We have worked with a wide variety of clients who’ve each approached the patient journey differently. Without a doubt, we’ve learned that those who build a consistent program around delivering a high-quality patient journey see other benefits to their business as well, through higher profit margins, higher patient satisfaction scores, and better patient outcomes. This overall strategy requires not only a thoughtful use of technology like a mHealth app, but a well-designed internal workflow built for operational accountability, from the receptionist to the physician to the billing office. We’ve outlined some items to think about as you consider updating your workflows (and corresponding technology) to protect the patient experience.
We recommend you take a look at your overall process, both from a patient’s perspective and an employee’s, in order to identify places in your organization where there are consistent, manual, routine behaviors because these are good areas of opportunity to leverage mhealth technology for automation. Automation can help improve the patient journey, but thoughtful use of mhealth technology can also bring a variety of benefits to your patients as it relates to education, engagement, prevention and procedural outcomes. For your staff, automation and other technology can help with time savings and/or reduction in error, freeing them up to focus on your patients, leading to an overall improved experience for everyone. Regardless of your decision to use out of the box software or a custom software solution, evaluating where mhealth technology can have an impact in your organization will help set your patients and employees up for success.