Three Tips to Personalize Patient Care
Offering customized and streamlined patient care is an essential aspect of ensuring that your practice continues to thrive for years to come. When you make the effort to personalize your patient care, you can engage with your patients more and improve treatment outcomes while making healthcare more affordable.
Studies show that over 70% of patients want to receive customized care for their specific health conditions and concerns. However, accomplishing this is easier said than done for most medical teams. Wellbox.com asserts that 55% of medical professionals feel that they don't have enough time to offer tailored care to their patients, and this applies to both in-person and online appointments. While it may be challenging or sometimes impossible for doctors and specialists to offer more time to patients during appointments, there are some ways that the patient care experience can meet the specific needs of each individual.
Communicate With the Patient In Mind
As a medical professional, your goal to assist patients in managing their health conditions between appointments can be accomplished when you focus on patient-centered communication. When you show concern for the patient's well-being and how their health impacts their everyday life, you're more likely to receive honest answers from your patients. This allows you to devise a treatment plan that will fit into that patient's daily routine.
You can open the lines of communication by having a short conversation at the start of the appointment that isn't about medical matters. Ask your patients about their family members and have a short chat with them about their jobs or hobbies before you start talking about their health. This can make your patient feel more at ease, especially if you have to discuss sensitive matters.
It is also important to engage in active listening with your patients. Make them feel comfortable speaking to you about uncomfortable or potentially embarrassing symptoms. Give them time to articulate how their health issues have impacted their lives. For instance, if a patient expresses that they've been less productive at work or unable to devote as much time to their children as they'd like, express your genuine concern and desire to help the patient live a healthier life.
You can also enhance the patient care experience by making decisions about treatment plans with your patient. Instead of simply prescribing medication or referring the patient to a specialist, discuss the treatments that would be most practical for the patient to help them reach their health goals.
Offer Personalized Recommendations
To foster a connection with your patients, you can offer recommendations for their treatment in between office visits or virtual appointments. This reminds your patients that you care about their specific needs and want their treatment to be as customized as possible.
Using outreach to engage your patients can also make it easier to personalize treatment. If your patient has been keeping a journal of their symptoms, ask them if they've been keeping up with the entries and help them recognize their progress.
Outreach allows you to truly get to know the people you treat and adjust their healthcare plans as needed.
Access Extensive Data for Patient Care
According to an Abbott-commissioned report from Beyond Intervention, over 40% of healthcare providers stated that they don't have much aftercare insight for their patients. These medical professionals also say that they don't have many effective ways to ensure that patients stick to their treatment plans at home. When doctors don't have enough data to consistently treat patients according to their needs, this could cause patients to experience delays or declines in improvement.
Technological solutions can make it easier for healthcare providers to identify the needs of each patient and make the proper recommendations. If you have a way to monitor your patients remotely, you'll have access to each patient's health information. These details will let you know whether your patient is making progress and will give you insight into whether you should adjust your patient's wellness plan. When you're keeping up with your patient's well-being in between visits, their appointments will be more efficient and shorter sometimes, so you'll have time to devote to more patients.
It is essential to remember that healthcare is a customer service industry. Your patients are your consumers, and it's up to you to ensure they have the most pleasant experience possible when you're servicing them. Since many health issues are extensive and ongoing, consistent patient care can give your patients the peace of mind of knowing that you're committed to providing care that can help them make significant improvements in their health over time.