Patients have an active say in their healthcare journey, thanks to the
advent of patient portals. Now, they can view their medical records
digitally and scan through their health status in no time. Online
portals allow real-time communication to improve patient care. Users
can book, change, or cancel appointments, contact providers by sending
messages, and review laboratory results, radiology reports, progress
notes, and discharge summaries. Additionally, they can download forms
they would have to fill out at the physician’s office for the release
of information and living will requests. As patients increasingly
demand increased involvement and control over their care, patient
portals can empower them to take the lead in their health management,
eventually improving the patient experience.
This article will discuss how flexible, custom patient portal
solutions can improve the engagement of patients and continue their
care. If you create a portal that matches your healthcare
organization’s needs and connects your specialty with your patients,
then you will connect with your patients in a more personalized yet
seamless manner. This personalization not only brings a better user
experience but also fosters an improved relationship between patient
and provider. This enhanced relationship, brough about by
custom healthcare software development company, translates into better health outcomes and coordinated care, making
patients feel more cared for and healthcare professionals more
connected to their patients.
Patient portals are built to be secure so that patients’ sensitive
health information remains in safe hands. Unlike before, patients
today get full access to their health data, test reports, lab images,
and other healthcare-related information. They can also use patient
portals to schedule appointments, request prescription refills, and
communicate with healthcare providers.
Patient portals are a boon for many reasons. They empower more
patients in their healthcare journey by providing easy access to
health information and enabling data submission over the Internet.
This increased independence in monitoring their health and illness not
only holds the potential for patients to become directly involved in
managing their condition with their healthcare team but also leads to
a heightened awareness of patients’ needs and improved medical
treatment. Efficient patient portals also play a significant role in
administrative savings in healthcare by reducing the clerical duties
of the personnel in healthcare practices. The resulting effect is a
more patient-responsive healthcare practice.
While off-the-shelf patient portals may offer many of the same
features, custom ones can be tailored to a specific healthcare
environment, allowing for much better alignment with the individual
needs of the practice or population of patients. The ability of custom
patient portals to provide more flexibility and appropriate
functionalities, along with optimal user experiences, leads to better
overall performance.
healthcare software product development
is often superior because it is tailored to a specific set of needs.
In the healthcare industry, this means an optimized set of features to
improve the patient experience and enhance collaboration with
clinicians from the beginning of patient care through the resolution
of the specific episode of illness.
Another advantage of custom patient portals vs out-of-the-box
solutions is that they allow for greater flexibility in taking care of
the custom needs of various health providers. Instead of purchasing
generic point-and-click tools that adapt to a specific set of
functionality driven by the vendor’s business model, custom portals
allow the ability to tailor their portal features for the specific
needs of different medical facilities. For example, user needs and
portal functionality could be different for a large hospital than for
a small family clinic. By taking the provider’s workflow into
consideration, the customization of the portal’s features through
custom healthcare software solutions
would allow the health practice to create more workflow-based
integration with their digital systems and practices, making it easier
to use and user-friendly. For instance, a pediatric practice can have
specific tools that allow for easy documenting of child developmental
milestones for well-visit tracking, whereas a psychiatric or mental
health clinic could benefit from secure, confidential channels for
interaction.
These include personalized health information, easy communication
channels, seamless integration with other healthcare systems, and
remote monitoring. You can contact me through secure messaging Within
the virtual care world, customisation is the key to patient-centered
engagement if personalized health information – such as tailored
content, reminders, and recommendations based on health conditions and
history – is relevant, then the portal becomes more useful. If a
portal is highly useful, then a patient is likely to engage with it
more regularly. Another essential feature is easy communication
channels – for example, secure messaging and video consultations –
that allow a patient to communicate directly with a healthcare
provider, which reduces the time and effort required to get
assistance. This all adds up to improving both the experience and
relationship between a patient and a provider in a healthcare system.
The final critical feature involves integrating the portal with other
healthcare systems, such as EHRs and remote monitoring tools. Being
able to include capabilities such as appointment booking, prescription
pick-up, and remote monitoring technology (a part of
healthcare custom software development) in the portal makes the patient’s experience much better. Now,
capabilities of automated triaging and patient self-management can
come together seamlessly to incorporate within a patient’s portal.
This allows a patient to manage the pillars of their care within a
single system – somewhat like having a one-stop-shop in a care
organization for the patient and their family.
Custom patient portals can also contribute to the continuity of care
for patients who have chronic health issues or might require frequent
follow-up appointments or tests – that is, anyone who needs to see an
average of two to three doctors each year. Continuity of care is
important for such patients so that they stay connected with their
medical records and enjoy continuity of care. Through custom portals
built via using
custom healthcare software development services, automated reminders can be set for medication or appointments, and
patients can have access to test results and medication regimens.
In addition to helping to improve continuity of care, these
customizable portals can be seamlessly integrated with other health IT
platforms, such as Electronic Health Records (EHR); telemedicine
platforms for facilitating appointments, and remote patient monitoring
health IT, as part of care. In this way, all-inclusive care can be
delivered with different information available to both parties,
patients and providers. For example, a custom portal can integrate
with an EHR system to pull data on the patient’s diagnoses, treatment
plans, and medical history. In that way, patients can have easy access
to their health data and can view it whenever, however, and wherever
they need to. Custom portals can also facilitate telemedicine
appointments through a virtual care platform that enables
appointments, scheduling, or even actual consultations through the
Portal. As such, a healthcare environment that integrates the various
components of care into a single digital health platform by using a
custom patient portal can be a more efficient environment that
facilitates better outcomes and a more satisfied patient.
User experience is the backbone of any useful custom patient portal.
The interface should be easy to use and navigate. And it should be the
same, regardless of the patient’s age or technical expertise. Based on
our work with enterprise clients, the portal’s interface should engage
and assist patients without frustrations or unnecessary surprises.
Keep it clean, define clear instructions, and adapt with a responsive
design across devices.
The ability to engage in encrypted, secure messaging with patients is
crucial for a custom portal that accommodates a patient’s relevant
information and connects the doctor and patient in a meaningful,
seamless way. For example, this secured messaging can provide a
direct, confidential outlet where pertinent patient questions and
concerns can be addressed in near real-time, reducing the need for
patients to leave home or family obligations to come to the office.
Patients can ask questions about their next appointment, lab results
from a recent test, diagnostic imaging results, or scheduled
prescribed outpatient visits. Patients always appreciate the ability
to schedule or reschedule appointments in a timely fashion while
healthcare professionals enhance clinical workflow and reduce no-show
rates. This messaging that can be achieved through
custom healthcare software development
serves as a form of correspondence that is familiar to most consumers
and is used by them.
Appointment scheduling in a portal makes it easier for patients to
schedule and reduces the number of times a patient has to call for an
appointment. It shows the available times for appointments in a simple
format. A patient can schedule an appointment at a time convenient to
him. The software sends automated appointment reminders, which reduces
the number of visits a patient misses. In case of a schedule conflict
or, for some reason, a patient wants to reschedule or cancel the
appointment, this portal makes it really easy for that. Also, it syncs
with providers’ appointment calendars, which reflects the booking in a
real-time format.
Among the benefits of health records is the ability to look at the
record and have a view of the functional progression of the person
over time. For example, a patient portal can permit the patient to
look at his chart or her chart, review the list of their past tests,
look at the results of those tests, and continue to look at those
results several years later to see if the labs were re-done. This is
an entitlement that is expected of any empowered patient. The portal
should give that perspective of the data in their record in a
well-organized, methodical way so that you know that your information
is being presented intact, clearly, and simply.
Providing patient education inside a private portal is an excellent
way to facilitate ongoing health maintenance with content (articles,
videos, links to external reputable resources) matched to the
patient’s conditions and concerns. Educational content helps users to
think about and make decisions regarding their own care, which in turn
leads to better health outcomes by promoting lifestyle choices that
may translate into improved physical wellness.
By contrast, here we outline some of the critical differences between
off-the-shelf, generic portals and custom-built, tailored portals.
This distinction becomes most apparent inside off-the-shelf portals of
their lack of granular feature functionality. Due to their purpose of
mass deployment to a large span of users, the features offered within
these portals are broad in nature and crafted to appeal to a range of
disparate healthcare providers. While this is an elegant and
cost-effective solution, it rarely offers the level of flexibility
required for a healthcare organization to firmly embed a patient
portal within its unique workflow, processes, and patient engagement
strategy. The result is oftentimes a patient portal that feels clunky,
underutilized, and, ultimately, fails to bring forth the intended
level of recipient engagement or patient experience.
Conversely, a custom patient portal is developed to fit the bespoke
requirements of a healthcare provider. Scalability, for example, is a
key advantage of a custom solution. As a healthcare organization
evolves, doubles in size, or changes direction, a custom portal can be
adapted to cope with an influx of patients, accommodate new services,
or incorporate extended functionality. More than a ‘one-size-fits-all’
solution, a bespoke site created by a
custom healthcare software development company
company is future-proofed, staying relevant to the business as it
matures.
A third advantage of custom patient portals is that they are all
customized. The healthcare provider can choose the features they want
to embed to best support their operational and patient engagement
goals. Want to include analytics or integrate with sophisticated
medical devices? No worries! Want to build in multi-language support?
No problem! Custom portals allow for features that are specific to the
company. All this means that the patient experience is enhanced by a
portal engine that is built exactly right for that organization.
Additionally, by designing the portal according to their business
needs, custom solutions can ground the clinical workflows that take
place over the interface, be responsive to regulatory mandates, and
replicate existing IT infrastructure. A custom fit minimizes
disruptions, improves care coordination, and introduces new
opportunities for healthcare organizations to provide better care,
more of the time, than ever before. A solution that fits the needs of
the organization and achieves the desired outcomes for the patient
allows the portal to serve as a vehicle for organizational success and
better care delivery. Patient portals are not just a tool in the
toolbox anymore.
To summarize, today’s healthcare services would be greatly enhanced with custom patient portal solutions that provide a truly unique experience for providers and patients alike. By allowing providers to select the specific features and tailor the services the portal should provide patient engagement capabilities can be optimized in ways that truly work for the provider and their patients. Ease-of-use, increased efficiency, and a much more effective continuity-of-care flow can result. Inviting patients to have some personal choice in a healthcare model that has become dominated by electronic equipment can help to forge a better bond between the two, leading not only to better health outcomes but also to greater patient and provider satisfaction.
Security is not just important; it's paramount in healthcare applications. With the extensive digitization of medical records and information, applications play a crucial role in safeguarding this medical information.
Patient workflow inefficiencies are evidenced by a variety of interconnected issues that can be encountered daily by healthcare providers and patients.
In the healthcare context, interoperability describes the capability of multiple software systems and applications that exchange data to use the information within their systems