The benchmark for maximizing healthcare performance continues to shift in response to the ever-changing needs of the healthcare industry and patient expectations. Over the last two decades, the industry standard has evolved beyond the traditional Triple Aim (enhancing the patient experience, improving population health, and lowering costs) to factor in the clinician’s well-being, which was shortly followed by the importance of health equity. Additionally, another approach is beginning to play a larger role throughout the industry: collaboration between patients and healthcare providers. The key concepts behind patient- and family-centered collaborative care can be applied in any healthcare setting to enhance patient safety, reduce the risk of medical error, improve processes, and create a stronger healthcare culture of communication.
Patients want personalized care that addresses their needs, factors in their unique circumstances, and provides better outcomes. To achieve this, healthcare decision-makers are increasingly pursuing emerging technologies and facility designs that better enable staff to focus their time on patient care, quality communication, and understanding each patient’s specific health goals. Digital transformation is making it easier for patients and caregivers to engage with each other and work together to achieve higher-quality outcomes.
Among the most common focuses in modern healthcare is the desire to improve health outcomes via patient engagement. Modern patient engagement systems pair clinician and patient knowledge and provide various opportunities for education, engagement, and connection for better outcomes. Purposefully designed patient engagement systems ensure that the patient and clinician can collaborate each step of the way. This means that the caregiver and patient have connected enough for the clinician to understand where the patient is coming from. Enhancing patient centricity, clinicians are then able to clearly and compassionately offer options and recommendations to support the person – providing high-quality care by collaborating with the patient, as opposed to just providing care to the patient.
Providing a 'care with' approach to benefit outcomes Impactful patient engagement is a 2-way street. Research has shown that the patient’s relationship with the clinician is a key ingredient in shared decision-making. Collaborative care where preferences are honored and understood by caregivers who are still encouraged to openly express their opinions, without pushing, is a crucial aspect of the “care with” approach. The integration of patient engagement technology in healthcare provides the ability to communicate with ease and places an emphasis on patient-centered care, empowerment, and shared decision-making.
