Improving Chronic Care with Virtual Care
Advancing the care of chronic disease is critical. Implementing virtual care is a must-have for providers seeking to improve how they manage and engage these patients from a convenient, cost-effective, and compassionate standpoint.
By enabling access to convenient virtual care, chronic care patients will be more satisfied with the flexibility in how, when, and where they interact with their providers.
- Patients (and their personal or family caregivers) will appreciate being able to conduct the follow-up appointment virtually, from their home or office.
- Appointment no-show’s will be reduced as patients and caregivers will spend less time and money driving to/from the appointment and will not need to take considerable time off from work.
- Any adherence issues, such as medication reconciliation, can be addressed in real-time.
With telehealth, providers can program condition-specific messaging which reminds patients of medication and diet/lifestyle requirements. By receiving ongoing messaging, patients with chronic conditions remain informed and engaged in their treatment regimen. Providers can also use the platform’s reporting capabilities to stay on top of patients’ adherence, assess their conditions with digital questionnaires, and monitor their vitals in real-time. Based on patients’ datapoints, lack of follow-up and/or poor adherence behaviors, providers can identify those patients at risk for readmission (or in need or intervention) and quickly reach out with a more urgent request for the patient to immediately follow-up with his/her care team.
Using SynziMD to Better Engage Patients
With SynziMD, one can conduct virtual visits with patients who prefer a more convenient method for their appointment or are anxious about in-person visits during the pandemic. Providers can actively reduce the recurring cycle of readmissions for patients with chronic diseases by enabling the exchange of essential information and by connecting care team members and chronic care patients in a more efficient and effective manner. The overall care team (which may include a home health clinician, other providers, specialists, as well as a pharmacist) can better monitor patient in real-time and collaborate to resolve emerging patient issues throughout the care continuum.
Providers also use SynziMD to drive engagement and adherence by:
- Sending patients a cascade of condition-specific messages to improve understanding and compliance
- Using RPM to monitor patients regularly and intervene on a timely basis, reducing operational costs while increasing practice revenue and optimizing outcomes
- Conducting regular assessments to obtain ongoing insight into a patient’s health and better manage care for at-risk patients
By expanding a practice’s footprint beyond the traditional in-person setting, providers are addressing patients’ desire for greater convenience to care while enhancing their own quality of life with the ability to deliver care from the setting of their choice. More frequent touchpoints – whether via virtual visits or messaging – improves patient satisfaction and outcomes while evolving the delivery of higher quality and more timely health care.