage to your practice.
UPshow makes that easier for you to do with our digital signage software. It makes it incredibly easy to:
- Create customized displays to advertise your services
- Allow patients to check themselves into their appointments
- Let patients sign-up for your digital health services
- Keep patients entertained with waiting room TV
- And so much more
But don’t just take our word for it. You can experience the UPshow difference for yourself by signing up for a free custom demo of our software today.
