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December 19, 2024
Technology has undoubtedly changed communication between patients and providers for the better - especially in the way they receive healthcare information. A growing body of evidence supports the use of digital care journey technology to improve patient satisfaction and engagement, which in turn improves the quality of care and patient outcomes. According to a 2021 report from Deloitte, 92% of survey respondents from healthcare organizations cited patient engagement and satisfaction as a top outcome expected as a result of digital transformation.
This improvement can be achieved by enhancing the delivery of patient education through giving patient’s access to this information via their own devices (e.g. smartphone, tablet, computer). Patient engagement in their care plays a critical role in improving health outcomes. Digital care journeys cost-effectively monitor and encourage improved patient outcomes. Reputable digital care journey platforms such as SeamlessMD have been proven to improve the efficiency of care delivery while eliminating constraints such as paper-based education that patients can easily lose, and by providing patients with an expert-approved educational library that is pre-built and ready for hospitals to use upon implementation. Here are three key operational and clinical advantages of selecting a digital patient engagement solution that includes pre-built care plans.
Reduces workload of healthcare providers and support staff
When building care plans in-house, the creation of a team and time dedication is required from staff. This expectation can be a big ask, especially since healthcare workers and staff don’t have much time with their busy schedules. With SeamlessMD, healthcare providers do not have to create care plans from scratch; standard care plans are ready-made and can be customized to address the health system's specific protocols, leaving more time for healthcare providers to dedicate to caring for patients and other strategic tasks. Beyond this, all customers are assigned a dedicated team consisting of a Customer Success Manager, Patient Education Specialist, and Quality Assurance Associate who will lead them through the implementation process, including care plan customization, project management, staff training, best practices for patient adoption, and how to improve outcomes. Our Customer Success team also provides regular check-ins (ranging from every few weeks to several months apart, depending on the customer’s situation). At these check-in meetings, our Customer Success team identifies successes, troubleshoots issues with care plans, and advises on improving these concerns. This minimizes the effort and time required by your healthcare staff.
“There has been a noticeable difference in the efficiency of the delivery of patient care services since implementing SeamlessMD. Patients have consistently reported high satisfaction rates with the technology, while staff have expressed an improvement in operational efficiencies. It is truly a user-friendly technology that is loved by patients and staff alike.” - Adam Vinet, Vice President, Patient Experience & Chief Nursing Executive Regional Vice President, Regional Cancer Care, Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre.
Accelerate launch time with expert-approved education library built by an experienced team
SeamlessMD has made over 45 interactive pre-built care plans covering cardiovascular, bariatric, cardiology, chronic care, mental health, endoscopy, colorectal, gastroenterology, gynecology, maternity care, orthopedics, surgical oncology, urology, thoracic, general, GI surgery, oncology, and more. With such a diverse range of care plans, the team at SeamlessMD is very familiar with the processes involved in the creation of care plans, but also the individualized needs of patients. This includes understanding the wide range of learning styles; this is why SeamlessMD has educational content in the form of detailed information, pictures, surveys, checklists, reminders, tasks, videos, etc.
The SeamlessMD care plan templates are developed in-house by our dedicated Patient Education team using our proprietary, clinically-focused methodology of translating evidence-based guidelines and the medical literature for different episodes of care into patient-friendly, interactive journeys eliminating the need for clinical teams to spend time and effort creating care plans from scratch.
There is also a strong consideration for patient limitations, which is why when building out care plans, there is an emphasis on patient accessibility. Research shows that in the United States on average Medicare beneficiaries in counties with the highest health literacy levels have better outcomes. The following graphic showcases beneficial outcomes of higher health literacy rates:
SeamlessMD has several accessibility features that take into consideration the diversity of patient populations and their potential needs to be able to effectively utilize the platform. For example, some of the design features include:
- Omni-channel access, including smartphones, tablets and desktop computers
- Health literacy universal precautions
- Grade 6 level plain language throughout
- Simple step-by-step illustrations
- Large font
- Positive role-modeling videos
- WCAG 2.0 Level AA guidelines met
- Bite-sized, real-time messaging
- Multiplatform Access
- Color-blind tested
- Screen reader-friendly
- F-shaped inverted pyramid content to fit online reading patterns
Learn more about how SeamlessMD prioritizes patient accessibility to support a user-friendly experience for all patients here.
Lower Total Cost of Ownership and Ongoing Maintenance Costs
While increased patient education often leads to an impressive return on investment (ROI), there is a figurative cost with creating these materials that healthcare organizations must address. According to this research publication focused on cancer centers, when considering the number of hours spent developing and reviewing materials combined with average salary data, 14 cancer centers spend on average $5672 developing (M = $4560) and reviewing (M = $1112) one educational pamphlet. This leads to an average per annum spending of $65,401 for pamphlet development and $19,819 for annual pamphlet review at each cancer center. This leaves a huge opportunity to leverage technology, such as SeamlessMD, to help reduce some of these costs and time expenditure, while also providing a more effective vehicle to deliver the patient education via digital care journeys. Without having to dedicate extra time towards the creation and distribution of these educational materials, there is the added benefit of faster implementation and deployment to patients. SeamlessMD offers support post-implementation in order to keep content up-to-date and in line with best-practices - thus, there is less review required and costs needed to continuously maintain the care plan.
As an example, MultiCare Health System implemented SeamlessMD and achieved the following outcomes:
- ↓6.7% Average Total Cost
- ↑ 19.9% Average Contribution Margin
Digital care plans offer similar clinical and operational benefits as traditional care management programs, including:
- Evidence-based patient education
- Relationship-based care
- Improved patient outcomes
To learn more about SeamlessMD’s customizable, out-of-the box care plans for a wide variety of clinical areas, click here or schedule a personalized demo of our digital care journey platform.
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