- 2 min read

2020 Healthcare Patient and Staff Engagement Outlook

As we begin the new year, I wanted to share a few of our predictions for trends concerning patient and staff engagement in 2020:

Traditional communication methods (i.e., phone, email) will become less effective as robocalls/spam continue to grow (robocalls in the United States went up 35% in 2019), more phone calls go unanswered and email management becomes more difficult.
Patient engagement will become more important to the success of healthcare organizations in areas including outcomes, collections (with costs continuing to rise), attracting and retaining patients, online reputation and reducing waste.
Emergency preparedness and business continuity will take on greater importance as we continue to see increases in disasters, severe weather and power outages. Fast, effective patient and staff engagement will be essential to ensuring a timely response that reduces harm and risk.
"Ease" will be a major area of focus. That includes ease of access to care, ease of communication, ease of billing and ease of care coordination. Experiences perceived as more difficult than necessary will negatively impact patient and staff engagement and satisfaction.
Healthcare organizations will rely more heavily on text messaging —specifically secure, HIPAA-compliant platforms — to address growing challenges and capitalize on opportunities concerning patient and staff engagement, such as those highlighted above. Text messaging has proven itself to be a highly effective communication method for patients and staff of all ages.

I have touched on many of these subjects in recent columns for various healthcare publications, including HFMA's Healthcare Cost Containment, Becker's Hospital Review, Becker's ASC Review and Physicians Practice. I invite you to read these articles and reach out if you have any questions about how your organization would benefit from a two-way texting platform. Please call or text me at (615) 429-4252. We hope 2020 is your organization's best year yet!