By Jeremy Dixon, Vice President of Product Management, NextGen Healthcare
LinkedIn: Jeremy Dixon
LinkedIn: NextGen Healthcare
In a fast-paced healthcare environment, practices, providers, and patients need resources that help them easily stay informed and connected. This has led to the rise of mobile healthcare solutions, or platforms that provide remote access to healthcare information and the EHR.
While these mobile solutions provide simplified access to information for both patients and providers, patients specifically are able to better connect and engage with their healthcare journey thanks to mobile healthcare solutions.
What are mobile healthcare solutions?
Mobile healthcare solutions can be found both within a medical practice and well beyond the walls of a clinic. They encompass the technologies, platforms, and solutions that extend care beyond physical encounters and allow patients and providers to be remotely connected to healthcare resources.
For providers, these technologies may be integrated with, or independent from, their EHR. For example, some mobile EHRs offer a mobile hub that gives providers access to clinical tasks from a mobile application. Similarly, many mobile documentation solutions such as dictation software or AI-powered ambient listening technology may be integrated into the EHR to streamline charting and note-taking.
For patients, mobile healthcare solutions typically include platforms that offer them greater access to health information, care coordination, and medical providers. Patient portals, for instance, are platforms where patients can schedule appointments, message their doctors, manage their payments, and monitor their prescriptions or test results.
Remote patient monitoring
Remote patient monitoring, or RPM, is another mobile healthcare solution that connects patients and providers. It utilizes technologically advanced medical devices that allow providers to monitor their patients remotely. This ensures the continuity of care and helps care teams stay informed about patients’ real-time health status. RPM is especially beneficial for those with chronic and underlying conditions so their health can be continuously monitored to prevent escalation. RPM minimizes hospital visits and assists patients and providers in delivering ongoing care.
Mobile healthcare solutions: Benefits for patient care
Mobile healthcare solutions do more than improve efficiency. These platforms contribute to overall improvements in care delivery and patient experience. Mobile healthcare solutions improve patient care by increasing communication between patients and providers and fostering higher patient engagement throughout the care journey.
Communication
With the help of AI-powered documentation, providers can disconnect from desktop documentation and give patients the benefit of their full, undivided attention during the care visit. The strengthened communication that comes as a result of this helps build more meaningful connections between patients and their providers. Improved communication contributes to building trust, reliability, and an overall better experience for patients.
Mobile solutions, such as mobile EHR and patient portals, mean that patients have constant access to their care plans and providers. Simplified access encourages patients to become more involved in their own healthcare. Patients are more empowered to ask their providers questions via chat interfaces, and many practices also engage in text reminders about care visits, payments, or referrals.
Engagement
Open communication also fuels higher engagement. Mobile healthcare solutions such as self-scheduling, automated waitlists, and convenient mobile payment options enact patients to become active participants in their own care. When patients can easily schedule and pay via platforms that are at their fingertips, participating in the care journey becomes effortless. Many patient portals also offer spaces for patients to access resources about conditions and treatments.
These technologies also benefit patients by extending care beyond the visit to a practice. In the case of remote patient monitoring, patients can stay in touch and stay informed with their practice during their day-to-day lives. While still monitoring their health, patients simultaneously enjoy the freedom of everyday life and the continuity of care.
Above all, when patients can easily and regularly engage in their healthcare journey, it leads to a more well-rounded patient experience and better healthcare outcomes overall.
This article was originally published on the NextGen Healthcare blog and is republished here with permission.