Help Patients Reach Their Health and Wellness Goals with Care Plans and Automation

Care delivery is shifting. As providers adjust to a value-based model, as opposed to the fee-for-service model that has been used for decades, the opportunity to evolve from treatment to wellness grows.

Even treatment is migrating to a more inclusive approach as providers work to engage and activate patients. Individualized health plans and patient-provider communication are cornerstones of this shift.

Under traditional systems, that would add an extraordinary burden on health care providers and their staff and be rife with the potential for miscommunication with patients. However, today's clinicians have access to digital tools - like Salesforce Health Cloud - that can streamline the creation of care plans and support the process with automation.

Individual Health Care Plans and Patient Activation

Individual care plans are stepping out of hospitals, mental health, and geriatric care arenas, becoming important in day-to-day condition management and wellness care. Documenting the assessment of needs and care steps and sharing these with patients and family can lead to greater patient participation in their care management.

By creating a care plan that incorporates a patient's circumstances and preferences, providers see improved outcomes in patient populations. This can also increase patient engagement, including preventative care, lifestyle changes, and patient activation. A greater feeling of ownership and education can inspire patients to take the actions needed to manage their health willingly.

The challenge comes in maintaining and monitoring patient activities and ensuring they have the information they need to understand their condition or the purpose behind the actions they are being asked to take. This is where technology can be added into the mix.

Enabling Treatment and Wellness with Healthcare Plans

Technology has made creating individualized care plans, communication, management, and monitoring far simpler and more effective. Salesforce Health Cloud, for instance, facilitates the connection between various patient data and touchpoints while providing tools, features, and automation to enable better care and support care planning and patient engagement.

Single patient view

The key to creating an individualized plan is having the necessary patient information readily available. Health Cloud offers a single view of all patient data, from health history to contact preferences. This streamlines care plan creation and adds clarity around touchpoints and outreach opportunities.

Care plan creation

Care plans within Health Cloud consist of 3 elements - the care team, the case details, and what goals the plan is meant to achieve. Patients with complex conditions can have multiple care plans, and Health Cloud also offers different team views so that the actions most important for a particular role can appear front and center.

The team in a care plan can extend beyond other providers or members of a clinician's staff. Family and patients themselves can be provided access to the care plan and have specific tasks visible for them to complete.

Automated communication

Salesforce provides multiple options for automated communications. The tasks in the plan can trigger care plan reminders. This can include reminders about appointments - when they are scheduled and when to make them, as well as tasks that need to be completed.

Automated communication can also include educational components. For example, a series of articles can be sent to a patient throughout the plan to inform them about their condition or the actions they are being asked to take. This engages patients in their care without overwhelming them with new information.

Self-service access to services

Frequently, patient activities that are part of a care plan include things like making appointments with their providers or care partners. Other times, patients may have questions about items in their plan. These, and other scenarios, are opportunities for patient self-service.

For example, a patient may receive a reminder to make an appointment for a follow-up blood test. If that reminder includes a link where the patient can make the appointment online, the amount of friction in the patient experience is significantly reduced.

Patients may also be able to get questions or information about items in their care plan, thanks to HIPAA-compliant AI chatbots. Patients can use Einstein within Health Cloud to ask the AI for more information or a question. If the chatbot can answer the question or forward information, the patient is served much faster than placing a call and waiting for a callback. However, if the need is beyond the bot's capacity, Einstein can forward the patient to a clinician's staff or care team member for further assistance.

Conclusion

Care plans can go beyond the actions that healthcare professionals need to take to treat a condition and instead can incorporate the patient into the process. This creates an environment where the patient and provider are partners in the patient's care and evolves the patient experience. This level of personalization and communication might burden a clinician's staff if it weren't for technology options and automation like that found in Salesforce Health Cloud.

If you're looking to drive patient engagement and improve the patient experience for your practice, Six Consulting can help. Our architects and engineers are experienced in integrating and implementing Health Cloud and creating applications that allow you and your staff to serve your patient community better. Contact us today to learn more about how Six Consulting can help you.