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HiLiteMD: Digital Health Superstars

Patient-centered communication is a vital component of quality patient care but is sacrificed too frequently due to patient volume, burn out and the daily stresses of a clinical workday. Those providers who excel in patient-centered communication have seen improvements in both patient and physician satisfaction. Better communication leads to enable self-management, improved health outcomes, reductions in medical errors, litigation, and increase compliance to treatment plans. HiLiteMD is a patient engagement platform that transforms workflows for care teams and providers to enable better outcomes using digital communication with patients while reducing clinical workloads.

 Specialists with strong patient centered-communication skills will: 

  • Practice active listening.
  • Treat the patient as a partner in creating and implementing a treatment plan.
  • Avoid overly technical terms or phrases that may confuse patients.
  • Maintain an approachable and easy-to-talk-to relationship with patients.
  • Use a warm, conversational tone when addressing patients.
  • Show empathy and relatable examples to the patients’ situation.

As the nation continues to grapple with the spread COVID-19, Digital Health is stepping in as a key means for maintaining patient access to care. Here are some examples with how different specialist can integrate Digital Health into their workflows and improve upon the digital interactions with their patients.

Provider Communication Best Practices

Orthopedists:

Orthopedists need to provide communication about complicated medical issues, treatment choices, complexities of surgical procedures, and options, and they must allay patients’ fears and build trust during short visits. Consequently, they require sophisticated skills in a variety of communication tasks, including exchanging information, responding to patients’ emotions, and engaging in informed and collaborative decision-making. With the mountain of tasks, these surgeons are particularly susceptible to the decline in empathy as a byproduct of the nature of their work. Lower surgeon empathy is likely due to patient-perceived surgeon rush. This can be minimized in our Telehealth & Digital Health platform by using HiLiteMD (telehealth, patient education videos, digital communication) to complement current workflows that increase your interactions with the patient all while saving precious time. Providers can send branded customized videos to streamline communication or use videos from our stock content library (over 2,000 patient education videos) to improve the continuity of care while saving time and providing a positive brand image with video content for a connected experience.

Clinical treatment, pre-and post-operative videos with HiLiteMD can be seen anytime, anywhere, and can be replayed. HiLiteMD serves as a tool in this regard to connecting with patients emotionally and compassionately, building patients’ trust with providers resulting in better adherence, which leads to healthier outcomes.

 Doctor showing the anatomical spine in clinic

Additionally, in many cases, it is observed even though the patient may initially absorb the information they receive from their orthopedic surgeon verbally, their recollection of that information especially crucial details such as postoperative treatment declines quickly. It is in the physician’s best interest to ensure the patient has the necessary resources both before and after procedures that they can reference at any time as follow-ups with patient education. Additionally, videos of procedures i.e. pre-and post-operative videos keep patients visually engaged for better understanding and less anxiety. This is particularly helpful to increase compliance and minimize unnecessary repeat visits within hectic schedules.

Dermatologist:

Although effective clinical communication is essential for all physicians, dermatologists face unique challenges. They are required to manage complex psycho-social issues associated with disfiguring skin diseases and chronic conditions, such as psoriasis, where the role of the patient-physician relationship is a key issue, upholding high standards of care within the limited amount of visits. HiLiteMD works to build patient-physician relationships even before a patient meets their provider by embedding an introductory video with the appointment reminder. This emphasizes building the relationship within an automated workflow through our communication features, which offer a series of automation features to streamline communication and humanize the patient digital experience. Improving the digital experience builds better and more meaningful relationships to help patients become more comfortable and open with their providers, which is very necessary for improving the satisfaction of patients seeing any specialist.

 A study related to dermatologists found adherence of patients to topical medication regimens is poor and inadequate, which was due to the lack of patient education as a primary factor contributing to this trend. The same study found that more than one-third of new prescriptions for topical medications were never even filled. However, improving your communication about the application of topical drugs is one way to address the complicated issue of adherence, along with automated check-ins using HiLiteMD to ensure the prescriptions are being used appropriately. The HiLiteMD telehealth also allows for real-time follow-ups that save the provider time by speaking with patients virtually. Staying connected and checking upon patients collectively improve adherence and allow the provider to perform follow-ups easily.

Pediatrics

No matter how welcoming your pediatrics unit may be, it is not home and most often not convenient for parents. Anxiety about medical procedures, coupled with the unfamiliar sights and sounds of a busy hospital or clinic, can lead to an unpleasant experience for children and this can be minimized with access to healthcare within the comfort of their home. Using HiLiteMD, you can utilize our telehealth along with offering patient videos to parents, which streamlines the treatment. Alternatively, you can send documents digitally such as forms, questionnaires for detecting areas of improvements from parents using the HiLiteMD platform.

 Telehealth visits made easy

A study found; health care professional communication is significantly positively correlated with patient adherence to the treatment. A meta-analysis of 106 peer-reviewed studies showed that the patients of physicians assessed as having poor communication skills had a 19% higher risk of non-adherence to the prescribed treatment regimen and is greater if the physician is a pediatrician. HiLiteMD Telehealth addresses this loophole and provides you with everything necessary to fill up this gap with your youngest patients. Our team works with providers to create custom treatment videos for common illnesses and of course, there is a patient education library filled with helpful video content for Pediatric Providers.

Psychiatrists

Research has consistently shown that it is the human relationships we develop that have the biggest impact on recovery in mental healthcare; successful engagement and therapeutic communication are essential in order to help people find their way out of the maze of problems that may have beset them. In the face of the pandemic when mental health conditions are on the rise, effective communication digitally is made easier by our telehealth platform. We humanize the patients’ digital experience so that you feel more in touch with your patients just like in real-time if not better and thus aid with their recovery. For chronic disorders, unique cases, or cases that require emergency as is often relevant with mental conditions, HiLiteMD offers secure messaging that enables secure messaging for staff and physicians. Send a document, text, call, and even have a video chat with internal parties and your care team any time, which connects to the clinical system and keeps everyone on the same page.

Oncologist

The psychosocial concerns of a cancer diagnosis may overpower patient inquiries about the disease process, especially if the patient has fatalistic views about cancer and cancer treatment. These concerns may also affect a patient’s well-being and quality of life. Oncologists play an essential role in controlling and alleviating these negative sequelae, as patients continually seek reassurances and support.

Effective communication strategies of oncologists thus include validating and exploring emotional concerns and providing health information to decrease unfavorable emotions such as anxiety. When a healthcare provider demonstrates good communication skills, cancer patients are more apt to adhere to treatment recommendations and have improved psychosocial functioning.

Nowadays just about all aspects of communication is digital and it has only increased during the pandemic. Online platforms and apps have transformed everyday lives undoubtedly and in healthcare, it has never been more imperative to deliver effective communication. With HiLiteMD, we streamline communication using automation or real-time messaging for a better patient experience that goes well beyond a patient portal.

For more information, please contact us at info@HiLiteHealth.com or go to our website at https://www.hilitehealth.com.

 Bryan Graven

 CEO | HiLite Health

 Web: https://www.hilitehealth.com