Technology can help meet patients where they are

Clear documentation through portals and chats

My 97-year-old grandmother loves her patient portal. She has her tablet and can log into her portal to send messages, review previous ones, and have the ease of mind to be able to reach out to her doctor if needed. And, caregiving family members can easily review her portal messages and clinical notes, so no one is trying to remember everything that was said in a clinical setting. It makes healthcare more of a village concept than it has traditionally been.

As patients use portals and chatbots, providers can also connect relevant clinical content and education materials. With EHR and portal integrations, plus the application of AI, there’s an opportunity to bring personalized, evidence-based content closer to patients as they schedule appointments and receive test results. This helps reinforce that seamless experience and gives the “healthcare village” resources to support care outside the clinical setting.

Supporting flexible options for busy patients

Technology also opens up options for providers to offer flexible health services and patient education materials in a way that works best for the patient and their schedule.

For example, I’m a member of the “sandwich generation”—I’m supporting the health and well-being of my kids, tending to my own health, and also supporting my parents in their aging years. This generation is juggling between going to soccer practice and managing college applications for kids, while making doctors’ appointments and managing medications for parents. Patients and caregivers like myself need flexible options like chatbots, online scheduling, and on-demand education materials to support care on our own schedules.

These flexible options can also enable health equity initiatives. As these technologies develop, we need to be mindful of different access abilities or digital literacy levels and support a variety of means to access information. Patients who work multiple jobs or who may have transportation challenges can benefit from tools that allow them to schedule or search for information in the way that works best for them. They can have information in their preferred language or literacy level, and access information via text, portal, or email—whatever works best for them and their digital preferences.

Patient self-support can help alleviate clinicians

As we enable patients to support themselves with education and flexible health options, these combined efforts can add up to measurable time and administrative savings for clinical teams.

Going back to my grandmother and her tablet, she’s a prime candidate for automated patient education and engagement programs because she’s eager to know how she can support herself. A Wolters Kluwer survey found that 80% of patients have follow-up questions after a health encounter—giving patients the evidence to answer their own questions in convenient, accessible ways, without resorting to internet searches, can help alleviate clinician workload.

When patients are able to support themselves and self-serve through portals and automated outreach, that can alleviate some of the mental and administrative burden from clinicians. Providers don’t always have time to search for and supply relevant patient education content but can have peace of mind knowing it’s already connected to their account through the portal or chatbot, or that it will be an automated follow-up action. Plus, when education materials are centered on evidence and aligned with clinical information, that helps clinicians feel more confident in their at-home care journey.

However, even as these self-service options can support clinicians, we also have to help them manage feeling pulled to respond in real-time every time there’s a chat ping or an email. The AMA reported clinicians are receiving 57% more patient portal messages than prior to the pandemic. We need to make sure they have team-based support to care for patients, especially in their off-time—as a clinician myself, I struggle with this! We want to support our patients, but we also need leadership to support healthy boundaries and create governance around these new tools.

As healthcare enters a new era with AI in clinical settings, evidence needs to remain the center of the care team—which includes the patient. Our fourth issue of the UpToDate® Point of Care Report analyzes the generational shift in clinical information access, how the generations of clinicians and patients are working together, and the role that GenAI tools play in this information search.

Download this issue and explore our previous Point of Care report topics.