Six ways health IT can support patient engagement in your clinically integrated network

Aging and population expansion are expected to account for 81 percent of the growth in healthcare demand between 2010 and 2020¹. Add to that the fact that older patients typically have more chronic conditions, and you can see why there are growing concerns about the increasing cost of delivering healthcare.

At a time when revenues often depend on how fast and effectively organizations can identify and engage at-risk patients, it may be more important than ever for clinically integrated networks (CINs) to focus on closing gaps in care and preventing disease progression. That’s where health IT solutions can make a difference.

To support your patient engagement goals, your CIN may be able to use advanced technology to:

1. Categorize your patient population by health risk to generate risk profiles that can alert care managers to the need for care.
2. Automate outreach tailored to an individual’s health needs. Such messages are proven to increase the percentage of people who seek preventive or chronic care².
3. Deliver online educational materials, including campaigns designed for people in different disease and comorbidity groups to help encourage compliance with care plans.
4. Incorporate data from pre-visit questionnaires and health risk assessment surveys to understand attitudes that typically don’t come to light during office visits.
5. Apply artificial intelligence that can study the results of communication efforts with similar patients to help identify the most effective approach and content for each patient.
6. Leverage insights from sociodemographic data to segment patients based on factors such as where they live, ethnicity, educational level and attitudes toward their health.

1. EMC Digital Universe and IDC. “The Digital Universe Driving Data Growth in Healthcare,” 2014. Accessed at https://www.emc.com/analyst-report/digital-universe-healthcare-vertical-report-ar.pdf.
2. Ashok Rai, Paul Prichard, Richard Hodach and Ted Courtemanche, “Using Physician-Led Automated Communications to Improve Patient Health,” Journal of Population Health Management, Vol. 14, 00, 2011. doi:10.1089/pop.2010.0033.