4 Tips For Increasing Patient Engagement With Your Online Health Portal App

Written By Paisley Hansen / Reviewed By Ray Spotts

Virtual healthcare has proven to be one of the biggest tech trends of the last year, and it's only getting started. Unfortunately, many doctor's offices are having a hard time getting patients to interact with online health portals to make appointments, get virtual checkups, or refill prescriptions.

For many reasons, such as old age and unfamiliarity with technology, not everyone is as ready to jump on board the world of virtual health as quickly as others. Here are a few tips for making your platform more user-friendly to increase patient engagement.

1. Email Enrollment

When your patients are reluctant to take the time to get on the portal, you can encourage them to do so by mass-enrolling patients via their email addresses. If your office utilizes Cloud Migration, this should be an easy thing to do and helps patients by skipping the first step.

Then all they have to do is create an account and start getting healthcare online. Some portals will even allow the provider to create temporary account information for patients, making it an even easier process.

This is a great option for older patients who may not be as tech-savvy as the younger ones. You can also include helpful tips and information in the initial email invite, letting them know exactly why they should enroll and how to do so. Including simple infographics to help patients get started could go a long way towards encouraging them to make the move.

2. A Joint Effort

If you're serious about getting all your patients onto your online health portal, you need to ensure that the whole office is on board with helping them do so. From the receptionist to the nurse giving their physical, patients should be encountering encouragement to create an account and get online.

For this approach to be effective, all staff should be closely familiar with the platform and should be aware of all the features patients could be using.

When patients call to make appointments, they could make appointments on the portal. The same goes for refilling prescriptions or asking the doctor quick questions. Everyone should be on board with the online portal since it'll save everyone time and make healthcare much more convenient. 

3. Show Real-Life Benefits

Many patients, when presented with all the cool features of a health portal, are not going to see how that translates to real-life benefits. Why should they utilize instant messaging if they can just call the office, and why should they care about having a secure connection?

Instead, you should be presenting the app's benefits as things patients can see for themselves. For example, the benefits of instant messaging could be the ability to contact your doctor from anywhere, at any time.

Real-time updates mean patients won't waste time coming to appointments that have been delayed. And being able to make appointments online means you'll be able to sit down and decide what time is best for you. Framing the portal in terms of its benefits is going to help patients realize that their quality of care is about to improve, not deteriorate. 

4. Customized Content

Chances are, your patients are coming to your office for a reason. They enjoy the quality of care, but it's likely they also like the atmosphere and the personalities of the healthcare workers they encounter. That's why you should strive to offer them an equally personalized experience through their health portals.

For example, you could include fun facts about healthcare and colorful design for offices catering to a younger audience. Older patients might appreciate a larger font size or the option to zoom in on the page.

Conclusion

It can be difficult to persuade people to accept change, but in this case, the change is ultimately for the better. Considering your patients' preferences is going to go a long way towards encouraging them to use the app more often, which will benefit everyone in the long run. 

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Written By:

Paisley Hansen is a freelance writer and expert in health, fitness, and growing young. When she isn’t writing she can usually be found reading a good book or hitting the gym. She loves hearing from readers so feel free to contact her through Facebook.

Reviewed By:

Founder Ray Spotts has a passion for all things natural and has made a life study of nature as it relates to health and well-being. Ray became a forerunner bringing products to market that are extraordinarily effective and free from potentially harmful chemicals and additives. For this reason Ray formed Trusted Health Products, a company you can trust for clean, effective, and healthy products. Ray is an organic gardener, likes fishing, hiking, and teaching and mentoring people to start new businesses. You can get his book for free, “How To Succeed In Business Based On God’s Word,” at www.rayspotts.com.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels