Patient Compliance and Empowerment

There are a few universal truths in health care that affect every facility, office, and provider. One such truth is that inevitably patients will not remember or lose instructions that may be issued to them prior to or following a procedure or office visit. These instructions are often vital and have consequences for the well-being of the patient and the financial well-being of the practice.

To be fair, I am just as guilty of this as anyone else and I have worked in health care for well over a decade! For those unaccustomed to the busy and oftentimes confusing health care universe, having to remember every piece of pre-op or post-visit instruction can be unrealistic and forgetting could lead to complications ranging from minor to severe. Currently, the standard is to provide patients with xerox copies of pre-op instructions a few days to even weeks before a planned procedure and then a post-op packet of a similar nature. Ultimately, these items may be lost or misplaced, leading to the issues of non-compliance and the under-utilization of resources that could be invaluable to the patient.

With the potential to lose or misplace paper copies, what if there were a way to communicate this information to our patients that would stay with them everywhere they go? What if the patient had the ability to access and refer to this information at a moment's notice? The majority of the population in the United States heavily rely on a mobile device to not just make phone calls but to complete daily tasks ranging from surfing the web to doing their banking. These devices have become ubiquitous in our society and they are with us nearly everywhere we go and at all times.

The major issue that prevents the use of this tool in health care is that these devices are not secure and HIPAA laws prevent us from capitalizing on this opportunity. pMD saw this need and created the opportunity to offer patients a better source of information and access to resources through the HIPAA-compliant, free secure messaging application.

Imagine the ability to send patients a PDF of all the pertinent instructions they need to know prior to or following a visit or procedure that flows straight to their fingertips! Within just a few seconds, a provider or staff member can invite a patient to communicate via the pMD app and provide information that is readily accessible.

In addition, the use of patient chat routers in pMD gives the patient a level of empowerment to seek answers to questions that may otherwise go unasked. As technology advances, messaging is becoming more and more the preferred method of communication for a large percentage of our population. The ability to allow a patient to select a topic from a drop-down menu and type a question that is then automatically routed to the most appropriate individual at a practice seems simple on our side but can also be immensely empowering to a patient that might otherwise not seek help with an issue.

For example, giving a new mother the ability to reach out to lactation support or an oncology patient the ability to quickly pose a question to nutritional services! These are questions that often times will go unasked because the patient does not feel it rises to the level of importance for a phone call, but is still an ongoing source of stress and uncertainty for them.

pMD’s patient chat routers are customizable, secure, and provide answers to the populations we are dedicated to serving in a way that protects health care providers' privacy as well.