Patient Engagement Platforms – A Guide

Patient engagement platforms have never been so important for healthcare organisations. Giving patients access to digital healthcare improves patient experience and has been shown to produce better patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.

Patient engagement platforms (PEP) enable healthcare providers with a solution to connect with patients giving them access to their data, appointments and correspondence via their digital devices.  This is achieved by integrating technology such as patient engagement platforms (PEP) into a trust’s IT landscape.  Enabling patients to be more involved in how their healthcare is managed can help reduce readmission and redundant tests, support the early detection of diseases and reduce the level of pressure on healthcare professionals.

Patient Engagement Platform Benefits

PEPs bring widespread benefits for patients and the healthcare organisations deploying them. Here are a few of our favourite reasons why you should be considering a PEP as part of your digital portfolio;

• To improve DNA rates – Giving patients the ability to manage appointments via their remote devices gives patients more control.
• To improve staff efficiency and productivity – Less paper-based administration and telephone calls make appointment management seamless and less time intensive.
• To reduce costs – Less printing and postage expenses saves money.
• To reduce readmissions and unnecessary tests – PEP functionality such as patient-initiated follow-ups (PIFU) allows patients to initiate appointments based on their symptoms.

Patient Engagement Platform capabilities at a glance

PEPs can vary from supplier to supplier, by utilising Restart’s interoperability expertise a PEP integration can be customised to meet certain requirements.  Here are some of the many capabilities that you can achieve through the deployment of a PEP.

• Real-time appointment management – Integrated, 24/7, automated appointment arrangement and rescheduling.
• Digital letters and summaries – Communicate with patients in a timely and efficient manner.
• Remote data capture – Pre-op assessments, collect feedback and monitor out-patient recovery
• Single sign on – PEPs provide a safe and secure way for patients to access their health and care information with a single login.
• Multi-channel communication – Asynchronistic messaging allows clinicians to communicate with patients in a timely and effective way.
• Patient-led management – Systemised appointment workflows that encourage a patient to engage and initiate follow-up appointments.

Giving patients access to their healthcare data helps keep them engaged and healthy, improving patient outcomes and hospital success measures such as DNA rates. The ability to leverage data also presents significant opportunities to gain valuable population health insights.

How does a Patient Engagement Platform work?

PEPs allow patients to access appointments, correspondence and much more through their mobile device, tablet or computer.  PEPs are an application that has a bi-directional integration with a hospital PAS or EPR through healthcare messaging formats such as HL7v2 and FHIR.

ReStart has worked with a variety of suppliers and protocols

There are many PEP solutions available to choose from including DrDoctor, NHSHealthCall, Patient Knows Best, Induction Zesty, Health-Connect and many more. ReStart has experience integrating a range of PEP solutions into NHS Trust systems for a variety of user cases and protocols, not only offering specialist technical expertise such as interface development but also consulting organisations to help find the right solution.

Integration in action

As the leading UK supplier of healthcare integration, ReStart has experience working with all major PEP suppliers. Having successfully delivered PEP integration for a diverse range of clients such as Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, and Norfolk and Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust to name a few.

What does the future hold?

There has been a significant development in the functionality of PEPs in the last year. With more suppliers entering the market and new technologies offering greater flexibility and development capabilities. Knowledge sharing and learning are crucial for the future of PEP integrations, ensuring continual improvements are achieved.

ReStart’s Principal Architect, Jason Cropper comments:

“We are receiving an increasing number of PEP integration requests as Trusts seek to give their patients more control over their healthcare, reduce the burden on their clinicians and gain better ROI. Our interoperability expertise ensures our customers have access to best practice advice, highly experienced project managers, certified and highly experienced technical and solution experts, industry-leading deployment experience, reliable technical support and assurance that their project will be delivered within budget and on time.  When delivering a PEP integration project we work with you at every stage to ensure a successful completion to industry and interoperability standards.”

How ReStart can help?

To discover more about our work and how ReStart can support your Patient Engagement Platform implementation, get in touch today.