How Hospitals can maintain patient engagement constantly in 2021?

Patient engagement is a necessary element in the hospitals. It’s all about providing care when they come to the hospital. Are you thinking the same as me? If the answer is Yes, you are on wrong track and need to change the way you think. In the past, most of the hospitals used to concentrate only on the care they provide to patients and only a few understood the importance of patient engagement.

But in the current scenario of 2021, patient engagement became a key element. Patients are looking for more personalized care, engagement, and better relation with the hospital from the start of their journey. If not they are even willing to go to another hospital. So most of the hospitals are taking steps to maximize patient engagement before a person is turning to another hospital.

But why Patient Engagement is important?

1. Patient retention:

The days have changed. This pandemic added even more importance to patient engagement. Hospitals can’t just provide care to patients and expect them to come back. Hospitals must keep in mind that patients as healthcare consumers who have a lot of choices. Patient engagement starts even better the patient comes to the hospital. It starts with a patient searching for a hospital.

Hospitals should take care of their online presence and provide relevant information regarding appointment timings, Doctor’s information, and other necessary information. They should maintain better communication with patients throughout their journey of appointment, admission, discharge, follow-up, and beyond. This sets a positive experience in the patient’s minds and they will become loyal to the hospital and never leave no matter what.                                                                           

2. Good word of mouth:

Word of mouth has great power over any other marketing strategy. When one of our closest people tells us to go to a place we just go there even without a second thought. This is applicable even in the healthcare industry. If a patient has great experience in the hospital they are high chances that they will share their stories with their near ones and even on social media. Good feedback will have a thousand times better impact than any paid ad. And you don’t need to spend much amount on paid ads. So giving a positive experience for patients throughout their journey is very important for good word of mouth.

3. Finacial availability:

If patients gain positive experience throughout their journey they start to trust the hospital. In turn, they become loyal and potential customers. These people never leave your hospital for a lifetime. This is very important for the Financial Viability of the hospital in long term. The money a hospital need to spend to get new patients is much more than they need to spend to get current patients.  

How to maintain patient engagement:

In the current scenario, it became difficult to maintain good communication between patients, families, and healthcare providers. Here are few ways to maintain good patient engagement

• By maintaining better internal communication within the staff. Internal communication is a very important component that is connected to many other aspects such as engaged staff, high performance of the hospital, and patient satisfaction. So by maintaining better internal communication, the staff will know all the needed details, which is important for better patient engagement.
• Hospitals should not just focus on patients during their physical stay in the hospital they should maintain relations even after the patient leaves by sending them information regarding their follow-up, doctor timings, etc.  Hospitals can even send personalized texts on special occasions, birthdays and can make them feel special.
• Hospitals should provide access to health records. This way patients can understand their health status and ask questions and they feel connected. Patient participation is important for better health outcomes.
• Hospitals can take feedback from patients’ family members and relatives regarding their stay and can make necessary improvements. They can even conduct some surveys.
• Technology has improved a lot and there is almost nothing that we solve with this. There are many patient satisfaction tools available and HIMS software hospitals can use.

CONCLUSION:

So by now you could have understood why patient engagement is important and how to maintain it.

Check out our Drucare HIMS software. With our software Hospitals can maintain better patient engagement. We also have an Appointment module through which patients can book appointment slots online at their convenience. We have many other modules which should be never missed. Visit www.dru.care for more information and can book a demo.