mHealth Tools Let You Measure Post-Operative Patient Success By the Numbers

How do you define success in today’s evolving healthcare industry? How can you guarantee optimal results for each patient while keeping YOUR focus on your bottom line? Mobile health (mHealth) tools allow you to focus on providing state-of-the-art healthcare, reducing costs, and improving patient outcome success and allow each individual patient to be the expert on his or her own recovery. This improvement in communication is never more critical than during post-operative recovery when your patient’s engagement determines the success of a procedure.

mHealth engages patients through mobile apps, patient portals, and through interactive devices that track data and communicate results in real time. This improvement in the process allows you, the healthcare provider, to recognize and address complications in real time resulting in a significant reduction in readmission rates and increase in patient success. You can also use real time communication to analyze your own practices by noting trends in data and measuring outcomes.

“The fourth annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) mobile survey, which included more than 200 healthcare provider employees, revealed that 73 percent of respondents believe the use of app-enabled patient portals has been the most effective tool in patient engagement to date.” – HIMSS Survey

OVERCOMING THE COMMUNICATION BARRIER BETWEEN PATIENT AND DOCTOR IS THE SINGLE GREATEST ADVANCEMENT IN TODAY’S HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY.

“So what does patient engagement mean? It means that patients are motivated in their health and have the tools to improve their well-being. It means that patients comply with their provider’s care plan, and the provider knows about it. It means that patients are active players in their health, versus passive recipients of treatment.” – Puget Sound Business Journal

BENEFITS OF INCORPORATING mHEALTH TOOLS INTO YOUR POST-OPERATIVE PROCEDURES

1. Set expectations regarding recovery, pain management, and rehabilitation.
2. Communicate the ways your patient can improve recovery.
3. Set a timetable for results and provide automated appointment reminders and more.
4. Provide benchmarks along the recovery process and allow your patient to track success.
5. Provide patients a portal for accessing answers to questions without interrupting clinicians.
6. Manage the use and renewal of prescription medication.
7. Receive regular updates from each patient without scheduling in-office visits.
8. Know the patient’s recovery progress in real time with real data and modify instructions accordingly without requiring in-office visits.
9. Release patients for activity without requiring in-office visits.
10. ELIMINATE COSTLY READMISSION RATES AS PATIENTS SUCCESSFULLY RECOVER FROM SURGERY.

The bottom line for providers who incorporate mHealth tools into regular practice is a savings in time and money as technology increases efficiency in the communication process. The Internet of Things allows your patient to accurately and efficiently communicate the state of recovery through mobile tracking devices that measure the same benchmarks that once required costly in-office visits. Patient engagement, patient satisfaction, and recovery success all benefit from trends in mHealth that meet patients where they are through the power of technology they already use, including:

Patient Portals        Interactive Mobile Apps      Wearable Devices
Blue-tooth Connected Devices

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO INCREASE POST-OPERATIVE RECOVERY SUCCESS?

If you’re not engaging patients through mHealth tools, you’re not doing everything you can…and your practice is paying a hefty price.

For more information on improving post-operative outcomes and saving your practice time and money, visit http://www.xxxxx.com. Join the conversation by following us on social media or using the hashtag #mHealth, #digitalhealth, or #telehealth. Tell us how #wearables have improved YOUR #patientengagement.