How to Overcome Common Barriers to Patient Engagement

Providers now understand the importance and advantages of interacting with their patients. It results in better health outcomes, higher revenue, less workload, and more patient happiness and retention. Indeed, 62% of patients feel that open communication and ongoing involvement are the most crucial elements when choosing care.

Patient participation is crucial, but it can be difficult. Since a large amount of patient-provider engagement occurs outside of the office, obstacles to success are frequently out of the provider's control. Achieving meaningful participation can be challenging, if not impossible, depending on a number of factors, including a patient's willingness to speak with clinicians, health literacy, and access to dependable Wi-Fi and technology.

1. Education and Health Literacy

Health literacy refers to a patient's ability to receive, absorb, and comprehend fundamental health information and services in order to make informed health decisions and advocate for themselves. Simply described, it is how patients receive, interpret, and respond to health information.

According to the National Library of Medicine, roughly nine out of ten adults in the United States lack health literacy. Currently, insufficient health literacy costs the US economy approximately $236 billion every year.

Although no one is immune to low health literacy and education, particular groups are at a higher risk. These populations include the following:

1. Individuals with lower education levels
2. Low-income people
3. Elderly populations
4. racial and ethnic minorities.

When a patient lacks basic health knowledge, they are often disengaged from their care and are more likely to experience health problems and incur higher healthcare costs. In fact, people with low healthy literacy are 2.3 times more likely to seek emergency care.

2. Inefficiencies in Technology

Modern healthcare has moved beyond tedious procedures like handwritten intake paperwork and over-the-phone appointment scheduling. Instead, healthcare technology, such as patient engagement platforms, has replaced outmoded processes by streamlining and automating these functions, resulting in a more seamless patient experience.

The patient engagement platform aims to improve communication and patient management throughout the healthcare journey.

Although technology is intended to make the patient's experience easier, it can be a barrier for people who are not technologically skilled or do not have access to trustworthy technology. Factors that could lead to technical hurdles are:

• Age and cultural differences.
• Lack of information and technical help.
• Literacy and educational levels
• Limited or no access to technology.
• Certain medical conditions.

3. Communication Difficulties

Patients have relied on providers as the only decision-maker in their care for many years, making them passive participants in their healthcare journey. In order to achieve better results, patients are now taking a more active role in their healthcare and opting to interact and work together with their clinicians. However, some patients and their physicians still have trouble communicating.

The foundation of an interesting and cooperative healthcare experience is patient-provider communication. According to a survey, 60% of respondents believe it's essential for physicians to know more about their patients than just their basic medical information, and 66% of customers prefer providers that communicate promptly and consistently.

A lack of openness and trust, language difficulties, time restraints, and inadequate health literacy and education are only a few of the causes of communication problems. Regrettably, these disparities may result in negative consequences, such as poor health outcomes, mistrust, and patient discontent.

Workload Pressures and Time Restraints

On average, healthcare workers visit up to 20 patients per day and spend 17-24 minutes with each one. Overall, patient visits take up around 8 hours every day. When you consider that clinicians must also fill patient charts, attend staff meetings, and perform other time-consuming chores, it's easy to see how time limits and workload pressures might impede patient engagement.

Inadequate patient engagement can result in low drug adherence, higher healthcare expenses, and negative health consequences. When doctors are too busy to implement patient engagement strategies and technology, each patient is more likely to experience one or more of these concerns.

Conclusion:

As you read about each barrier and the techniques to overcome it, you may have noted how they are all interconnected. For example, technology can allow providers to devote more time each day to patient care. This, however, requires patients to actively use the platforms. Alternatively, patients with low health literacy must become more involved in their own care to advocate for themselves. However, clinicians must foster a climate in which patients are encouraged to ask questions and express their opinions and preferences.