Navigating the complex healthcare system can be a stressful experience for patients, from obtaining a diagnosis to finding the right specialty care or treatment. To help alleviate some of the challenges patients face, it’s crucial to meet them with personalized resources that fit their needs at different stages throughout their journey. And thanks to recent innovations, that’s possible at the point of care and beyond.
Whether looking to drive preventive screenings or support medication adherence, here are some ways that stakeholders can connect more personally with patients at key moments to
empower them to participate in their care and drive positive health outcomes.
Accelerate Patients’ Connection to Quality Care
Digital tools have expanded the opportunity to connect with and support patients when they’re actively searching for specialists, helping them find and access the right care as early as possible in their journey. More than a quarter of patients (26%) wait two months or more for appointments, according to a 2023 survey from the American Association of Nurse Practitioners. For patients with serious, complex, and rare conditions, finding the right specialist can even be a years-long process—worsening outcomes for patients by delaying time to treatment.
Doctor finder tools, for example, can help patients find care faster based on their unique needs, including location and insurance coverage. They can even be configured to allow patients to schedule appointments with specialists online, streamlining their access to appropriate specialty care.
Drive Earlier Testing and Diagnoses
After patients find the right specialist, providing them with high-quality, relevant information just before their medical visit can help them recognize whether their symptoms align with a specific disease or condition and raise that possibility with their doctor during their appointment. From there, doctors can discuss symptoms and explore testing options that can lead to a faster diagnosis.
Additionally, delivering content about screenings to patients when they’re already in a healthcare state of mind can lead to better health outcomes. For example, results from a lung cancer screening campaign on Phreesia’s platform showed that surveyed patients aged 50 to 80 years old with a history of smoking were 234% more likely to get screened for lung cancer after seeing the campaign than patients who didn’t see the message. Screening is critical to catching lung cancer early before it spreads, when it is much more treatable. When diagnosed at an early stage, the lung cancer five-year survival rate is significantly higher (63%) than the late-stage survival rate (8%), according to the American Lung Association.
Improve Medication Adherence
Once patients have a diagnosis and treatment plan, any number of barriers can prevent them from actually filling their prescriptions and taking them as directed. In fact, Phreesia research shows that 25% of patients do not have a good understanding of the next steps around their prescription medications, and 29% aren’t sure how to manage their medical condition immediately following a healthcare visit. Those percentages are even higher—32% and 43%, respectively— among patients who have not filled a prescription in the past. When asked why they didn’t fill a new prescription, the top reasons patients cited were an unwillingness to deal with medication side effects (29%), being unconvinced of their need for the treatment (28%), and not being able to afford the medication (21%).
Providing patients with adherence support the moment a prescription is written is critical to helping avoid treatment delays at the start of their journey. Brands can now deliver personalized resources to patients immediately after they receive a prescription to address barriers, such as medication costs or concerns around side effects. By engaging with them in this critical moment, they can better understand patients’ specific challenges and provide resources like copay cards or patient support programs that meet their needs head-on, therefore increasing their likelihood of starting—or staying on— their prescription.
