Did you miss our webinar on best practices for recruiting and onboarding patients to your patient portal? Have no fear! We are sharing the recording because it was THAT GOOD!
Those who attended heard real world feedback from two major US hospital systems, NewYork-Presbyterian and Steward Health Care, about what worked and what didn’t when introducing patients to their patient portal. An introduction and Q&A session from Dr. Farzad Mostashari, former National Coordinator for Health IT, was invaluable to participants as his expertise in the health IT arena is unmatched. Get Real Health’s VP of Marketing and Strategy, Cortney Nicolato, set the stage by sharing statistics proving the patient’s desire to access their health data.
The response to the webinar was overwhelmingly positive. So much so that we wanted to let others in on the content as well. Take the first step to increasing portal signup and usage! Watch the recording NOW below! A brief overview of the webinar can be found below the video.
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We are excited to announce that our patient recruitment and onboarding webinar held December 3rd was very well received. The webinar lasted a little over an hour and featured some of today’s top health IT experts. During the Webinar, viewers were encouraged to ask any questions they had regarding patient recruitment, engagement, or onboarding to be addressed by industry experts at the end of the segment.
Dr. Farzad Mostashari, Independent Member of Get Real Health’s Board of Directors and CEO of Aledade, kicked off the webinar with a warm welcome and introduction. Dr. Mostashari shared statistics on hospitals’ capabilities to meet Stage 2 Meaningful-Use objectives as well as stats on office-based physicians’ adoption and routine use of computerized capabilities for patient engagement. The key findings indicated that most patients consider having secure access to an online medical record as very or somewhat important. Furthermore, nearly half of patients who were offered access to their health records online viewed their records at least once and a majority of those who did view their records said they found them very helpful. Dr. Mostashari added that individuals who accessed their online record used them for a variety of purposes, including to monitor their health, share their information with someone else, download the data, send the information to an app or PHR or request correcting errors.
After Dr. Mostashari’s welcome, Get Real Health’s Vice President of Marketing and Strategy, Cortney Nicolato, conducted a detailed overview on best practices and tips for organizations to increase portal signup and usage. Cortney explained that patients who are more engaged are less likely to be readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of discharge, experience a medical error, or suffer a consequence from poor communication among providers. Furthermore, higher patient engagement is associated with numerous health-related improvements. Cortney discussed the popularity of HIT tools, noting that patients really want online access to their medical records as 90% of consumers agree that you should be able to get your own medical information electronically. Cortney concluded her segment with key practices critical to effective patient engagement, including keeping it simple, targeting the right demographic at the right time, appropriately leveraging marketing efforts, incentivizing when possible, treating patient engagement like an experiment, listening to skeptics to correct their concerns or misconceptions, and regularly adding new features to the patient portal.
Cortney was followed by Steward Health Care System’s Executive Director, Darby Buroker, who detailed how his organization has set out to recruit and onboard patients to their patient portal, StewardCONNECT. Steward Health, an accountable care organization in Massachusetts, leveraged InstantPHR’s Meaningful Use certified web components to meet the patient engagement requirements of MU2. Buroker explained that StewardCONNECT provided the organization with an opportunity to standardize key population health functions, including patient-provider attribution, clinical practice guidelines, risk management outreach, care team coordination, as well as communicating with, educating and engaging patients.
Helen Kotchoubey, Corporate Director IT for New York Presbyterian Hospital (NYP), followed Buroker’s presentation chronicling NYP’s experiences with onboarding and retention. The organization successfully implemented a patient portal, myNYP, that has greatly pleased consumers, as one patient said, “The entire process struck me as really very straightforward and streamlined; in fact, I am urging my daughter to register.” Helen gave an honest and open view into NYP’s patient engagement history and tactics. NYP has been at the forefront of patient engagement, having introduced their portal in 2009. Over time they have added more interactive features, including InstantPHR’s MU2 focused widgets. Helen shared lessons that NYP has learned and shared these tips: be flexible, experiment, measure what works, use multiple strategies, learn from each other, communicate, and celebrate successes. NYP found that bedside enrollment specialists proved to be one of the most effective ways to enroll patients and introduce them to their portal.
After Helen’s presentation, Dr. Farzad Mostashari led a comprehensive Q&A segment answering questions submitted online by webinar viewers. Overall, the webinar was a hit and we’re excited to release the recording so providers can start registering and engaging patients in greater numbers.