Elevating Patient Experience with Remote Patient Monitoring and Patient Access Centres By Vineet Aggarwal, CIO, Paras Healthcare

Elevating Patient Experience with Remote Patient Monitoring and Patient Access Centres

Vineet Aggarwal, CIO, Paras Healthcare | Tuesday, 08 March 2022, 11:05 IST

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The COVID-19 pandemic was an eye-opener for the healthcare industry in India exposing numerous gaps in the present system. The increased burden on healthcare workers and institutions facilitated the need to adopt virtual care via digital technology and such developments are likely to shape the future of care delivery in India. As per the Future Health Index India Report 2021, 75% of healthcare leaders in India surveyed in the analysis, highlighted that at present, shifting to remote or virtual care is a top priority. 

Remote patient care ensures that patients get the necessary care irrespective of their physical location by means of digital tech. Similarly, such digital tools can be combined with next-generation call centres or patient access centres that would allow patients to access care options 24*7 and get directed to the right place for their care needs. 

Why Remote Patient Monitoring is Gaining Prominence

In times of emergencies like COVID-19, remote patient monitoring (RPM) came as a boon to healthcare providers and institutions. It helped organisations to deal with critical issues like medical equipment shortages, overcrowding and forcing staff to put in extra hours. 

Other than that, RPM systems can assist healthcare organisations to take control of their overall expenditure and improve performance. To manage health processes in a well organised way it is important to be transparent and quickly respond to issues. With RPM enabling instantaneous communication, healthcare organisations can now prevent emergency situations as well as prevent unnecessary hospitalisations. Such type of agility and responsiveness helps healthcare providers to keep things under control and can lead to reduced unexpected costs.

The doctor to patient ratio in India is 1:1456 against the WHO’s recommendation of 1:1000. India is also lagging behind in providing quality healthcare access to the remote and rural parts of the country. Limited appointment opportunities, long waiting lists, etc. are some of the factors affecting access to medical care. Luckily, remote care technologies significantly increase a healthcare professional's capacity to treat patients and optimize caregiving operations throughout healthcare organisations. Apart from increasing access to care, RPM technologies offer medical professionals with up-to-date, factual patient data, mostly in real-time, which makes care timely and accurate. Also, employing RPM tools creates better patient engagement. It makes the entire process more autonomous and patients remain accountable for their own health, which leads to improved patient outcomes.

Patient Access Centres to Further Help Healthcare Providers

As out-of-pocket expenditure continues to increase for the patients, healthcare consumers of today have much higher expectations when it comes to the healthcare service experience. Research has shown that negative patient experience can directly impact patient loyalty and satisfaction. Patients are no longer willing to tolerate an average patient experience. If they don't get the experience they're searching for, they’ll go elsewhere. That’s where patient access centres come into the picture. 

Nowadays patients want their interactions with care providers to be hassle-free, efficient and supported with numerous communications channels such as web chat, self-service voice prompts, social and more. A patient access centre allows the provider to easily identify patients whenever they call, provide basic patient data, and also route the call to the staff who assisted them in their last encounter. 

A contact centre can also provide useful call analytics and reporting capabilities. Without clear visibility to call-hold times, average time spent in the queue, or abandonment rates, healthcare providers will not be able to improve call experiences. That is also one of the biggest reasons as to why 60% of healthcare organizations are increasingly focusing on budgets that involve innovative solutions to increase patient engagement and support consumerism in healthcare.

It is important to remember that the effectiveness of a patient access center lies in the cloud technology that powers it.

Patient access centre cloud solutions include CRM software integrations, omni-channel customer routing, agent management software, and call centre reporting analytics & reporting. Healthcare providers can use these systems to connect their centre agents with patients to share important information with patients, healthcare payers and other healthcare providers.

Concluding Thoughts

With the increasing emergence of remote diagnostic technologies and other technologies aimed at enhancing patient engagement, it is quite clear that care is shifting its attention to the patient.

If healthcare organisations want to keep up with the rising trends and standards, they need to take a good look at their operations to understand where technology innovations could be used effectively to provide timely, high quality and convenient care.

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