The healthcare sector has grown splendidly over the years. While the pandemic stopped overall patient management, it also led to a new revolution. It included using technology to tackle the barriers to patient engagement by analyzing data and choosing the right channel to improvise health monitoring and patient care.
A hybrid model came to the fore as a lucrative option for tackling the challenges of delivering patient care and engagement. This article discusses how hybrid patient models assist in dealing with the barrier of medication adherence.
Opting for Appropriate Patient Engagement Strategies for Hybrid Model
A hybrid patient care model combines physical and virtual methods that are the root of providing continuum care. In addition, the pandemic accelerated the need to incorporate telehealth to bring a newer transformation in patient and healthcare experience. As per data acquired by AMA digital health research, telehealth has grown from 14 to 28%, which has aided in removing barriers to it.
It is imperative to choose an authentic patient engagement system that assists providers in overcoming challenges.
Addressing the Hurdles of Non-adherence
Non-adherence to medications and proper patient guidance is one of the biggest hindrances to patient improvement. It led to an increase in hospital admission rate, higher morbidity, mortality, and increased cost of health care.
As per research, one in every five prescriptions is never filled, whereas over 50% are not taken as per prescription and fail to follow the dosage, schedule, and duration.
Below are the top challenges related to non-adherence to medication and how to cope with the drawbacks. Nevertheless, it will help reduce many chronic conditions’ economic and health burdens.
Gaining Insight into Medication Nonadherence
Understanding the need to adhere to medication is influenced by various factors integrating patients, health systems, and providers. Some of the barriers to the medication include:
- Forgetting to take medicines
- Limited knowledge of medication dosages and schedules
- Intentional factors like the decision to modify the treatment
- Lack of engagement in treatment decisions
- The barrier to communication between patients and caregivers
- Non-coordination between healthcare providers
Knowledge of the reason will limit the risks and provide solutions for patient care management.
Bettering the Technique to Assess Medication Adherence
Medication adherence is conducted through direct and indirect methods. Precise assessment of illness is an important criterion for patient care and health improvement.
The indirect ways include developing questionnaires and interviews, whereas the other method includes analyzing database measures to assess medication adherence. Digitizing medical data combined with various techniques help in bettering the assessment techniques and promoting a common understanding of the factors.
Develop Strategies to Improve Medication Adherence
Patients with chronic illness and medication regimes are at a higher risk of not adhering to medications. Additionally, failing to follow the medication regime is considered one of the top reasons for treatment failures and complications. That necessitates the need to develop an appropriate strategy for improving medication adherence. Some of the proven effective methods include:
- Providing electronic pill monitors to send notifications to patients about their medication
- Sharing messages with health providers reminding them every time a scheduled drug dosage is missed
- Enabling e-prescribing software to scrutinize prescriptions unfilled and send patients prompts whenever a new prescription is available.
These strategies help providers review the existing medications to identify gaps and barriers to adhering to the drugs and reach an appropriate solution.
Improving Health Literacy to Enable Patient Outcome
Patient care is a two-way process that demands a proper engagement between the individual and the health care professional. Not having sufficient knowledge about medical needs is the biggest hurdle in patient care.
Herein, improving health literacy in the population is vital to better patient care and ensure successful engagement. Automated digital communication between medical visits is one way to ensure patients are connected with their health and make it easier to follow specific steps adhering to the medical plan.
For instance, if patients with Congestive heart failure (CHF) are requested to report their vitals, such as fluid retention and blood pleasure, they will be notified with automated guidance. Improved health literacy through digital systems encourages patients to participate in health care and make healthy choices.
Choosing an Effective Patient Engagement Solution To Address Workflow Issues
Choosing an effective patient engagement solution that addresses workflow issues is necessary. Herein, it is imperative to understand the patient and integrate with the needs of the healthcare providers, professionals and payers.
The advantage of an effective solution for patient engagement are as follows:
- It can be used within and outside the care settings or by the service line
- It allows healthcare providers to prescribe through one setting and monitor in the other setting
- It helps in providing data about the utilization of workflow and system by active users
- It enables the integration of third-party content
- It assists in addressing provider needs related to patient care
- It supports staff in rolling out and implementing effective patient engagement.
Equipo’s patient engagement system enables integrating patient engagement in healthcare. Additionally, the system is available on multiple devices like phones, computers, tablets, portals, kiosks, and video systems which supports technology and integration into various EMR systems, records patient interaction, and eliminates the need to buy any new software or hardware. Check Equipo’s patient engagement system that helps in engaging individuals in patient care. Schedule a demo today.
33 Wood Avenue South 
info@equipohealth.com
800.482.9082