Many healthcare organizations have to come to acquire multiple patient engagement solutions in an effort to increase valued customer interaction. In an attempt to satisfy patient needs without overly disrupting their IT “status quo”, organizations often times will buy multiple software solutions (e.g. patient scheduling software, event management, patient bill pay, etc.) rather than purchase one single patient engagement solution. This may offer short term appeasement to patient-related needs, but it leads to long term issues in the future. 

Honoring Patient Opt-In Preferences

When an organization chooses to use multiple patient engagement systems, it is very difficult to respect a patient’s communication preferences. There is no interface between a PMS, patient intake software, patient portal, etc. A patient may opt-in or opt-out of receiving messages from one system, and another system will not be able to honor that patient’s request. This not only presents the risk of serious legal ramifications but is also a disturbance and violation of trust for the customer. A single, all-in-one patient engagement solution gives an organization the ability to honor a patient’s preference when opting in or out of receiving specific messaging. 

Improved Patient Communication

Disparate systems from different vendors are unable to communicate with each other, causing patient communication to be very difficult. As an example, a patient might prefer to receive SMS notifications over email, but the systems are unaware. Or if a customer were to change their email, the account would have to be updated in all systems manually (assuming the systems are not interfaced). 

With a multiple patient engagement solutions, patients may receive too many unimportant or duplicate messages, or they may end up receiving messages at inopportune times. This can be irritating for patients, causing them to opt out of all messages as a whole. Practices will often limit their messaging to avoid this, thus self-regulating themselves and not utilizing patient messaging to its fullest potential. A single patient engagement solution ensures coordinated, direct, and effective patient communication.

Easy Interfacing

With a piecemealed patient engagement solution, you are granting more access than is needed for each individual system. Each system (patient bill pay software, patient education, appointment reminders, etc.) needs to be interfaced with the EMR, PM, or other source systems. Because of the larger number of interfaces an organization must manage, there is now greater potential for error. A single patient engagement solution allows for one simple interface to an organization’s source systems.

Cutting Costs

A piecemealed patient engagement solution is inherently more expensive than a single engagement solution. A single patient engagement solution may be more expensive at the initial purchase, but the cost of maintaining multiple systems from various vendors result in higher costs in the long run. Furthermore, with multiple patient engagement solutions, there is unrealized ROI resulting from having solutions that are not fully utilized. 

 Visit Bridge Patient Portal’s website to learn more about the ease and advantages of implementing a single patient engagement solution today.