New Podcast: Patient Engagement Part II with Dr. Neal Kaufman from DPS Health

Dr. Neal Kaufman from DPS Health was our podcast guest to discuss advancements and the impact of patient engagement in healthcare.

Since the topic of patient engagement continues to be a major focus and a topic of burgeoning interest in healthcare to achieve the “triple aim” of – lowering costs, improving the patient experience of care, and improving the health of populations – we decided to schedule a new podcast on the topic as a follow up to our recent discussion with Brad Tritle. A link to our podcast with Brad can be found here. Effective patient engagement is evolving in healthcare, and it’s important to keep our fingers on the pulse of what is working, what isn’t, and how the healthcare industry can improve it’s approach.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Neal Kaufman from DPS Health about a wide range of topics covering patient engagement including:

1. Interpreting “patient engagement” and why it’s an important piece of the new healthcare paradigm. Plus, discussion on the benefits of patient engagement for patients, providers, and the healthcare industry overall.

2. Physician reaction to the rising use of wearables and mhealth apps to engage with patients.

3. The role that mobile devices will play in the push for more patient engagement and whether or not a patient engagement strategy approach should differ based on socioeconomics.

4. Insight on how the healthcare industry can inspire patients and providers to consistently engage with technology as part of an overall push for more widespread patient engagement.

5. The financial impact of patient engagement and how patient engagement financially benefits both patient and provider.

6. The role wearables may play to increase patient engagement and whether wearable and other patient generated data will help improve healthcare and keep doctors engaged with their patients/.

7. What the ideal mhealth patient engagement app may look like and how doctors and patients would interact with it.

8. How the healthcare industry can better “activate” patients to be more responsible and accountable for their own care.

9. How the healthcare industry can avoid patient and provider confusion and overload and direct patients to the most applicable and effective patient engagement platforms

10. Why it’s important that patient engagement in healthcare continually evolve.

I learned a great deal about patient engagement after speaking with Dr. Kaufman during the podcast, my biggest takeaways being:

• Behavior is a key factor in the vast majority of individual health conditions
• The jury is still out on the systemic influence of patient engagement in healthcare
• Clinicians aren’t as interested in day to day data reporting as they are in summaries and patterns – clinicians need wisdom, they don’t want a barrage of data
• Patient engagement via mobile devices stand to have the highest future return with the emergent risk population
• Patience is a key attribute to garner for engagement consistency – it’s a marathon, not a sprint that involves a lot of testing, customization, and incremental steps
• The more healthcare can engage patients in a way that shows empathy, it becomes easier to help them to reach their personal goals

We encourage you to visit our podcast page and download a copy of the entire podcast here. Save it to your mobile device or tablet, and listen on your commute to work, or while walking or running on the treadmill. Share it with a friend or colleague that you feel may benefit. Leave us a comment below after you have a chance to listen to the podcast and share your thoughts about it and the patient engagement movement in healthcare. We would love to hear from you!

Please take a moment to visit Dr. Kaufman’s DPS Health Web site and please say hello to him on Twitter. We are grateful for his time and expertise for this podcast and he welcomes any feedback you may have on the patient engagement discussion.