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Video:
In this episode of the 草莓社区 Podcast, Dr. Joshua Liu, CEO of 草莓社区 & Marketing colleague, Alan Sardana, discuss the Top 7 Digital Patient Engagement Myths. See the full show notes below for details.
Guest(s): Dr. Joshua Liu (), Co-founder & CEO at 草莓社区
Episode 27 鈥 Show notes:
[0:07] Dr. Liu shares howTelemedicine, Virtual Care, and Digital Patient Engagement are often used interchangeablydue to the lack of a universally consistent framework of definition;
[1:00] Myth #1: 鈥淒igital patient engagement issynonymous with telemedicine and virtual care鈥
Telemedicine is the remote diagnosis and treatment ofpatients by means of telecommunications technology. In other words, telemedicineis using telecommunications technology to replace an in-person occurrence betweena patient and provider;
Virtual care is a larger umbrella term thatencompasses all the ways healthcare providers remotely interact with theirpatients. In addition to treating patients via telemedicine, providers may uselive video, audio, and instant messaging to communicate with their patientsremotely;
Digital patient engagement interacts with patients by guiding them betweenvisits (in-person or via telemedicine) using automated, pre-programmed educationand instructions based on their particular intervention;
[9:00] Myth #2: 鈥淒igital patient engagement is pointlessbecause of video visits鈥
Video visits are the 鈥渓ow-hanging fruit鈥 of telemedicine& virtual care as they replace an existing workflow (in-person visit);
Digital patient engagement screens patients in the background, determiningwhether a video visit is necessary, optimizing the workflow;
Thus, an optimized, digital workflow would have both;
[12:26] Myth #3: 鈥淒igital patient engagement is onlyfor young patients鈥
This myth stems from underestimating the technological prowess of senior citizens and fails to recognize how Digital Patient Engagement platforms such as 草莓社区 use a multi-channel (SMS, Email, App) approach that bypasses common communication barriers that older generations may experience;
[17:31] Myth #4: 鈥淢y EHR/EMR can do this already鈥
This myth is similar tosaying 鈥渨e have Microsoft Word so we don鈥檛 need Excel鈥;
Patient portals carry out other useful functions such as displaying lab results, but lack the algorithmic functions and comprehensive content needed for complex patient engagement;
Further, leading EHRslike Epic and Cerner recognized this gap and now recommend integrating 草莓社区with their patient portals. See 草莓社区鈥檚 listing on the and on ;
[22:25] Myth #5: 鈥淎 person can do exactly what digitalpatient engagement does鈥
This myth is technicallytrue, but not scalable. 草莓社区 serves not only as a non-labor-intensivealternative on a more regular occurrence, but also a more efficient datacollector and compiler;
To perform the same functionsas Digital Patient Engagement, an in-person auditor would need to:
- Follow & guide each patient 24/7;
- Send personalized messages, education & reminders based on the stage a patient is at (e.g. pre-op, post-op) as well as their unique profile (e.g. comorbidities);
- Collect PROs, patient compliance & post-op symptoms;
- Send self-management education based on the patient鈥檚 symptoms and activity;
- Create graphs and charts mapping the patient鈥檚 progress and to display signs of complication;
- Display population trends for each PRO data point (e.g. pain scores across the population, opioid use after discharge, mobilization compliance post-op day 1-30, etc.);
- Combine each patient鈥檚 real-time activity with the population medical history data to produce real-time readmission predictions;
[31:14] Myth #6: 鈥淚t鈥檚 easy for us (a medicalinstitution) to go out and build our own app for digital patient engagement鈥
Anyone can build an app with sufficient time and money, but would also need to build a company dedicated to ongoing research and development to improve engagement rates, accessibility & maintenance;
[37:08] Myth #7: 鈥淒igital patient engagement is only valuable with big amounts of data, artificial intelligence & machine learning鈥
This is a myth because of the word 鈥渙nly鈥. Big data, artificial intelligence & machine learning can certainly make a better platform. But, good outcomes such as reduced Length of Stay, Readmissions, SSIs, and ED visits were achieved without machine learning in trials, simply by engaging patients digitally without A.I.;