How to Improve Care Quality with RPM And Patient Engagement

Patient engagement is an extremely important part of the overall treatment process. In fact, research in recent years has discovered that it improves the clinical outcomes for many patients. But what is patient engagement in healthcare?   

Simply put, patient engagement is an idea in which the patients are well-informed about their condition, its cure, treatments, and recovery. This enables them to participate in their care better and be involved in all the decision-making. Patient engagement in healthcare is especially important for people suffering from chronic conditions and those recovering from extensive surgeries or grievous diseases.  

Remote patient monitoring (RPM) is the use of digital and communication mediums to observe patients outside the usual clinical settings. RPM apps enable doctors to remotely monitor their patient’s vitals and offer the appropriate diagnosis and treatments. Providers didn’t take long to notice the benefits of combining RPM and patient engagement.

Harnessing the Benefits of RPM and Patient Engagement 

Using telehealth solutions makes it simple to facilitate doctor-patient engagement remotely without in-person visits. This would require a means of connectivity between doctors and patients. That is where custom healthcare software solutions for RPM and patient engagement systems come into play.   

Patient engagement involves all those things that enable patients to take better care of themselves. Software solutions for this involve everything from appointment and medication reminders to chatbots and messengers to enable patients and doctors to stay in touch. Real care begins after the patient has left the clinic following the consultation. From then onwards, it is up to the patients to take their medications, lead a healthy lifestyle, be regular for their check-ups, and so forth. Patient engagement solutions can help them do all of this and more.  

Customized software that blends RPM and patient engagement helps to bolster doctor-patient rapport with minimum face-to-face encounters. This helps patients reap the benefits of remote health monitoring technologies and takes a more active role in their care. Whenever patients have any queries about any part of their treatment, they connect with their doctors quickly and get help instead of booking appointments and waiting.  

The Role of Patient Engagement in Chronic Care 

Chronic diseases last for a year or more and generally require extensive treatment. Many of them even limit the patient’s activities if left untreated. The most common examples of chronic conditions include cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. They cannot be cured but only managed. Taking medications is barely sufficient to prevent the worsening of every chronic disease.   

This is where an active doctor-patient engagement can help. After patients leave a clinic, they would begin taking their medications and need to come in for follow-ups. But it is common for them to have queries about their condition, treatment, prescriptions, and lifestyle. They would also need to stick to a specific diet and avoid fast food, smoking, and alcohol. Furthermore, patients with chronic conditions would also need to be physically active, exercise, and look after their mental health. Mere medications cannot do enough to help manage chronic diseases. This is where remote patient monitoring (RPM) and engagement can make a difference. 

Patients using RPM platforms would record their vitals regularly and share them with their providers. The providers will adjust their treatments and instruct their patients accordingly based on their readings. During this chronic care management program, patients can use advanced telehealth solutions to stay in touch with their doctors and ask them for any clarifications. The doctors can pull up their patient vitals received over the remote patient monitoring software, assess the situation and offer any help necessary.   

A combination of solutions for telehealth and patient engagement leads to a favorable exchange between doctors and patients. Integrated healthcare solutions at hospitals and clinics result in seamless electronic data exchange between RPM and patient engagement solutions. Using this, doctors and their patients can stay connected better and keep abreast of any progress in the treatment. As a result, a patient using this blend of RPM and patient engagement will be better positioned to take care of themself.   

The United States is facing a major medical crisis regarding chronic diseases. The growing costs of care coupled with decreasing access are only making things worse. For this reason, being able to foster patient engagement remotely has been hailed as a feasible solution to the growing challenge of chronic diseases. It uses dedicated technologies to combine patient engagement with remote patient monitoring for positive clinical outcomes in the case of chronic diseases. 

Benefits of Integrating RPM and Patient Engagement For Mental Healthcare 

Mental health is a growing medical crisis in the country. Tens of millions of American adults have admitted to having suffered at least one mental health condition. The shortage of therapists only goes on worsen this problem. But telehealth solutions, coupled with RPM and patient engagement platforms integrated with practice management solutions, can boost the accessibility and impact of mental health therapy.    

Patients using RPM software can notify their therapists if they are experiencing violent episodes or mood swings. Moreover, they can also log their daily activities into the software to enable their therapists to track their routines. In addition, the patients can also use the engagement platform to talk to their doctors if they begin to experience bouts of extreme emotions. The best part is that they can do this without booking appointments and waiting. They can do it over a secure engagement solution in a matter of minutes and have their feelings resolved.  

A combination of telehealth platforms and patient engagement systems solves the dual problem of accessibility and outcomes. They enable patients to connect with their doctors and develop a rapport to obtain continuing support after a course of treatments.

Future Of Remote Patient Monitoring Systems 

The ideas surrounding telehealth took off during the Covid-19 pandemic when people couldn’t access medical care. It was when doctors, people, and policymakers identified the benefits of RPM. This led to an explosion of associated technology solutions to implement a remote patient monitoring program at hospitals, clinics and assisted living facilities.   

Right alongside RPM, the benefits of patient engagement too were being recognized by medical experts. It was a good addition to any ongoing treatment and an excellent boost for chronic care. So, it was only a short time before providers saw the twin benefits of RPM and engagement. As telehealth becomes a big part of the mainstream medical industry, it won’t take long for companies to roll out integrated platforms that use the best of RPM and patient engagement.

Conclusion 

The technology to foster doctor-patient engagement remotely can blend well with remote patient monitoring software solutions. They not only extend access to care for people in distant rural locations but also help to boost the impact of this care. It is like a single solution to solve two of the biggest challenges in healthcare in the United States.  

As more and more companies continue to develop telehealth solutions, the emergence of remote engagement is a likelihood that could define care.

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